Storm Kills Six, Inflicts Severe Damage in State

By STEPHANIE SIMON, KATE FOLMAR and DAVID REYES

Feb. 25, 1998 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

The latest storm to ram California killed at least six people, including two police officers and two college students, and swiped savagely at hillsides, highways and rail tracks, scattering despair and destruction before blowing out of the state Tuesday.

At least one other person died and another was missing across the border in Tijuana in the 49th storm to hit that city this winter. The intense rainfall forced 550 people from their homes.

Another terrifying evacuation took place in Laguna Beach, when a wall of mud roared down hillsides, killing one man and driving dozens of his neighbors to the only dry ground they could find. Nine others were injured. Also, crews continued to search for a man reported missing in Laguna Beach.

Cleanup and search-and-rescue operations were hampered by at least two gas leaks near what is known locally as the Big Bend section of Laguna Canyon Road, near the Art Institute of Southern California. That stretch of road has repeatedly been closed to traffic this winter because of flooding and the threats of slides.

While the worst damage was in Laguna Canyon, trouble spots were scattered across Orange County. Overnight downpours also scoured Santiago and Modjeska canyons in the Cleveland National Forest, and a tornado touched down in Huntington Beach, damaging homes in a trailer park. In Brea, Carbon Canyon Road was closed to all but local residents, escorted by police, after a hillside slid across half of the road at the La Vida Hot Springs Resort, near the San Bernardino County line.

Even as skies cleared Tuesday, somber scenes continued to play out across the state as residents tried to make sense of El Nino’s latest wallop.

Tragedy struck San Luis Obispo County when the raging Cuyama River gnawed out a chunk of a local highway outside Santa Maria, creating a muddy sinkhole where once there had been asphalt.

Two veteran California Highway Patrol officers died about 2:30 a.m. Tuesday when their car toppled into the hole, falling at least 15 feet, flipping over and washing down the river about a quarter of a mile. Their colleagues speculated that Officers Britt T. Irvine, 40, and Rick B. Stovall, 39, might not even have seen the abyss in the early-morning fog as they responded to a call of a big rig in distress along California 166.

“They were out doing what they are supposed to do. They were out helping the public,” said CHP Lt. Paul Matthies.

When the CHP’s Santa Maria command center lost contact with Irvine and Stovall about 2:45 a.m., a Santa Barbara County sheriff’s deputy was dispatched to investigate. He nearly perished as well; his car had to be pulled to safety after the front wheels tipped into the sinkhole.

By the time rescue crews reached the scene, four cars had plunged into the sinkhole: the big rig, a pickup, a Toyota and the officers’ patrol car. The drivers of two of the vehicles were plucked to safety, both suffering from hypothermia and one in need of surgery for a scalp injury.

Authorities were trying to determine late Tuesday whether anyone else remained trapped in the muck.

As the river continued to chew into California 166--ripping away at the rock and dirt underlying the asphalt--about 125 rescuers toiled to reach the trapped vehicles and free the CHP officers’ bodies.

Among the storm’s other casualties were two 19-year-old sophomores at Pomona College who were killed on their way to class Monday night when a eucalyptus tree toppled over and slammed into their sports utility vehicle, crushing it.

“It was like it was aimed right at them,” said Jeremy Douglass, a junior who happened by the scene a few minutes later.

The victims, Brian G. Cressner of Los Angeles and Yuta P. Kurahashi of Los Altos in Northern California, were dorm-mates known for opening their doors at all hours to friends who wanted to watch movies, trade jokes or just gab the night away. “They loved living,” said Eric Duggan, who played with Cressner on the Pomona-Pitzer soccer team.

Authorities also blamed the storm for a fatal collision on California 99 in the San Joaquin Valley. Flooding washed out a segment of the highway Tuesday, swamping it in so much water that officials said it could remain closed a week. Some stretches of the freeway were buried under 16 feet of water, and 200 people from the small farm town of Earlimart were evacuated.

“Highway 99 looks like a lake,” said Tulare County Sheriff’s Lt. Mike Gutsch. “Two underpasses are completely flooded . . . right up to the highway signs.”

The sixth fatality was recorded in Laguna Beach. Glenn Flook, 25, was killed by a mudslide so powerful that it pushed homes off their foundations and shoved cars out of their parking spots. Rescuers found Flook’s body buried in mud and pushed up against a house trailer.

Nine people were injured in the slide, including 9-month-old Tiffany Serabia, who survived thanks to a dramatic--and so far, anonymous--rescue during a chaotic emergency evacuation in the rain before dawn Tuesday. Firefighters said three homes were destroyed in the mudslides.

In Huntington Beach, a small tornado ripped awnings and skirtings from homes in the Huntington Mobile Estates at Slater Avenue and Beach Boulevard about 1:30 a.m. No injuries were reported, but an aluminum storage shed was blown into power lines on Slater Avenue, knocking out power in the area for two hours, said Huntington Beach Fire spokeswoman Martha Werth.

“They’re all inhabitable,” Werth said. “None were blown off their foundation. Some of the residents didn’t even know it happened, it was so noisy from all the winds. And it was real isolated. It didn’t hit the whole mobile home park.”

Also in Huntington Beach, a mudslide was reported on Bluff Circle, which is on the city’s east end near Ellis Avenue, but the slide “was nothing major and no one was in danger,” according to Huntington Beach Police Lt. Gary Brooks.

