Enough Sun for Some Fun : Rain-Battered Residents Come Out to Play as Storms Finally Let Up

As the sun peeked out of the clouds for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, hundreds of people, including bored kids, golfers and sun-seekers, headed to recreation areas to absorb some blue skies.

Though scattered showers and even a little bit of hail marred some areas Sunday, much of the day was dry, giving weather-soaked Southern Californians a reprieve from the rain.

About 75 golfers braved mud and puddles to splash through 18 holes at the Encino course on the still partly flooded Sepulveda Golf Complex in the Sepulveda Basin.

“You’d be surprised how many people come out here and play when it’s raining,” said Pete Fry, an employee at the complex.

About 200 players usually are out on a good Sunday, she said, but the rains did not stop avid golfers.

“With the mud, it’s easier because you get to pick (the ball) up and clean it before you hit. . . . I always move it closer,” confessed Steven Haber, 46, of Encino.

Indeed, ball-cleaning devices were used almost as often as golf clubs. “We’re playing ‘lift and wipe’ as they call it,” said Todd Basse, 32, of Canoga Park, who wore watertight shoes.

On the fairways, yellow tape warned players away from deep mud, as cleanup crews hosed away shallower mud to give the buried grass another chance at life.

At the park next to the George C. Page Museum at the La Brea tar pits, Tom Dunlap and his wife, Sherry Bonanno, took their sons, 8-year-old Thomas and 3-year-old Justin, out to play and to get out of the house.

Dunlap said he kept his boys busy during the barrage of rain with “lots of cartoons and video games.” Both boys were happy to be out in the sun. While Justin blazed up and down the hill in his miniature motorized car, Thomas raced along the park sidewalks on roller-blades.

Cheviot Hills Park also was filled--not only with parents unleashing their kids onto wet grass but also with dirty rugby players, delighting in the mud left over from the rain.

East Coast natives such as Susan Nemetz, unused to rain in Los Angeles, yearned for home, finding this rain worse than snow. “I’d rather have snow than rain,” said Nemetz, who had been whistling as she pushed her son, Joseph, in his stroller. “At least you can go out in the snow and play.”

Nemetz, like other park visitors, said that being stuck in the house made her feel “cabin feverish.”

Helen Sheer said she was ill-prepared for the rain. “Living here in Los Angeles, we are just not ready for this type of weather,” said Sheer, who was walking her poodle, Aldo. “It’s been years since we had rain like this.”

Sheer’s teen-age son, Brandon, was happy to get out of the house and fly his kite. “I hated (being stuck inside),” he said. “I was just sitting at home watching TV.”

In Malibu, a town virtually cut off from the rest of the Southland for the last week because of the storms, people began venturing out again to local hot spots.

Gladstone’s for Fish, a well-known eatery overlooking the ocean, was expecting about 1,000 diners Sunday--less than a third of its normal weekend pace, but still a sharp increase over the sagging turnouts of recent days.

Closed-off roads and two big football games on television didn’t boost business, said Gladstone’s manager, Dominic Renda, but the clearing of debris from beach and roads probably did.

The glimpses of sun also brought several thousand people out to area beaches, which virtually had been deserted for the last week.

Mounting winds and rain squalls kept larger crowds off the sands, but Los Angeles County lifeguard Capt. Russ Walker said, “There’s quite a few strollers around, some joggers . . . we’ve got surfers and some boating activity.”

Last week’s powerful storms took 11 lives, inflicted $300 million in damage and caused floods that forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes.

Curtis Brack of WeatherData, which provides forecasts to The Times, said today and the next few days will be dry and partly cloudy.

Times staff writer Eric Lichtblau contributed to this story.