One Damp Thing After Another

• Share

Four California storms splinter homes and wash out highways

The storm started in the Gulf of Alaska and lumbered southward toward California, gaining force and intensity. By the time it punched into the coast of the nation's most populous state at midweek, it carried driving rains, 15-ft. waves and 50-m.p.h. winds. The raging surf and rain washed away beaches and chunks of highways, sent mud cascading down hillsides and shattered piers and houses. During one eleven-hour stretch, Los Angeles got two inches of rain. "We usually don't get two inches of rain in a month," said National Weather Service Specialist Frankie Shaw. By week's end four separate storms had battered the coastline, leaving eleven people dead and thousands of homes damaged.

One dramatic scene came shortly after dawn on Thursday when 150 feet of San Diego's Crystal Pier toppled into the sea. High surf also washed away a restaurant and the harbor master's quarters on the 1,200-ft. Santa Monica pier. Beachfront houses in the communities of Venice, San Diego, Seal Beach, Ventura and Sunset Beach were extremely hard-hit. In the exclusive Malibu colony, waves left the homes of Film Stars Bruce Dern, Burgess Meredith and Dyan Cannon awash with debris. "I knew it was all over," said Colony Resident Becky Ilagen, "when I saw the hot tub sail by into the ocean."

Governor George Deukmejian declared four counties disaster areas: Los Angeles and San Diego in the south, San Mateo and Marin in the north. Some intrepid souls used surfboards to negotiate flooded streets. Others sandbagged their homes. Cleanup crews frantically cleared tree limbs and tried to keep drains open, but even as the week's fourth major rainstorm was spending itself, forecasters were warning of more bad weather. Still, little seemed to dampen the spirits of fans attending Sunday's Super Bowl game in Pasadena, though city officials had to do a lot of scrambling. Because the golf course usually reserved for parking at the Rose Bowl was too soggy to use, for instance, they had to convert streets surrounding the stadium into makeshift parking lots. Otherwise, 10,000 or so cars that would normally be parked there might have sunk up to their hubcaps on the fairways.