Storms Drench State, Renew Slide Threat

Two unexpectedly heavy storm fronts rolled across the state Friday, whipping soggy Southern California with gusty winds, downing power lines, triggering freeway pileups and stirring renewed fears for residents of fire-blackened hillsides and canyons.

Three people had to leap into the stormy Pacific from a 120-foot yacht as it was smashed against rocks and sank just off Dana Point in Orange County. And in San Bernardino County, three members of a Texas family were found dead in the wreckage of a light plane that crashed in heavy fog.

Avalanche Kills One

In Northern California, where the storms clogged mountain roads with snow and pounded lower levels with intense rain, a Friday afternoon avalanche roared down on a ski run at the Sugar Bowl resort in the Sierra, burying at least two skiers and killing one of them.

Richard Williams, 19, of San Anselmo escaped unhurt. More than 50 people immediately began probing the snow with poles for the other skier, who was not identified, and an hour and half later pulled him from the slide and rushed him to Tahoe Forest Hospital in Truckee, where he died a short time later.

Rains apparently caused the ground to shift beneath a retaining wall at a Pasadena town house complex, where cracks suddenly appeared in the wall, porches pulled away from the eight-unit structure and door frames separated from doors.

Residents were ordered out by the Pasadena Fire Department.

“We’re expecting the worst,” Battalion Chief Pete Butler said, “so we’ve planned for the worst on the off chance the building will collapse.”

The Red Cross was arranging to put residents up in a Pasadena hotel for the night.

Although National Weather Service forecasters had looked for no more than possible drizzles on Thanksgiving Day, the upper air pattern crossed them up by shifting and opening the gate for storm systems from the Gulf of Alaska.

After a one-two punch Thursday night and Friday, there should be a weekend break of sorts before yet another siege rolls in about Monday. That storm, forecaster Stan Massey said, “looks like a wet one.”

As the second front moved down on Southern California Friday afternoon to blast the Los Angeles International Airport area with heavy rain and winds up to 52 m.p.h., the weather service issued high-wind warnings for mountain and desert areas. Snow was expected at the 4,000-foot level in the northern areas and to 6,000 feet in the southern ranges. Winds and blowing snow were expected to cut visibility severely.

Winds gusting to 50 m.p.h. were reported in some northern mountain and desert areas of the Southland.

Rain should taper off locally this morning, the forecasters said.

Brief Sunshine Due

Today should be sunny and even a little warmer--until the possible new round of showers by the first of the week.

The holiday weekend’s first weather front, which swept into the Southland on Thursday night, had dumped .78 of an inch of rain on downtown Los Angeles by Friday evening, bringing the season total to 3.52 inches, compared to a normal to date of 2.39 and a total last year to date of 2.22.

The high at the Civic Center was 61. The low was 53. Relative humidity ranged from 93% to 81%.

Los Angeles International Airport had 1.64 inches of rain by late afternoon. Big Bear Lake reported 1.40 inches; Avalon, 1.58; Long Beach, 1.77; Mt. Wilson, 2.02; Newport Beach, 1.26.; Pasadena 1.08; San Gabriel, .82; Santa Ana, 1.81; Santa Monica, 1.04, and Torrance, 1.75.

The big worry Friday was for Ventura and Santa Barbara counties and for the Malibu area, scenes of big brush fires in recent weeks and last summer. Although some minor mud and rock slides were reported in Ventura County early Friday, by afternoon there been no major problems.

‘Serious’ Slides Feared

The weather service warned, however, that the Wheeler burn area in Ventura County already had absorbed more than an inch of rain by noon Friday and that if it were hit hard enough by the second front coming through Friday evening, “sliding and mud flows could become serious.”

At the Malibu sheriff’s station, a deputy said at mid-afternoon that “strangely enough, there’s been virtually nothing” in the way of slide problems--so far.

