Cold Snap to Last Through Weekend; Many Fill Shelters

Southern California will be slow to warm up this weekend after the biting cold that prompted Friday night freeze alerts, filled rescue missions to capacity and threatened to damage crops.

The National Weather Service warned that the extreme dryness of the “very cold” air mass lingering over the Southland would lead to “rapid and significant cooling” of all areas overnight with temperatures dropping into the low or mid-20s in most wind-sheltered agricultural areas.

“Temperatures will be below freezing in many parts of the Los Angeles Basin Saturday morning,” weather service forecaster Bob Grebe said.

‘Near Record-Breaking’

He got no argument from meteorologist Cary Schudy of the private, San Francisco-based Earth Environment Service. Schudy said it was going to be “near record-breaking cold” both Friday night and tonight with the expected warming trend hardly noticeable until late Sunday.

He blamed the cold wave on a very strong low-pressure area over the Great Basin and Southwest deserts as well as a high-pressure system over the Pacific Northwest. The winds just moved from high to low, he said, drawing arctic air all the way to the Mexican border.

In Orange County, the cold snap posed a threat to the $62-million strawberry industry, damaged plants in nurseries and kept rescue missions packed.

In Los Angeles, as they had been on Thursday, all downtown missions were filled to capacity with homeless people on Friday night.

“They’re banging on the door at night,” said John Young at the Union Rescue Mission. The Salvation Army said it would add a second mobile soup kitchen to patrol Skid Row areas of Los Angeles for the duration of the cold snap. Mayor Tom Bradley joined the officials of the Salvation Army and the Los Angeles City Fire Department in a plea for donations of blankets to be distributed from those vehicles. Donors can leave them at any city fire station, they said.

Bradley said liability problems made it impossible to open city buildings to the homeless at night.

Southern California Gas Co. customers set an apparent all-time record by burning an estimated 4.9 billion cubic feet of natural gas Friday. “That’s the highest it’s ever been,” said company spokesman Rich Puz.

“A week from now, when the weather is warmer,” Puz added, “people will wonder why their gas bills are so high. They forget how cold it’s been. We just like to advise people to expect higher-than-normal gas bills.”

Freeze Warning

A freeze warning was issued Friday night for all Southern California coastal valleys, intermediate valleys and coastal areas in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.

Weekend high temperatures in Orange County are expected to be between 54 and 62 degrees, the National Weather Service said. The high Friday in Santa Ana was 53 degrees after an overnight low of 34.

North to northeast winds, 15 to 25 m.p.h. with local gusts to 40 m.p.h. are expected below passes and canyons in Orange County today.

Travelers advisories were issued for the deserts and mountains, where strong winds were expected. Southern California mountains will be “extremely cold,” the weather service said, with the mercury dropping to zero at higher elevations overnight and resort area high temperatures of only 24 to 34 degrees today. On Sunday, they will rise to 38.

Growers were warned to protect citrus, avocados, strawberries and other tender trees and plants from the bitter overnight cold. In most of Southern California, there was relatively little crop damage reported after the chilly weather of the night before, however.

Possible Damage

In Orange County, Deputy Agricultural Commissioner Wayne Appel said there might have been some damage to strawberries as well as to wholesale nursery stock in the Carbon Canyon area.

John Manning of the Los Angeles County agricultural commissioner’s office said it appeared that most Los Angeles County growers escaped serious trouble, even though there were unofficial reports of temperatures as low as 24 degrees in the Pomona area.

The big concern, Manning said, was for strawberries, whose blooms and small fruit are easy prey to frost. Many growers, according to Manning, saved their crops by running sprinklers, which cover the plants with comparatively warm water.

In Riverside County, county agricultural biologist John Snyder said there were some reports of minor damage to the bell pepper crop in the Coachella Valley and an expectation of some harm to the potato crop in the Hemet area.

Officials in all three counties noted that Friday night was expected to be colder.

‘Could Be Critical’

“That could be critical,” Snyder said. “That could involve citrus, where there’s much still to be harvested.”

He predicted that growers would be busy with wind machines to keep the frost from settling.

With San Diego County temperatures expected to fall to 34 degrees, growers there were warned for the first time in many years to pick what crops they could--especially avocados. Many of them did.

San Diego tied the record set in 1888 for the lowest maximum temperature reading on a Jan. 16 with a chilly high of 53 degrees at Lindbergh Field. The anticipated overnight low of 34 would also tie the record set in 1888 for the lowest reading recorded on a Jan. 17.

Woman Dies in Cold

In southern Nevada, where the wind chill factor was near zero, a vagrant woman apparently froze to death overnight while sleeping with her husband in the desert, authorities said. She was identified as Anna Morris, 52, who was wrapped inside a light blanket while sleeping on the ground on the east side of Las Vegas.

Her husband, Roland Morris, 61, said the couple had asked a friend if they could sleep in his house because of the freezing temperatures, but were refused.

Officials said many vagrants arrive in Las Vegas during the winter months and have packed shelters as the cold wave moved in. Some shelters had to turn people away.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Lily Eng in Orange County and Kathy Bozanich in San Diego County.