Skies Clear, but Storms' Toll Mounts

By Erika Hayasaki, Richard Fausset and Mitchell Landsberg

Jan. 12, 2005 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writers

As skies finally began to clear Tuesday over Southern California, rescue workers pulled more bodies from the muck and wreckage of La Conchita, a coastal community in Ventura County where a landslide one day earlier had scoured a path of destruction.

The death toll rose to six, with at least a dozen people still missing.

Emotions closely matched the weather in La Conchita -- cloudy one minute, sunny the next, with a raw, chill wind keeping any warmth at bay. Rescue officials tried to keep spirits up, telling clusters of surviving residents that there was still hope their loved ones would be found alive.

“There’s always hope,” said Ventura County Fire Capt. Conrad Quintana. “For the next 24 to 48 hours we are going to be here to find survivors. That’s the tactic we’re following.”

But as hours went by without any indications of life from homes crushed by mud, with only the harsh sounds of chain saws and excavators filling the air, the mood turned somber. As bodies were discovered, fresh waves of grief washed over the town.

Throughout the Southland, the record-setting series of storms faded into the region’s familiar sunshine, and people began to dry out and take stock of the damage.

At least nine people died in addition to those in La Conchita, and officials said property losses in Los Angeles County stood at nearly $30 million.

Weather forecasts predicted sunny weather for at least the next week.

The storm delivered blows to the regional transportation network. U.S. Highway 101 remained closed near the Santa Barbara County-Ventura County line, cutting off one of the state’s main north-south passages. Union Pacific, which normally operates about 80 freight trains in and out of the Los Angeles Basin every day, said mudslides and flooding had blocked most of its routes to Southern California, forcing the company to halt all rail traffic to and from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

The break in the weather allowed San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies, using a helicopter, to rescue a man who had been trapped in a cave by heavy flooding for three days.

John Whitesell, 55, of Highland emerged from the cave in Lytle Creek wearing black rain gear -- and one flip-flop.

“He started out with two flip-flops,” said the helicopter pilot, Sheriff’s Deputy Brian Miller, “but he had only one when we found him.”

Speaking with a television crew after the operation, Whitesell said of his rescuers: “Thank God they were here. Thank God they know what to do.”

Rescue crews in La Conchita used tools as delicate as a microphone and as brawny as a backhoe to probe for survivors in the debris field that was once a vibrant portion of the hamlet between Ventura and Santa Barbara. State prison inmates in orange overalls manned a bucket brigade, while rescue dogs sniffed for signs of life -- and specially trained cadaver dogs for signs of death.

Although most of the community was cordoned off by sheriff’s deputies, some residents had been allowed to spend Monday night in their homes, and some joined in the search operation.

One of those working through the rubble was Jimmy Wallet, a construction worker and musician whose wife and three daughters, ages 2, 6, and 10, were among the missing. He had left his house Monday to get ice cream and returned to find it engulfed in mud.

After crossing a police barrier Tuesday morning, Wallet was briefly chased and detained by California Highway Patrol officers. But they let him go after determining who he was.

B. Talaugon-Dunn, who has lived in La Conchita with her husband, Jerry Dunn, for 23 years, considered her losses as she cooked soup on a gas grill near her home, which was just beyond the pile of destruction.

“I lost a good surfing friend -- Tony Alvis. But,” she added quickly, “that’s not confirmed.” She expressed worry about another friend, Charlie Womack.

“Tony’s dead,” her husband said, putting his arm around her. “Charlie’s dead.”

County officials later confirmed the deaths of Michael Anthony Alvis, 53, and Charles Womack, 51. They also released the name of John Murray Morgan, 56.

In one of the most wrenching moments of the day, rescue workers found a pool of blood in a crevice of wreckage that led dogs to the body of a young girl. Rescuers removed the body, wrapped it in a white quilted blanket and placed it gently on the ground. Six residents -- it was not clear if they were related to the girl -- surrounded the body, dropped to their hands and knees and touched their foreheads to the quilt.

The landslide struck shortly after 1 p.m. Monday, as a fourth day of steady rain unmoored a huge section of the hillside that rises steeply behind the town, which is wedged between the hill and Highway 101, with the ocean just beyond. It was the second time in a decade that a major landslide had flattened portions of La Conchita, but Monday’s slide was far worse than the last one, in 1995.

Rescue crews arrived to find homes engulfed not only in mud but, in some cases, each other. So powerful was the landslide that it shoved some houses onto others as if they were so many cardboard boxes.

Authorities said 13 homes were destroyed and 19 red-tagged, meaning inspectors deemed them too dangerous to enter. Ten people were pulled alive from the rubble, two of them critically hurt.

Looking east from the police cordon in the center of La Conchita, the view now draws the eye to the carved-out wedge of hillside that looks like a crooked heart of mud. Below is the splayed-out result of the slide: dirt and debris and yellow-suited rescue workers digging into the rubble. Someone’s deck juts out in one spot; elsewhere, an American flag protrudes from the wreckage.

Throughout the Southland, damage caused by the record-setting storm became more apparent Tuesday as the rain retreated.

Los Angeles County

The county Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to declare a local state of emergency, the first step in allowing the county and its residents to qualify for federal emergency aid. Officials estimated damage to public and private property in the county at $29.2 million.

More than a hundred roads throughout the county were closed because of structural damage, mudslides, flooding, snow, ice and felled trees.

In some places, receding water revealed potholes punched by the powerful storm. More than 760 potholes more than 2 feet in diameter will have to be plugged up by the city of Los Angeles, and there have been more than 1,200 requests for service.

“If you’ve driven around the city the last few days, your tires are going to take a beating,” said Capt. Carlos Calvillo of the city Fire Department.

