O.C. to Seek State Aid as Storm Costs Mount

By NICK ANDERSON and SHELBY GRAD

Dec. 9, 1997 12 AM PT

Share via
- Email
- Facebook
- X
- LinkedIn
- Threads
- Reddit
- WhatsApp

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

Orange County authorities are asking Gov. Pete Wilson to declare a state of emergency in the wake of a torrential weekend storm that caused at least $12.4 million in damage and flushed tons of mud, garbage and raw sewage into coastal waters.

But the skies were mostly dry Monday save for some drizzling, and forecasters say there is no rain in sight for the rest of the week. Sunny skies are expected today with highs in the 60s along the coast.

That was welcome news to public works crews who were shoring up storm drains, commuters who enjoyed reopened highways and expressways, and strawberry farmers who reported some crop losses.

Documenting their claim for state emergency aid, county officials tallied $9 million as the public cleanup and repair cost after an El Nino-related storm dumped as much as 8 inches of rain on parts of the county between Friday and Monday morning.

There was an additional $3.4 million in damage to homes and businesses, the county found, most of it in Huntington Beach and Laguna Beach. The Del Mar Mobile Estates park in Huntington Beach, flooded after drainage pumps were overwhelmed, sustained about $1 million in damage, a city official said.

The county Board of Supervisors is expected today to declare a state of emergency.

“The magnitude of this storm was so great that we are going to need some help from the state,” said Board of Supervisors Chairman William G. Steiner.

The supervisors’ vote is expected to be a formality. Ron Low, a spokesman for Wilson, said Monday that state officials were reviewing an initial county request for state aid.

For 193 elderly former patients at the Beverly Manor Nursing Center in Laguna Hills, such declarations were academic. They were evacuated Saturday to other skilled nursing clinics and hospitals after rainwater flooded the facility. It is not expected to fully reopen for a month.

“This downpour certainly caught us a little bit off guard,” said Barry Zarling, an executive who oversees the center. He estimated it would lose $36,000 a day in patient fees and other revenue until carpet could be replaced and the drainage repaired.

Authorities had no total of the number of homes condemned by flood damage, said Bill Reiter, head of Orange County’s storm center. The Orange County Fire Authority reported a few heavily damaged houses in the Silverado Canyon area. Laguna Beach officials reported two homes condemned and about 20 others severely damaged.

But in all, officials said, the county was spared a heavy blow of the sort that caused $48 million in damage in a historic March 1983 storm.

“We did well considering how much rain we got,” said Reiter, who credited an intense public relations blitz for prodding residents to clear their storm drains and stock up on sandbags. “The precautions the homeowners have taken and the awareness the media has given us have really benefited us.”

The storm raised the rain total recorded in Santa Ana since July 1 to 7.71 inches as of Monday morning, a high mark for this point in the season, according to weather records. The average seasonal rainfall total by Dec. 8 is 2.43 inches, said Mel Newman, an Orange County environmental resources specialist. Last year’s total was 3.93 inches.

A meteorologist for WeatherData Inc., which prepares forecasts for The Times, cautioned that the public should not jump to conclusions about El Nino--a phenomenon caused by unusually warm ocean waters--from the effect of one storm that might have been fed by it.

“That type of storm can occur in non-El Nino years, and it has in the past,” said forecaster John Sherwin. “You can get heavy rains without warm ocean waters. You have to wait and see. The effects of El Nino must be measured over time.”

The weekend storm packed a wallop for several areas of the county but spared places such as Seal Beach, scene of beachfront flooding earlier this year.

In Laguna Beach, residents and merchants spent Monday shoveling and hosing mud from storefronts and driveways. The storm left portions of the downtown business area under a foot-thick layer of mud and debris.

“I’ve been here 19 years and I’ve never seen that much rain in such a short period of time,” said Ken Frank, Laguna Beach city manager.

Two homes along Coast Highway had to be evacuated and declared unsafe after city storm drains flooded, causing a torrent of water up to 4 feet deep that eventually undermined both foundations, Frank said. Another 20 homes suffered major structural damage.

City Hall didn’t escape the storm’s wrath. As the hillside above the government center became saturated, water seeped down, creating a lake behind the building, Frank said, and causing major flooding on the first floor.

On Monday, hundreds of feet of wet, smelly carpeting was removed from City Hall while workers brought in electric fans to help dry out the building.

In San Juan Capistrano, county and city workers were still assessing the damage to a pedestrian bridge that spanned Trabuco Creek. Supports for the bridge, about three-quarters of a mile south of Del Obispo Street, were undermined by high runoff at the peak of the storm.

The bridge was closed Saturday and will remain closed during repair.

In Newport Beach, crews were cleaning up vast quantities of plastic bottles, aluminum cans and plastic cups that washed into Newport Bay with storm runoff.

In addition, more than 7 miles of beach in South County remained closed after the storm overwhelmed sewage treatment facilities and forced the release of untreated waste water into the ocean.

Trails throughout the 30,000-acre county regional park system were washed out, forcing the closure of wilderness areas for at least a week, county officials said. Repair costs could exceed $100,000.

“This was the most rain I can ever remember,” said Tim Miller, county regional parks manager. “The ground is so saturated, we can’t get heavy vehicles into the parks.”

The storm also caused some damage to crops. Several farmers around Irvine reported losing between 2 and 20 acres of mostly strawberries and small amounts of lettuce, celery and green beans.

The California Highway Patrol reported all county highways and roads in unincorporated areas clear as of Monday morning. Laguna Canyon Road between the San Diego Freeway and Coast Highway was the last to reopen at 6 a.m., said CHP Officer Bruce Mauldin.

Also contributing to this report were Times staff writers David Reyes and Daryl Strickland and correspondents Susan Deemer, Julio V. Cano, Cathy Werblin, Liz Seymour and Frank Messina.

* SIGNS OF WEAKENING?: Photos show an ebbing El Nino, but don’t count it out yet. A3

* WELL PREPARED: O.C. farmers report minimal losses from weekend storm. D1

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Rain’s Toll

The county’s coastal cities bore the brunt of heavy rainfall during last weekend’s storm, which also triggered the closure of several beaches and parks. A look at total rainfall for some cities across the county, measured from 8 a.m. Friday through Monday morning, in inches:

City: Total

Brea: 2.76

Corona del Mar: 5.94

Costa Mesa: 4.57

Dana Point: 1.89

Garden Grove: 2.72

Huntington Beach: 3.19

Laguna Beach: 8.11

Lake Forest: 7.36

Newport Beach: 6.28

San Juan Capistrano: 3.30

Santa Ana: 4.49