Month’s Rainfall Sets County Record : Weather: Another inch falls, causing many traffic accidents. Interstate 5 backup results from early-morning overturning of a tanker.

An Orange County record was broken Wednesday when the latest in a series of heavy storms dropped an inch of rain before 3 p.m., making this the wettest month since county officials began documenting monthly rainfall totals in 1952.

The wet weather once again took a toll of area roadways, with the California Highway Patrol reporting yet another rise in rain-related accidents. Seventy had been reported by late afternoon.

One of the worst mishaps occurred in the pre-dawn hours near Camp Pendleton, where a tanker truck hauling 6,000 gallons of refrigerated nitrogen overturned, injuring the driver and snarling southbound traffic on Interstate 5 well into the morning commute.

Luis Alberto Castillo, 38, of Compton suffered neck and back injuries in the accident, which happened shortly after 3 a.m. just south of Las Pulgas Road. Castillo was treated and released from Tri-City Hospital in Oceanside.

The accident complicated the morning commute for thousands of Orange County residents heading south, as traffic remained bumper-to-bumper throughout the morning.

Record rainfall led to the closing Wednesday of Pacific Coast Highway between Golden West Street and Warner Avenue in Huntington Beach, and Laguna Canyon Road from the San Diego Freeway to El Toro Road. Meanwhile, the CHP struggled to keep all other roads open amid a flurry of fender-benders and tailspins.

In Laguna Beach, Buena Park, Garden Grove and other cities that have suffered flood-related damage since the month began, residents and city officials watched the sky with a wary eye, hoping flood-control channels and roads damaged in earlier rains could hold up.

A fear of flooding and mudslides once again reared its head in Laguna Beach, where merchants went scrambling for sandbags, and local police reintroduced about 100 children at Anneliese’s School, a private preschool, to a routine with which they have become familiar: evacuation.

“We did it as a precaution,” said Deputy Chief Jim Spreine of the Laguna Beach Police Department. “Laguna Canyon was flooding, and we thought we might end up with yet another strong deluge of rain. We thought it better to just get them out in advance.”

County officials said Wednesday that the day’s 24-hour rain total pushed the county’s precipitation for the month of January to record heights. By 3 p.m., 11.91 inches had fallen this month in Santa Ana, the official measuring spot for Orange County, exceeding the previous high for the month of 11.47 inches, set in 1993, according to Mel Newman of the county’s Environmental Management Agency. Newman said the January total is the highest for any month since records began being kept.

As wet as the year has been, Newman said the wettest local season on record--a season being the period from July 1 to the following Feb. 1--remains 1992-93, when Orange County recorded 16.6 inches. Since July 1, 1994, the county has recorded 14.24 inches, Newman said.

Wet conditions played a part in the mishap involving the tanker driver, who skidded off the slick roadway and onto the right shoulder, according to CHP spokesman Ted Prola in Oceanside.

The truck flipped onto its left side and slid down Interstate 5 for about 280 feet, Prola said, finally landing in a westward-facing direction and blocking three lanes of the southbound freeway.

The tank did not rupture, but because it would have taken too long to pump the contents into another vehicle, officials of both the CHP and the Camp Pendleton Fire Department elected to open the valves and release the liquid nitrogen into the atmosphere.

“Because (the gas) was so cold, it created an enormous fog bank that enveloped both the northbound and southbound lanes of” Interstate 5 through most of the pre-dawn hours, Prola said, noting that even the northbound lanes were closed for about 10 minutes shortly after 4 a.m.

The southbound lanes remained closed until shortly after 9 a.m., creating a logjam from just south of Las Pulgas Road farther into San Diego County, as traffic was diverted on private roads through the Pendleton compound.

The tanker remained on its side for almost six hours, Prola said, until Camp Pendleton firefighters could drain its supply of nitrogen and right the vehicle with the use of straps, air bags, two self-propelled cranes and a tow truck.

Bill Reiter, public works operations manager for the county, said earlier this week that overall damage from the storms is likely to rise to more than $45 million. On Tuesday, county officials upped the figure to $55 million, indicating it may go even higher. Officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency are currently in Orange County, assessing the damage.

“We’ve been watching our hot spots (Wednesday), but for the most part, there hasn’t been enough significant rainfall to cause us any major problems,” Reiter said, noting, however, that the Fullerton Creek channel in Buena Park remains closed, as do sections of Beach Boulevard and Western Avenue damaged in earlier flooding.

Reiter said the $55-million damage estimate is based on about $44 million in losses or damage to public property and more than $10 million in private-property loss.

“Those are not hard and fast figures,” he said. “Those are estimates and may be high or low.”

Wednesday at least offered a ray of hope, in that weather officials are predicting warmer, drier conditions through the remainder of the week.

Orange and San Diego counties are expected to get a reprieve, while areas north of Los Angeles--particularly Santa Barbara County, where more than four inches of rain fell during Wednesday alone--continue to be hammered.

“In Orange County, you’ll start to see a big improvement, a noticeable drying-out (today) and through the weekend,” said Harry Woolford, a forecaster with WeatherData Inc. of Wichita, Kan., which supplies forecasts for The Times. “You may see lingering showers through midday (today) and then a rapid return to dry weather.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Record Rainfall This month is the wettest on Orange County’s books. As of Wednesday afternoon, rainfall had surpassed the January, 1993, record of 11.47. Meteorologists forecast partly cloudy skies with a slight chance of showers this morning, and a clearing, warming trend beginning Friday and lasting through early next week. Individual cities’ rainfall for 24-hour period ending 4 p.m. Wednesday:

City Inches Anaheim 1.01 Dana Point 1.30 El Toro 1.14 Laguna Beach 1.26 Newport Beach 1.01 San Juan Capistrano 0.60 Santa Ana 1.14

YEAR- TO- DATE RAIN Santa Ana readings, as of 4 p.m. Wednesday, for season beginning July 1.

Period Inches Season total 14.75 Last year 2.11 Season norm 6.23 January 1994 1.7 January norm 3.26

Sources: WeatherData Inc., Environmental Management Agency