Many of the canyon roads in Los Angeles, including Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Coldwater Canyon Drive, remained closed because of damage, as was Mulholland Drive, which runs along the spine of the Santa Monica Mountains. Without those key links, morning commuter traffic on the Westside and in the San Fernando Valley was heavier than normal.

Dozens of homes from Los Angeles to Santa Clarita were red-tagged and evacuated after being declared unsafe because of threatening hillsides, rattled foundations and other dangers.

“We’re slowly moving into recovering mode,” said Ritch Wells, spokesman for the city of Glendale. By Tuesday, damage had mounted to at least $3 million to private property and $10 million to city streets and pipelines. “Both of those figures are certain to go up.”

Most of the county’s reservoirs, including Big Tujunga and Pacoima, are at capacity, said Ken Pellman, spokesman for the Department of Public Works.

The storm spurred all of the major insurance companies to declare a “catastrophe” for the first time since the 1997-98 season, which saw El Nino unleash a host of rain-related problems, said Candysse Miller, executive director for the Insurance Information Network of California. The declaration means the firms will bring disaster experts from around the country to assess policyholders’ damage.

More than 10,000 claims have been filed as a result of the latest storm, she said.

Miller said that although there were millions of homeowners in the state, only about 260,000 had flood insurance. The past has shown, however, that most claims for flood damage come not from high-risk areas but from places considered “low to medium” risk, she said.

She added that insurers would look closely at the origins of the damage. Damage from mudslides and landslides are not covered by most insurance companies, she said.

“I heard a great description from a [Federal Emergency Management Agency] representative about the distinction. It’s called the shovel test,” Miller said. “If you stuck a shovel into the soil that went through a home, and tilt the shovel, and what comes out is mostly fluid, then you have a mud flow, and that’s covered by flood insurance. If what you get is solid, then that’s a mudslide, and you’re not covered.”

Throughout the county, residents worked Tuesday to repair leaky roofs and other rain damage caused by the string of recent storms.

At the Home Depot in North Hollywood, Mike Edwards shopped for items to repair the new roof of his North Hollywood duplex.

So much water leaked into his home that not even a bucket could contain it all, he said.

“Then again, I haven’t seen it rain like this in 22 years,” Edwards said.

Ventura County

Travel between Ventura and Santa Barbara counties remained difficult, with Highway 101 closed in both directions from California Street in downtown Ventura to the Santa Barbara County line.

The closure began Monday morning when flooding across both sides of the freeway and two mudslides south of La Conchita made travel dangerous. The highway might not reopen until Friday.

“We’re working around the clock to get the road open as soon as possible,” said Caltrans spokeswoman Deborah Harris. She estimated it would take at least until Friday to remove debris, clear the drainage system and make any necessary repairs.

Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner service was canceled at least until Thursday, when Union Pacific may reopen its tracks, closed since Sunday

The series of storms ravaged the county’s billion-dollar farm economy, causing an estimated $24 million in crop damage. Orange and avocado trees tumbled into turbulent rivers while floodwaters swamped berry and broccoli fields.

Residents in the farm town of Piru, meanwhile, were allowed to return to their homes Tuesday morning. The community of 1,800 had been evacuated because of fears of flooding and mudslides.

Inland Empire

Whitesell, the man caught in the cave, was rescued about 9 a.m. Tuesday by sheriff’s deputies, who had a hard time finding him because of his dark clothing.

Heavy flooding trapped the Highland man in the Lytle Creek cave, which is at an elevation of 3,500 feet. He had sought refuge there Friday.

The helicopter flew past a roaring creek -- “the river was flying; there was more water than I’d ever seen,” pilot Miller said -- and above some clouds over a ridge to the South Fork of Lytle Creek, where they thought Whitesell was.

“We knew the general area of where he was. He would get on his phone and say, ‘OK, you’re south of me, or north of me,’ ” Miller said. “Sometimes he would get his directions confused, which is why it took a little extra time to find him.”

Miller decided to hover about a foot above a boulder 100 yards from the cave to keep from having to land the craft on the rugged terrain. A medic got off the helicopter and met Whitesell. Miller said he was glad he didn’t have to hoist the man up to the helicopter because the “winds were just nasty up there.”

The medic told Miller the rescued Whitesell had beamed with relief. “Hallelujah!” he exclaimed.

“He looked all right, about as well as someone would who spent ... days in a cave,” Miller said. “Not too bad.”

Orange County

About 4,000 San Juan Capistrano residents evacuated their homes early Tuesday when a concrete embankment along the swollen San Juan Creek crumbled into the heavy storm runoff.

No homes were damaged, but the churning floodwaters reached a height of 20 feet and slowly chewed away at the embankment, destroying a portion of a bike path and coming within 60 feet of homes.

The bend in the river that sustained the damage is about 1 1/2 miles upstream from Doheny State Beach, where the creek empties into the ocean.

Times staff writers Fred Alvarez, Hector Becerra, Andrew Blankstein, Gregory W. Griggs, Eric Malnic, Hugo Martin, Lance Pugmire and Mai Tran contributed to this report.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Drenched

The 15 days through Monday were the wettest in Los Angeles history, with 16.97 inches of rain falling in downtown. Other local rainfall statistics:

Downtown Los Angeles, season-to-date* (through Monday): 22.35 inches

Normal for the period: 4.71 inches

Total rainfall for 4 p.m. Thursday through 4 p.m. Tuesday:

Los Angeles County

Opids Camp: 31.61

Mount Baldy: 22.11

Claremont: 13.01

Beverly Hills: 11.45

Downtown L.A.: 6.82