Tornado-Like Winds, Rain Lash Southland

Tornado-like winds ripped up parts of Anaheim, torrential rains triggered mud slides in several places, and a 9-year-old boy was swept away in the swift current of the Los Angeles River Sunday as a powerful and fast-moving storm rumbled through Southern California.

The National Weather Service predicted more rain and wind overnight, but said things should be clearing by this afternoon--with still another storm possible before the end of the week.

Meteorologists declined to call the Anaheim windstorm a tornado.

“Tornadoes are most unusual in this part of the world,” a Weather Service official said. “We will investigate the event in Orange County and try to determine whether it was a tornado or not--but at this time we cannot confirm such a phenomenon.”

Nonetheless, tornado watches were officially in effect throughout the day for Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Santa Barbara and four other Southern California counties Sunday, and most residents of Anaheim seemed to agree on what kind of wind hit their town just before dawn.

“For want of a better term, we’re calling it a tornado,” Anaheim Public Information Officer Sheri Erlewine said.

The incident began at 5:30 a.m., when residents in East Street apartments heard loud, rapid explosions and felt heavy winds rattling their windows. Some phoned in fire reports when they saw sparks flying from power lines and bright lights in the sky.

At that moment, officials said, heavy winds bore down on a four-block area of Rose Street between Santa Ana and East streets. The storm smashed in the metal doors of several factories, shattered windows and ripped out chunks of at least eight roofs.

Dusty Switzer, a South Street resident who said she was standing outside her apartment when the storm picked up, recalled a “dark cloud . . . like a large, shaking balloon” descending over the neighborhood.

The winds “threw me to my knees,” while shingles torn from nearby apartment roofs rained down on her courtyard and electric power lines swayed back and forth, Switzer added.

Across the street, a tree was ripped from its roots and blown against a car parked in Jose Marin’s driveway. The winds then shattered his bedroom window and “scared me very badly . . . I have never heard such a sound,” Marin said.

“It was like a gun going off, bam, bam, bam, and then very strong winds,” added resident Alex Meza. “You never forget that kind of sound.”

Other neighbors awakened by the storm looked out their windows and saw chunks of Styrofoam flying through the air. Erlewine explained that the materials had blown out of containers at the Hitachi packing plant several streets away and blanketed the neighborhood for miles.

Elsewhere, powerful winds snapped an East Street “No Parking” sign in two and hurled it into the street. An apartment door was torn from its frame and blown onto a front lawn 100 feet away. Two large trucks in the Hitachi plant flipped over on their sides.

“I moved here from Colorado because you don’t have such crazy weather here,” said Switzer, as she surveyed the Styrofoam chunks blanketing her lawn like newly fallen snow. “I mean, who ever heard of a tornado in Anaheim?”

No major injuries were reported, but city officials estimated that damage could total at least $500,000.

A few hours later, however, authorities said the storm may have claimed its first life.

Police, firefighters and lifeguards were searching for a 9-year-old Compton boy, who was swept into the swift waters of the Los Angeles River.

“He was sitting in an inner tube, and just went sliding down the sloping side of the flood control channel,” Long Beach Police Lt. Norman Benson said. “We’re hoping maybe he got to the side and got up, but the longer we don’t find anything, the worse it looks.”

The inner tube was found a mile downstream, but there was no sign of the boy, who was not immediately identified.

Two men and a woman were arrested on suspicion of trespassing later in the day after they made a successful two-mile voyage in Coyote Creek. Lakewood sheriff’s deputies and La Palma police arrested the trio as they pulled their inflatable raft from the water at Cerritos Regional Park. Deputies said the rafters said they made the trip as “practice” for a wilderness rafting trip later this year.

Heavy rainfall caused a new slide of mud and rocks onto northbound lanes of Pacific Coast Highway, forcing the California Highway Patrol to close the road between Topanga Boulevard and Las Flores Canyon Road.

Power Outage

In Glendale, water overflowed from the Melwood and Campbell reservoirs after a broken water main caused a power pole to collapse, triggering a local power outage that crippled pumps at the two small reservoirs.

Glendale police spokesman Chris Loop said two hillside homes on Ridgeview Drive were evacuated after they were damaged by mud and water, and three on Cielito Drive were evacuated as a precautionary measure.

About 2,000 Department of Water and Power customers in the Eagle Rock and West Los Angeles areas were without power for several hours as a result of the storm, and the Southern California Edison Co. said about 2,000 customers in the Lake Arrowhead area were blacked out because of tree branches that fell on a major transmission line.

Flight operations at Los Angeles International Airport were slowed for a time when storm activity in the area caused air controllers to change the direction of takeoffs from west to east. Several pilots elected to stay on the ground until conditions changed and they could take off over the sea again, an airport spokeswoman said.

Rain-Soaked Parade

And in Beverly Hills, entertainer Gene Kelly was grand marshal to a rain-soaked St. Patrick’s Day Parade down a green carpeted Rodeo Drive (temporarily re-christened “Emerald Mile” for the occasion).

Such stars as James Stewart, Ernest Borgnine, Fred MacMurray, Pia Zadora, Dennis Weaver, Jennifer O’Neill, Tom Bosley, Hal Linden and Mike the Dog from the hit film “Down and Out in Beverly Hills” took part in the event--and the sun actually made a brief appearance before the last marchers arrived at the dispersal area.

But the bad weather kept all but about 2,500 to 3,000 hardy souls at home instead of lining the sidewalks, and even Grand Marshal Kelly’s spirits seemed a bit dampened.

He declined to do a reprise of “Singing In the Rain.”

RAIN IN THE REGION

Rainfall past 24 hours 2.75 in. Rainfall this month 5.27 in. Rainfall since July 1 17.41 in. Total last season 11.50 in. Normal rainfall 12.40 in.

Sunday 4 p.m. rainfall figures from Los Angeles Civic Center. Season runs July 1 to June 30.