Thunderstorms Slam State With Cold, Windy Fury : Canyon Homes Face Slide Danger; Flash-Flood Watches Posted in North

A fast-moving Pacific storm hurled a barrage of brief and violent thunderstorms across the face of California Monday, hammering the Southland with a combined fury of thunder, lightning, wind, hail and heavy surf--and setting off a new epidemic of flash-flood warnings to the north.

Hillsides denuded by fire in western Ventura and eastern Santa Barbara counties, where up to two inches of rain fell Sunday night and Monday morning, survived the deluge virtually intact despite gloomy predictions.

But a drenched and sagging hillside in Mandeville Canyon forced evacuation of one expensive home directly below and threatened two others, a mudslide closed Pacific Coast Highway, and property owners along west-facing beaches did their best to prepare for incoming surf expected to reach 13 feet or more.

Northern and Central California took the hard edge of the storm:

In Fresno, where 1.35 inches of rain fell in little more than an hour, streets and underpasses were briefly inundated and six automobiles were stranded when California 99 was covered by five feet of water near the middle of town during evening rush hour. The deluge also caused part of the roof of one supermarket to collapse, but no injuries were reported.

Flash-Flood Watches Posted

Flash-flood watches were posted from Eureka to Sacramento to Morro Bay during the day, and winter storm warnings were in effect for the Sierra, where the snow level was expected to drop below 3,000 feet at some points overnight.

“Great for the ski resorts, but not so hot if you have to go driving,” said California Highway Patrol spokesman Don McDonald, who added his agency’s voice to National Weather Service warnings of high wind and blowing snow that could make any kind of driving hazardous for the next day or so.

Even the ski resort areas had problems, though. At Mammoth Lakes, the U.S. Forest Service issued an avalanche warning for the east slopes of the Sierra Nevada from Sonora Pass to Mt. Whitney, above 8,000 feet, where high winds had deposited great amounts of unstable snow.

Tornado Funnels Reported

There were reports of tornado funnels in the sky off Point Sur and in the San Joaquin Valley. Few--if any--of the funnels were believed to have touched the ground, but the threat was enough to paralyze traffic in several places, the CHP said.

By late evening, however, rainfall from the storm was only a minor fraction of the disastrous amounts that fell on the north in the last part of February, and the state Flood Control Operations Center reported that runoff appeared to be “containable for the time being.”

Southern California, too, appeared to have survived the first onslaught without major disaster.

By 4 p.m., .82 of an inch of rain had fallen at Los Angeles Civic Center, bringing the total for the season to 14.17 inches--nearly three inches more than had fallen at this time last year and a little more than two inches above the 11.92-inch mark that would be normal by now.

Other places were wetter: Mt. Wilson recorded a drenching 2.09 inches for the storm’s first few hours, while Torrance had 1.45 inches, Avalon received 1.25, San Juan Capistrano had 1.20, Fallbrook had 1.17, Montebello had 1.11--and 1.09 fell at Los Angeles International Airport.

Rain was only partially responsible for the sliding hillside in Mandeville Canyon, Los Angeles City Fire Department spokesman Greg Acevedo said.

He explained that someone had evidently left sprinklers running for about three days on a hillside below a home in the 1900 block of Westridge Road, which left the earth saturated and ready to move when the rains came.

Firefighters turned the sprinklers off, but by 9 a.m., mud and rocks were beginning to slide, and the Fire Department ordered evacuation of a house directly below at 1971 Mandeville Canyon Road, and warned residents of two nearby homes that they might have to get out too.

Mudslide Covers Highway

A mudslide covered northbound lanes of Pacific Coast Highway near Big Rock Beach, causing Caltrans to close the roadway from there to Las Flores Canyon Road for more than an hour, and several smaller slides were reported in the Montecito Heights district, near Debs Regional Park.

About 1,100 Department of Water and Power customers in the Lake Hollywood area were blacked out because of water that seeped into an underground transformer vault. DWP spokeswoman Valerie Roberts Gray said the lights went out about 7 p.m. in a triangular area in the vicinity of Lake Hollywood Drive, Barham Boulevard and the Hollywood Freeway. Power was restored to about 800 of the customers by 8:30 p.m.

The California Highway Patrol reported a 30% increase in traffic accidents on rain-slick freeways during the storm, but no serious injuries were reported. A dispatcher called them “fender-benders, skids, spin-outs and just plain bad judgment” caused by the weather, but the effect was to slow traffic everywhere.

Chains were required for motorists venturing into the ski resort areas of the San Bernardino Mountains.

Small-craft warnings were in effect for the entire coastline from San Francisco Bay to the Mexican border and meteorologists said there could be some damage to beaches from incoming surf during the next day or so, but they largely discounted the chance of coastal flooding, explaining that tides will be only about five feet high.

Problems for Boats

Nonetheless, there were problems--even for boats that remained in protected waters.

The San Diego Harbor Patrol reported that a boater fled his capsized sailboat and swam to shore about 11 a.m. in Santa Barbara Cove when his rented 14-foot vessel toppled in the wind.

Various marinas up and down the coast reported damage to docks buildings and boats that had to be rounded up after pulling loose from moorings, but no major incidents or injuries were reported.

The body of an 11-year-old boy who fell into the Los Angeles River on Saturday was found by workers cleaning debris from the river bank in Long Beach. The boy, identified as Jose Guadalupe Grajeda of East Los Angeles, was swept away after falling into the swiftly moving water while playing with his 8-year-old brother near Central Los Angeles.

Weather service meteorologists said Southern California’s siege of bad weather was the result of a wandering wall of high atmospheric pressure.

When that high-pressure zone is in place along the southern coast of California--as it is most of the time--storms rolling in from the Pacific are deflected northward to Central and Northern California.

But when the high-pressure area slips southward or breaks up--as it has just now--the southern coast is open to the incoming weather systems and they come marching in from the ocean in waves until the protective pressure wall is rebuilt.

No Forecast

Trouble is, no one seemed to know Monday just how soon that might be.

High temperature at Los Angeles Civic Center on Monday was 59 degrees with relative humidity ranging from 77% to 90%, and forecasters said that today should be about the same--with a 30% chance of rain overnight and today.

What’s more, the long-range forecast calls for the weather to remain “unsettled” through the rest of the week. Another storm is already gathering strength north of Hawaii, according to satellite pictures, and can be expected to arrive in the Southland by late tonight or early Wednesday.