Despite Sunny Skies, Storm Leaves Legacy

Toppling trees and sliding earth revealed just how soggy the San Fernando Valley still is.

The Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety said that as of Wednesday, inspectors had visited 190 sites of suspected weather damage to private property, red-tagged 25 buildings as unfit to be occupied, and counted 72 slope failures, 30 mudflows and 20 retaining-wall failures. Total damage was estimated at $4.5 million.

In Granada Hills, a 50-foot eucalyptus tree fell Tuesday night, damaging a house and two cars and destroying another.

“It just barely missed my head,” said George Horvath, who was home in the 17600 block of Los Alimos Street when the tree fell. “Another few feet and I don’t know what would have happened.”

The tree damaged Horvath’s car, his wife, Vina’s, car and a tenant’s rental car.

Metrolink said commuter rail service between Lancaster and downtown Los Angeles, halted due to mud that covered the tracks Monday, was expected to resume this morning.