As Mountain Waters Run High, so Do Risks

Southern California’s record rainfall ended eight days ago, but each day torrential runoff from those storms is creating new and deadly hazards in the region’s icy mountain streams and usually innocuous urban rivers.

This week, raging currents have killed three people: two children and a 35-year-old woman who were swept away in San Antonio Creek below snow-capped Mt. Baldy in the San Gabriel Mountains. Rescuers recovered two of their bodies Tuesday.

The risk will remain high, with mountain snowmelt and city storm runoff coursing down normally bone-dry river beds and channels. Combine that with curious Southlanders beguiled by snowy peaks and roaring waters, and it’s a recipe for disaster, emergency officials said.

“You can see it so clearly from the freeways,” said Richard Wingate, a Mt. Baldy volunteer firefighter and rescuer, of the glistening 10,064-foot peak above him. “It’s a giant magnet pulling them up here.”

Concrete-lined urban rivers continue to pose a risk as well. Although floodwaters in the Los Angeles and Santa Ana rivers and other tributaries are receding quickly, they are still dangerous, said Joseph Evelyn, chief of hydrology for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the Los Angeles district.

“You’re going to have higher than normal flows on all the streams that are coming out of the mountains for weeks to come,” Evelyn said. “And we’re still in the middle of the rainy season, so the public needs to exercise a high degree of caution.... The force they have is very, very significant. They will knock you off your feet, and there’s no way out.”

Two elderly Orange County women died when their car plunged into the San Gabriel River last week. During the height of the recent rainstorms, a pregnant woman in a car was washed away in a San Bernardino County flood channel, and a man drowned after slipping into the fast-moving waters of Matilija Creek in Ventura County.

The Ventura County town of La Conchita sustained the most devastation during the rainstorms, when the deluges triggered a mudslide that buried 13 homes and killed 10 people.

Three people have been swept away since Sunday in two incidents in San Antonio Creek, normally a trickle of a stream that now continues to gather tons of snowmelt and heavy rain rushing off Mt. Baldy, making it a swift and deadly waterway.

Shortly after 11 a.m. Tuesday, the body of Sibilina Flores, 35, of El Monte was found less than 200 feet from the popular Trout Ponds, where she had jumped in Monday to try to save her 7-year-old son. Searchers found the body of her son, Frank Zavala, seven hours later after using a firetruck to hoist a fallen tree from the river.

Six miles downstream, divers, cadaver dogs and helicopters continued to comb the murky waters of San Antonio Dam, trying to find 11-year-old Marcelo Bautista of Huntington Park, who tumbled into the creek Sunday afternoon.

With 20 million people living within an hour’s drive of the mountain range, and balmy, blue-sky weather expected for several days, Angeles National Forest officials were weighing whether to close parts of the forest. A decision could be made as soon as today. Thousands of people clogged the main road along the creek up to Mt. Baldy last weekend.

“Closure is always an option,” said Sherry Roman, Forest Service spokeswoman. She said that wasn’t the agency’s intent, but “we are actively assessing the conditions.”

Others said it would be impractical and unfair to close off popular scenic areas, and that individuals, especially parents, needed to take charge.

“Who will monitor the miles and miles of creeks?” said Chip Patterson, spokesman for the San Bernardino County sheriff. “The message we’re sending is to use good judgment and common sense.... At some point individual responsibility, especially when children are concerned, needs to be relied upon.”

The risks vary depending on the type of water, and even shallow waters can be deadly, Evelyn said. Upstream, weak banks can give way. People can quickly be caught and dragged under uprooted trees, boulders or other heavy debris.

In storm channels like the Los Angeles and Santa Ana rivers, the bottom can be very slippery, and “the water on the banks moves just as fast as the water in the middle,” said Fred-Otto Egeler, Army Corps spokesman.

Rescuers have responded to more than a dozen calls on Mt. Baldy, Mt. San Gorgonio and elsewhere in the last week, using helicopters, strike teams and all-volunteer search and rescue teams to retrieve fallen hikers, injured snowboarders and drenched boulder hoppers. They fear the toll will grow.

“There’s huge avalanches back there, and tons of snow, so there’s going to be continual water runoff for some time,” said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sgt. Rod Kubly, who is helping oversee massive search efforts for Marcelo.

On Sunday, the boy’s father and another man leapt into churning waters after him but were able to hold him only briefly before he was carried away.

Bautista’s father was pinned under heavy debris in the creek, but managed to crawl out. Two hours later, rescuers spotted a small body in a knot of trees. But it popped up and was shoved along in the current more than a mile downstream to the bloated lake behind San Antonio Dam.

Officials said the dam, which was at 78% capacity after last week’s storms, was being completely drained at a rate of 2 feet per hour, and that with some pockets as deep as 250 feet, it would take at least a day and a half. Divers said visibility was about 4 inches in the dam waters.

“What a heartbreaking thing,” Kubly said of the loss. “I have children myself, and I bring them up here to play.”

Marcelo was a cheerful boy who loved to be around water, particularly the boulder-strewn bend in the creek off Shinn Road where he and his family often came, said his uncle, Juan Leyva Lopez.

“He was really a good boy, good at school, good at everything,” said Leyva Lopez on Tuesday, as he and other relatives continued to scour brush-strewn banks.

Late Sunday, as rescuers prepared to halt the search for the night, Marcelo’s parents sneaked away from authorities and ran through the pitch-black darkness along the creek in a desperate search for their son.

They made it all the way to the dam before rescuers found them and gently compelled them to leave. Bautista’s mother wailed aloud as she and her husband finally drove away.

The search will continue as long as necessary, Kubly said.

Back where Marcelo fell in, day trippers continue to pull over to enjoy the roaring creek framed by a majestic mountain tableau.

Fernando Salazar, 32, and Sheryl Sullivan, 25, both nurses from Downey, said they saw news reports of the tragedies and were drawn to the beautiful scenery at the site, 30 miles east of Los Angeles, because it was within easy reach on a day off.

“I saw those pictures of the river, and I said to myself, ‘That’s beautiful,’ ” Salazar said.

“We don’t have any of this stuff [in Downey]. This is great stress relief. The smells are good, the sounds of the water, the beauty ... this is the real thing. Paradise within the city limits.”