More Rain on the Way as Pacific Storm Nears

As another strong Pacific storm approached the Southland on Tuesday night, authorities braced for a downpour of up to 8 inches in parts of the mountains and up to 3 inches along the coast and in the valleys over 24 hours.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see close to a foot of rain from Monday to Thursday along the southwest San Bernardino County slopes,” said Dan Atkin, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Diego.

The storm, which stalled as it hit the coast Tuesday evening, was expected to deliver 1 to 3 inches of rain in flatland areas.

“It slowed quite a bit,” said Stuart Seto, a specialist with the National Weather Service. “That’s why it’s hitting so hard.”

But there was a trade-off in the delay, some fire officials said. Riverside County spokesman David Wert said he hoped that the worst of the storm would not reach the area until this morning.

“It’s not going to make it any less severe, but it’s a lot easier to see a rush of water in the daytime than at night,” he said.

Flood watches were in place in burned areas in mountains and valleys from Santa Barbara to San Diego. Authorities were most concerned about those areas scorched by last year’s fires. By late Tuesday night, runoff from a burned hillside in Santa Clarita had flooded the entrance to a mobile-home park, creating a river about 5 feet deep and 30 feet across and stranding residents of about 100 homes, authorities said.

In San Bernardino County, officials activated the county’s new telephone emergency notification system for the first time, warning residents of select areas about flood danger. Rescue units and swift water teams were on standby at fire stations throughout the county.

Seto said this much rain for the mountains “this time of year is unusual. It’s normally December, January or February that they get this much rain.”

Flooding was less of a concern in Riverside County, where fire damage did not occur in steep terrain, said Riverside County fire spokesman Rick Vogt.

“The areas where we had our fires are rolling hills and flatlands,” Vogt said. “I wouldn’t expect that kind of problem.”

Meanwhile, the impact of last weekend’s storm was still being assessed.

In the city of Industry, rains caused the partial collapse Tuesday morning of the roof on a factory that makes tortilla chips. No one was injured, said Inspector John Mancha of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

In Santa Monica, a sewage spill dumped 300 gallons into the ocean early Tuesday, leading officials to close parts of the beach. Health officials warned people to stay off the beaches, out of the ocean and away from storm drain runoff.

The rains were positive news for some areas of the region, such as the parched forest land where the fire danger has been high.

Officials with the Angeles National Forest, which has been closed because of extreme fire danger since late September, announced that the forest would reopen this morning. About an inch and a half of rain had fallen there by Tuesday afternoon.

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Times staff writer Sandra Murillo contributed to this report.