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Horse owner Judy Coover led a foal to safety in the flooded Tijuana River Valley yesterday.
The dry season that long-range forecasters had predicted for Southern California has taken a sharp turn toward very wet.
Yesterday, the second storm in three days battered the region, forcing dramatic rescues from floodwaters near the border and causing the death of a man in Tijuana.
San Diego has had more than twice its normal rainfall for the season. Although residents should catch a break over the next few days, the rainy pattern might be in place through the end of month, the National Weather Service said.
Yesterday's storm pounded every part of the region.
In the flooded Tijuana River Valley, 21 residents, ranch hands and horse owners were rescued from homes, ranches and the tops of cars by San Diego lifeguards and Border Patrol agents. Seventy horses were saved.
Three men were taken to Scripps Memorial Hospital Chula Vista to be treated for hypothermia, said Maurice Luque, a spokesman for the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department.
Three horses drowned, and a fourth had to be euthanized because of a leg injury it suffered when it tried to escape rising floodwaters, Luque said.
“They were in their pens, and we couldn't get them out,” said Kirk Coles, who works at a ranch on Hollister Street and Monument Road. “The water rushed in and we couldn't get the gates open, and they were trapped.”
Of the 21 people rescued, six stranded at a house were evacuated
Coles said he and his wife, Kim Warriner, worked in water up to their armpits to get horses out of their pens and to higher ground. Late yesterday afternoon, Warriner and Coles fed about 40 horses they rescued and were regrouping after a long day.
“It was crazy,” Warriner said. “People lost goats, dogs, horses. The firemen told us we have to get shots because we were in this dirty water all day. But we can't get out. We're going to have a lot of sick horses and a lot of sick people around here.”
Luque said it appeared to the helicopter crew that debris had dammed the Tijuana River in several places, causing the water to flow over banks.
Flood control channels also appeared clogged, although at least one channel was cleared last week, then again Tuesday night by city of San Diego crews in anticipation of yesterday's storm. But debris quickly jammed the channels again, leading to more flooding.
In Tijuana, the rain led to the closure of major highways, the displacement of dozens of families and the death of a man who was swept away in a swollen creek in the southern part of the city, police said. Another man was reported missing.
In many Tijuana neighborhoods, flooding and mudslides endangered homes. Families were evacuated and will not return home soon, city officials said.
In the San Diego County mountains, snow and ice forced the closure of Interstate 8 east of Alpine. San Felipe Road, between state routes 78 and 79 east of the mountains, was also closed because of an accident and snow.
Snow was reported as low as 3,200 feet, forecaster Stan Wasowski said. A foot and half was reported in some places.
Mark Stadsklev, an Alaska Bush pilot and nature photographer who is spending the winter near Julian, said he was without power yesterday afternoon.
“The irony is, come down here and get stuck in a place without power,” Stadsklev said.
San Diego Gas & Electric reported that more than 5,000 customers – most of them in the mountains – lost power. Some of the outages were not weather-related.
Minor flooding closed roads in Ramona, Lakeside, San Marcos, Mission Valley, Valley Center and in the Fallbrook-Bonsall area, said Michael Drake, spokesman for the county Department of Public Works.
“Monday was pretty frantic, but today is even more so,” Drake said yesterday.
From midnight to 10 p.m., 282 accidents were reported on freeways and roads. Typically, 50 to 75 crashes are reported in the county during a 24-hour period.
In Oceanside, firefighters worked to contain fuel that oozed out of the rain-soaked soil near Oceanside Boulevard and Crouch Street.
Oceanside Battalion Chief Rob Dunham said the fluid surfaced near storm drains while San Diego Gas & Electric was trenching nearby.
He said it didn't appear that any of the nearby property owners were responsible for the spill, which he described as “a few gallons.”
Fire and hazardous materials crews from Oceanside, Camp Pendleton and San Diego soaked up the purple fluid with absorbent mats to prevent it from flowing through the drains into nearby Loma Alta Creek.
Students from Challenger and Pacific Beach middle schools on a trip to Camp Palomar were snowed in, but they were expected to return home early today, school officials said.
The 266 students arrived at the camp Monday for the traditional sixth-grade camp. They were all safe and warm and having a good time, said Christine Gomen, principal of Palomar Outdoor School.
“They're having a ball,” she said. “For some of these students, this is the first time they've seen snow.”
More than a foot of snow fell on Palomar Mountain. Scott Kardel, spokesman for the Palomar Observatory who lives on the mountain, said the snow was accumulating as fast as he could shovel it.
“I've seen snowfalls bigger than this, but probably not this early in the season,” Kardel said.
Lindbergh Field, San Diego's official weather station, recorded 1.45 inches of rain in the 24-hour period ending at 4 p.m. yesterday. Alpine had 2 inches.
Daily rainfall records were set in Ramona, which had 1.76 inches, and at Brown Field, which had 1.65 inches.
Alpine (49 degrees), Campo (41), Vista (51), Wild Animal Park (51) and Oceanside Harbor (49) all set records for the lowest temperatures for Dec. 17.
Storms hit Southern California this week because high pressure that usually shields the West Coast in the late fall moved into the central Pacific, forecaster Wasowski said. This week's pattern is similar to what is usually seen in January, he said.
The weather service expects a mostly sunny day today and no rain through Sunday, but two storms could arrive next week – the first as early as Monday. Wasowski said that unlike this week's storms, next week's rains should hit Northern California harder than Southern California. But the overall rainy pattern should persist until at least the beginning of January, he said.
Klaus Wolter, a climate researcher at the University of Colorado and for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Western Water Assessment team, said last month that developing La Niña conditions favored a drier-than normal winter in Southern California.
Wolter noted that San Diego had a very wet January last winter, but the multiyear drought reasserted itself in February and March, and the year ended up dry.
“You are surely ahead of last year's pace, but a dry rest of the winter could still spoil the fun,” Wolter said.
“Overall, the (this week's) rain is pretty good news for California. I'm always happy when I make a dry forecast and it turns out the other way around,” Wolter said.
Staff writers Michael Burge, Gregory Gross, Jose Luis Jimenéz, Anne Krueger, Angelica Martinez, Matthew Rodriguez, Susan Shroder and Janine Zúñiga contributed to this report.
Storm prompts flooding, rescues
