After the Deluge, Crews Patch and Prepare : Flooding: Freeway potholes are plugged and water pumps are checked after Monday’s fierce storm. County and state officials say they are ready for the next big one, expected later this week.

Crews who had battled freeway flooding during Monday’s brutal storm turned their attention Tuesday to plugging the potholes left behind.

The thunderstorm, which dumped almost five inches of rain in some areas of Orange County, also chewed up several freeway surfaces, said Steve Saville, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation.

“We’ve got maintenance crews out checking for potholes all over our freeway system,” Saville said.

In some instances, pothole repair involves a lengthy repaving process. However, because the next big storm is expected by late Thursday or early Friday, maintenance crews were in a hurry. Saville said that when the rush is on, these crews simply sprinkle a special mixture on the holes and just roll over it.

“It’s a Band-Aid, until we can come back and pave it,” he said.

On Monday, a storm caused by a cold front from the Gulf of Alaska moved in from the ocean and produced heavy flooding.

Especially hard hit was the Costa Mesa Freeway, which is being reconstructed, at the Santa Ana Freeway interchange. Heavy flooding forced the California Highway Patrol to shut down all lanes of the Costa Mesa Freeway after a 5 a.m. deluge overwhelmed the freeway’s pumping capacity.

Barry Rabbitt, Caltrans’ deputy district director for construction in Orange County, said the agency did not anticipate a storm capable of bringing 4 1/2 to 5 inches of rain.

Rabbitt defended Caltrans’ actions on Monday, which resulted in closure of the Costa Mesa Freeway from 8:30 a.m. until 5:20 p.m.

The interchange is the site of a major reconstruction project involving widening the Santa Ana Freeway to 12 lanes. The 1st Street and 4th Street bridges had to be closed and extended to accommodate the widening, Rabbitt said.

He said that temporary pumps, which were capable of handling a “normal” storm, were in place and hooked up. However, the construction contractor had installed new, 12-inch pumps with a 7,500-gallon capacity, which had not been primed for operation when the fierce storm struck.

“You can’t just turn on one of these giant pumps,” Rabbitt said, “or else you run the risk of damaging them.”

He said that the freeway’s old pumps were still operational, as were several emergency pumps that were brought in after the freeway was closed.

“Even if we had all our pumps turned on and even with the additional pumps, we still wouldn’t have been able to keep up with this storm,” Rabbitt said. “It was just an intense storm.”

Rabbitt said the new pumps operate in stages. Once water drains into a big storage box beneath the pavement, a pump starts up. If water continues to rise, a second pump starts, he said.

“I do not believe that flooding similar to what we had on Monday will occur again,” Rabbitt said.

Meanwhile, County Environmental Management Agency officials, in charge of public works, said the county’s drainage system had worked well, even with several channels at capacity during the height of the storm.

The last major storm, in February, 1992, caused an estimated $4 million in damage, especially to flood channels in Westminster, Fullerton and elsewhere around the county, said Thomas Connelie, manager of maintenance systems for the county’s Emergency Management Agency.

“This time we had virtually no damage, just about $300,000 worth,” he said.

Both state and county crews are ready for the next big storm.

“We heard it’s coming on Friday and our focus is making sure we are ready for it,” Connelie said.