City plans for rainy weather

Scientists forecast a drier winter, but Huntington Beach officials are still ready for the worst.As the winter storm season approaches, city and county officials are working to prepare for upcoming rains and possible floods.

Don’t expect a winter of torrential rains, meteorologist Ivory Small of the National Weather Service said.

“Whenever we have a really wet year like the 2004-05 winter, it’s very commonly followed by a dry period,” he said.

Last winter was the third-wettest rainy season on record, said Small, and this year should be much drier. Average rainfall in the city is about 11 inches annually.

Weather forecasters and county flood-control officials are preparing to meet with members of Huntington Beach’s Emergency Operation Center next week to forecast this year’s rainy season, which begins in November and runs through early spring.

“There’s a lot of coordination that goes on between the agencies,” said Gloria Morrison, director for the Emergency Operations Center under City Hall. In the case of a catastrophic emergency like a devastating earthquake or a major flood, the command center is activated and the city’s fire chief, police chief, city administrator and other leaders are brought to the underground command center to monitor the event and dispatch help.

The center was activated last February during a heavy rainstorm that included a tornado touching down near 14th Street downtown. Most of the work done during an emergency is monitoring flood-control channels and low-lying intersections, as well as possible water damage to flood-prone areas of downtown. Residential tracts along the Santa Ana River are particularly prone to flooding, as are homes in southeast Huntington Beach near Edison High School and the north side of town near the Bolsa Chica wetlands.

In the event of a storm, the city’s all-volunteer Citizen Emergency Response Team is activated to deliver sandbags to residents while fire and public works crews monitor for flood damage. Lifeguards are dispatched to key areas of the city to aid emergency teams.

“If anyone falls in the Santa Ana River, our lifeguards will do swift rescues to pull them out,” she said. “During El Niño in 1997-98, police and fire were issued buoys and had to rescue people from flooded intersections.”

The most effective tool of Emergency Operations Center is communications technology, Morrison said. Huntington Beach was recently recognized as the first city in Orange County to earn the StormReady certification from the National Weather Service. The city operates seven siren-warning systems at its fire departments to notify residents of an emergency -- when the sirens can be heard, residents are advised to turn on their radios and listen to the Emergency Alerting System.

The city also uses weather radios and an electronic noticing system, she said. In the event of a major power failure, the city would implement its last line of defense: amateur radio operators.

“When all other systems of communication fail, the ham-radio operators are activated,” she said.

Heavy flooding generally occurs during a strong downpour over an extended period of time, utilities director Howard Johnson said.

Huntington Beach’s main line of flood defense is 49 pumps in 15 locations, ready to bail at a rate of 2.5-million gallons per minute, or two inches an hour. The pumps run on natural gas and are monitored every 30 seconds, Johnson said.

“If the pumps weren’t running, we could have three to four feet of water within 15 minutes,” said Johnson.

Dan Beighley contributed to this report.