There was a rash of highway accidents, including a mid-morning 10-car smashup on the San Bernardino Freeway at Santa Anita Avenue in South El Monte. At least three people were taken to Greater El Monte Community Hospital for treatment of injuries. Most eastbound lanes were shut for about an hour, the California Highway Patrol said.

Other accidents included the collision of a semi-truck and a van on the northbound Golden State Freeway about a mile north of Lake Hughes, where one lane had to be closed for an hour, and an overturned truck on the northbound San Diego Freeway at Pico Boulevard. There were no fatalities reported.

Off Dana Point, 21-year-old San Clemente resident Frank Wouters and his two passengers, Alan Owings, 19, of Irvine and Melinda Baxter, 16, of San Clemente, had to leap from Wouters’ 82-year-old Danish barkentine, Perseus, when it struck the rocks.

Struck by Falling Rigging

Sheriff’s deputies rescued them and Baxter was taken by ambulance to San Clemente General Hospital for treatment of a cut over her eye, facial scrapes and a possible concussion. She was struck by falling rigging.

Wouters had purchased the boat in late October for $30,000. It was anchored outside the Dana Point breakwater Friday when sheriff’s deputies suggested that Wouters have it towed inside the harbor because of the weather. Before he could do so, it slammed into the rocks and by afternoon was nothing but kindling.

Fog was blamed in the deaths of three members of a wealthy Texas family whose small plane crashed in the Highland area near San Bernardino, less than a mile from the house where they were to have Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends.

Deputy San Bernardino County Coroner Bob Rubidoux identified the victims as Norman Bailey, 42, described as a self-made millionaire; his wife, Glennis, 37, and their son, Russell, 15. Their bodies were found late Thursday by hikers in the foothills about five miles north of Highland.

The hikers--a father and son--went by coincidence to the house where Norman Bailey’s parents and friends were eating Thanksgiving dinner and asked to use the phone to report the plane crash. It was hours before the relatives knew for sure that the bodies were those of the Bailey family.

Warned About Weather

A San Bernardino County sheriff’s helicopter pilot said the single-engine four-seat Cessna 177 crashed into the side of a mountain sometime Wednesday night. It reportedly took off earlier that day from Dumas, Tex., where the Baileys lived.

Norman Bailey had called his mother in Highland from Prescott, Ariz., during a refueling stop and she warned him about the weather, but he decided to continue the flight anyway.

To the north, the storms prompted a high-wind warning in the southern San Joaquin Valley and in the Tehachapis of Kern County as the fronts swept through, dumping heavy rain, uprooting trees, downing power lines and knocking all three Fresno network television stations off the air with transmitter problems. An estimated 30,000 Bakersfield residents were without power for the day.

Rock slides caused problems on several roads in the Sierra foothills, and there was flooding from Madera to Kings counties. California 33 was closed for a time at Coalinga because of a fallen tree and a downed power pole.

The California Highway Patrol had to shut a 30-mile stretch of U.S. 50 near South Lake Tahoe because of snow. Several other roads in the area had to be closed and chains were ordered on other routes.

Troubles for Skiers

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. reported numerous power lines downed and small outages in various parts of the Sierra.

As the second front moved across the state on Friday, there were high-wind warnings from San Francisco to Santa Maria. A third storm was expected to hit the northern part of the state over the weekend, after a brief break, then work its way south.

Valley Blackout

Gusty winds caused power outages Friday for more than 2,000 San Fernando Valley homes, including some in the Sherman Oaks-Bel-Air area, Canoga Park-Woodland Hills area and Chatsworth, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power reported.

About 9,000 DWP customers in several areas were still without power at nightfall.

More than 5,500 Southern California Edison Co. customers were without power for varying lengths of time in the Orange County communities of Irvine, Fullerton, Newport Beach and Costa Mesa.

Utility companies also reported outages in Rancho Palos Verdes, Weschester and downtown Los Angeles lasting from one to three hours.

Times staff writers Eric Malnic and Patt Morrison in Los Angeles and Maria L. La Ganga, Dina L. Heredia and David Reyes in Orange County contributed to this article.