Storm Pummels State With Rain, Snow, Gales

The south got the rain and snow, while the north got the fierce winds Thursday, as a cold front moved into California, making highways treacherous and bringing a sudden end to the local dry spell.

In Northern California, hurricane-force winds destroyed property, knocked out power to more than 300,000 homes, closed highways, tore boats and small airplanes from moorings and downed thousands of trees.

Southern California’s problems were mostly on outlying highways, as rain, snow and sleet led to numerous traffic accidents.

All north-south roads through San Luis Obispo County were closed for a time Thursday by what the National Weather Service called a “very unusual wet snowfall” that brought traffic to a virtual halt. Six inches had fallen at Santa Margarita and Cuesta Ridge above the city of San Luis Obispo on U.S. 101, while Atascadero had 4 inches and Paso Robles reported 1 to 4 inches.

By evening, the weather service was warning of snow, low visibility and wind up to 50 m.p.h. on the Ridge Route in the Tehachapis. And late Thursday night, Interstate 5 in the area known as the Grapevine was closed in both directions because of the weather.

Between 12 and 20 inches of snow were expected to fall in the Southland mountains above the 4,000-foot level, with accumulations up to 3 feet.

At least two people were killed in a collision on Interstate 15 in the Cajon Pass area, north of San Bernardino.

While the Los Angeles Civic Center was recording .85 of an inch of rain by late Thursday, snow was falling in the Santa Susana Mountains, the high desert and the San Joaquin Valley, as well as in the Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo area, bringing what meteorologist Pat Cooper of WeatherData Inc., which furnishes forecasts to The Times, called “an early white Christmas.”

Cooper said a low-pressure system was parked just off Point Conception, drawing Pacific moisture around it counterclockwise and dumping it on Southern California. By the time that flow had wrapped around the low to reach Northern California, it was coming out of the north and northeast--and lashing the area with high winds.

“There is a lot of cold air with these wintertime lows,” she said.

Only a week ago, a low-pressure system was centered over Baja California, drawing powerful winds into the Southland as a high-pressure area was situated over Utah.

Cooper said it appears that today and Saturday will bring “more of the same,” as the offshore low refuses to budge much, but that it may begin to drift west on Sunday.

The National Weather Service predicted “considerable cloudiness” through Saturday, with showers and isolated thundershowers likely.

Los Angeles Civic Center high temperatures are expected to be in the mid to upper 50s today.

Thursday’s Civic Center high reached 56 degrees after an overnight low of 53. Relative humidity ranged from 96% to 83%.

The .85 of an inch of rain at the Civic Center brought the season’s total to 1.64 inches, well below the normal season-to-date reading of 3.29 inches.

Coastal areas of the Southland will receive .75 to 2 inches of rain before the storm ends, forecasters said.

There were dozens of traffic accidents in snowy Cajon Pass, including one that took two lives. The freeway was closed to all commercial vehicles and, by afternoon, California Highway Patrol officers were escorting passenger vehicles through the pass in groups. Many motorists had to wait as long as two hours.

Southern California Edison Co. reported about 14,000 customers without power in Ontario, Redlands and Ventura, while the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power had about 800 customers--mostly in the San Pedro area--blacked out.

In Los Angeles, the cold and rain prompted officials to put the city’s shelter program for the homeless into effect for the first time since last March. Vouchers for hotel rooms were being distributed by the Community Development Department through various private organizations.

Some of the homeless were being housed at the Elysian Park Recreation Center at 929 Academy Road.

In Orange County, two National Guard armories in Santa Ana and Fullerton were opened to the homeless.

To the north, meanwhile, a 3-year-old boy, Oli Ashgar, was killed in an apartment fire that was started by a candle being used because of a power outage in Berkeley. His father and 6-year-old sister suffered burns, but his mother and two young brothers were unhurt.

Winds up to 100 m.p.h. were reported in the higher elevations of the East Bay hills, and gusts up to 86 m.p.h. were clocked on Mt. Diablo, 40 miles east of San Francisco.

The National Weather Service said winds gusted up to 54 m.p.h. on the Golden Gate Bridge and 67 m.p.h. at Travis Air Force Base, about 40 miles northeast of San Francisco.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. said more than 302,000 customers lost power for varying lengths of time because of downed power lines and utility poles falling into homes or across highways. Numerous small fires were set off by the wires.

Many homes reportedly were damaged by falling trees in Sonoma, which was described by resident Sandy Hanson as “a war zone or disaster area.”

She said, “There is debris everywhere. . . . Our fences and trees are down.”

Winds ripped down San Francisco outdoor Christmas decorations, littering the streets with debris and just plain garbage.

In the northern part of San Francisco Bay, a barge was blown into the San Rafael-Richmond bridge, dumping its load of rocks. The span’s tower was not damaged.

Many small boats were left adrift in San Francisco Bay.

Times staff writer Nieson Himmel in Los Angeles and Times researcher Norma Kaufman in San Francisco contributed to this article.