Lessons From ’92 Flooding Put in Practice

Flood control measures installed in the wake of a series of disastrous deluges since 1992 were proving their reliability Tuesday, though it was still too early to say whether Southern California would come through the new pummeling on its feet or up to its hips in mud and embarrassment.

The area’s vulnerability to severe weather was exposed when a week’s worth of punishing storms in February, 1992, dumped more than 16 inches of rain in such places as Woodland Hills, caused seven deaths and $88 million in damage. Flooding last year swamped homes in Malibu and inundated tiny communities such as Pasadena Glen.

The heavy rains of ’92 also dealt a blow to the reputations of public service agencies who failed to rescue 15-year-old Adam Bischoff of Woodland Hills after he fell into a flood control channel. The same storm series turned the Sepulveda Basin into an inland sea and stranded motorists on top of their cars.

From the city council chambers to the local police watch commander’s office, officials promised that they wouldn’t forget the lessons they had learned once the rain stopped falling.

And on Tuesday, it appeared that at least some promises were being kept.

The National Weather Service’s new Doppler radar station atop Sulphur Mountain in Ventura County was giving forecasters a richly detailed picture of where the rain was falling and how much. Flash-flood warnings were being issued across the basin as a result of the improved images it yielded.

“We can see the rain before it moves into an area,” said meteorologist Clay Morgan. He said the NEXRAD system--which stands for Next Generation of Weather Radar--is “infinitely better” than the 1974-era system that was still in place two years ago.

“That will not happen again anywhere where this radar can see,” Morgan said of the surprise Sepulveda Basin flooding that stranded 48 people. This time, local officials were prepared well in advance of the flooding in the basin and closed it at 10 p.m. Monday after the water level at Sepulveda Dam reached 680 feet.

By Tuesday afternoon, the level was at 698 feet and the gates of the dam were all the way open. The water in the basin reached the bottom of traffic signals, much as it did in 1992. But this time there were no stranded cars.

Swift-water rescue teams were patrolling hundreds of miles of flood control channels citywide Tuesday as a result of the Bischoff drowning Feb. 12, 1992. Rescue workers at that time complained they lacked proper equipment and training.

Each six-member team, a cooperative effort among the Los Angeles and Culver City fire departments and Los Angeles County lifeguards, is equipped with small watercraft.

In addition, firetrucks are outfitted with flotation devices and life preservers to help people in the channel stay afloat until they can be reached.

Fire crews have mapped every mile of the region’s network of flood control channels. They know which bridges are better than others for rescues as well as locations where it is safe to put a boat in the water.

“I’m the result of Adam,” said Firefighter Jim Goldsworthy, who oversees the teams.

Storm waters, carrying boulders so large they sounded like passing aircraft as they surged along, tumbled through the rustic community of Pasadena Glen on Tuesday--but not, this time, through any homes. In what was once a community of 65 homes--27 were destroyed in the 1993 firestorm--newly constructed culverts diverted torrents of muddy water and allowed residents to finally gain the upper hand on Mother Nature.

“Last year, we had a half-inch of rain in one hour and it was devastating,” said Terry McGough, a contractor whose Pasadena Glen home was lost in the fire. “This much water and rain last year would have been a disaster. It would have taken out homes.”

In October, one year after the firestorm and 11 months after residents met with President Clinton to plead for federal help, the two new culverts were completed at a cost of $1.2 million. The money came from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and homeowner assessment fees of $500 per household.

The largest culvert can handle about 2,600 cubic feet of water per second, or about three times the amount coming down Tuesday at midday as a result of rainfall totals measuring 4.6 inches in the area since midnight. That 100-by-20-foot culvert replaced a five-foot round pipe.

To residents such as Sonni Towne, one of those who had not evacuated, it was a pleasing sight. “I wanted to see the culvert tested,” said Towne, a lawyer who moved to Pasadena Glen only six months before the fire. “When it rains, we’re all anxious. We can’t sleep. You get nervous when a jet goes over because it sounds like debris flow. It’s been a strain on the neighborhood.”

Towne and others gathered in the downpour watching the torrent of mud sweep through the culvert. “It’s pretty amazing to see it in action,” said Linda Williams, president of the Pasadena Glen Improvement Assn.

The glen has a history of getting more than its share of natural disasters. In 1938 and 1969, torrential floods ripped through the canyon, Williams said. One house was destroyed in the 1969 deluge, although a number of houses were swamped with mud on both occasions.

In October, 1993, the Altadena firestorm swept through the canyon, wiping out most of the hillside vegetation and destroying 27 of 65 homes. Then in February, the fire-stripped hillsides crumbled under a torrential rain, and a wall of mud rushed through the glen. The mudflow left an oozing trail more than a foot deep in its wake, but sandbags and flood barriers that residents had erected kept the mess out of homes.

Stuart Seto, a weather specialist with the National Weather Service, said the lack of problems is remarkable.

“From our experience, this amount of rain should cause flooding,” he said. “So the credit ought to go to those people who set up those barriers and sandbags.”

In Malibu, officials spent $6 million on flood control improvements, including a series of culverts and trash racks--small poles in the storm channel designed to capture debris--since flooding last year in the Las Flores Canyon and Big Rock areas damaged a number of homes.

On Tuesday, there was no serious flooding on Big Rock Drive, where dozens of houses a year ago were surrounded by a sea of mud that caused $1.6 million in damage.

Flooding occurred along Big Rock Creek, however, about which Malibu Public Works Director John P. Clement was philosophical.

“There’s nothing we could build that would be able to stop this amount of rain,” he said.

Also contributing to this story were Times staff writers Aaron Curtiss, Kathleen Kelleher, Chip Johnson and Deborah Sullivan.

Storm Coverage

* COPING SKILLS--Emergency crews and ordinary people rise to nature’s latest challenge. B1