Residents of 90 trailers in the San Juan Mobile estate trailer park in San Juan Capistrano also were awakened by the storm. City crews evacuated them about 5:45 a.m. after torrents of water ripped loose the lining from a flood control channel along Trabuco Creek. There were no injuries, and residents were back in the homes by 11 a.m., said Assistant City Manager Jennifer Murray.

County officials said the storm caused serious damage to other sections of flood-control channels along San Juan and Trabuco creeks, causing the banks to erode rapidly with the swift waters. Work crews spent Tuesday adding rocks to the creek banks to avoid further erosion.

“We caught it in time before [the channels] could fail,” said Carole Graber, with the county’s Public Facilities and Resources Department. “It helped that we had no rain today.”

Bill Reiter, the county’s storm center manager, said damage to roads and flood control systems so far this month has topped $2 million not counting this latest storm. He expected that total to rise to as much as $6 million by the end of the month.

In Long Beach, a twister swatted a huge acacia tree right into Charles and Shirlee Ford’s roof. The tree--seven stories tall--missed their master bedroom by barely four feet. On the next street over, the tornado whipped hundreds of white pebbles off a roof into Eileen Anderson’s backyard. “It looked like it was covered in snow,” she marveled. “It was just a terrible experience.”

In the high San Bernardino Mountains, 60-mph winds and fear of an avalanche prevented rescuers from approaching a small plane found buried up to its tail in the snow. Authorities were unable to confirm whether it was the plane reported missing Monday morning with two people aboard after taking off from Big Bear.

Elsewhere, the storm caused inconveniences large and small.

Every beach between Palos Verdes and the Ventura County line was closed due to sewage pouring out of overtaxed storm drains toward the ocean. Amtrak canceled service from San Diego to San Luis Obispo as rain washed out the tracks. In the Northern California community of Clear Lake, about 500 homes remained under a mandatory evacuation order as the lake rose to its highest level since 1909.

Deep snow forced at least temporary shutdowns on passes through the Sierra. Schools were closed in several communities, including Laguna Beach, Ventura and Port Hueneme, where major roadways were impassible.

In Malibu’s Las Flores Canyon, county fire officials called for the voluntary evacuation of about a dozen homes because of unstable ground. Also, more mudslides on Pacific Coast Highway forced officials to close the local courthouse.

In Ojai, 25 homeowners flooded out for the second time this winter shoveled silt from their driveways. “The whole creek has just blown over the yard,” said one glum Ojai resident, Dan Misiaszek, who figured that he sustained $10,000 in damages in the first flood and $5,000 this time.

“It’s mostly psychological now,” said 56-year-old Art Isgur, keeping a watchful eye on the horizon. “You see a cloud in the sky and you start shaking.”

Amid the gloom, there was some good news Tuesday: The state’s reservoirs and levee systems were holding up well, and meteorologists foresaw no more rain for at least a week. “Things look pretty nice,” said Wes Etheredge, a forecaster with WeatherData Inc.

But the cheery forecasts were of little consolation to commuters stranded by the lingering effects of the most recent storm.

For the first time since the El Nino season began, Amtrak had to shut down an entire line Tuesday: the 347 miles of track between San Diego and San Luis Obispo, which handle about 4,400 commuters a day, spokesman Dominick Albano said.

The northern half of that line, from Los Angeles through Ventura and Santa Barbara, will remain out of commission at least through March 9 while crews scramble to rebuild a washed-out bridge. The southern half of the line will reopen today, but passengers will have to transfer to a bus for part of the way.

Commuters heading north from Los Angeles cannot even switch to Metrolink: another rail washout canceled service to the Camarillo and Oxnard stations until further notice. The Simi Valley and Moorpark stations remained open.

Metrolink also shut down service today and Thursday to the Acton and Lancaster stations on the Antelope Valley line and the San Clemente, Oceanside and San Juan Capistrano stations on the Orange County line.

“We often say we’re a force to be reckoned with, so don’t mess with our trains, but when Mother Nature is involved, she appears to gain some ground on us,” said Metrolink spokesman Peter Hidalgo. “We can withstand earthquakes, no problem, but rains are definitely another story.”

Even before Monday’s deluge, this season’s El Nino-powered storms had caused about $475 million of damage in California. More than 8,000 residents statewide had requested assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the state was seeking federal disaster status for Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Cities across the state were reporting record seasonal rainfall totals.

Through Monday afternoon, Santa Ana had tallied nearly 22 inches of rain this season, 2 1/2 times the average for that city. San Francisco logged more than 38 inches--the most in a quarter of a century. The Los Angeles Civic Center also got soaked with twice its normal rainfall this winter, eclipsing a record set in 1992-93.

And despite the cheery predictions for this week, it’s not over yet.

Not by a long shot.

In a typical El Nino year, the atmosphere stabilizes--and skies over California brighten--by late spring, Etheredge said. But since this year’s El Nino condition is stronger than most, Etheredge said, “it’s very possible that [storm] conditions will persist into the early part of summer.”

Also contributing to this report were Times staff writers Shelby Grad, Marcida Dodson, Bonnie Hayes and E. Scott Reckard and correspondent Liz Seymour.

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Record Season

Orange County rainfall totals this season and this month both have smashed records. Here’s how much rain fell in various cities in the 24 hours ending 4 p.m. Tuesday, as well as seasonal and February totals, in inches:

Monday/Tuesday Storm

Anaheim 2.6

Dana Point 1.6

Laguna Beach 3.0

Lake Forest 2.1

Newport Beach 2.0

San Juan Capistrano 1.8

Santa Ana 2.4

Seasonal Totals to Date

Current season 24.4

Last season 14.4

Normal 8.8