Decade’s First Storm Fails to Relieve Drought

Lightning bolts and cracks of thunder announced the arrival of a winter storm Tuesday that brought up to three-quarters of an inch of rain to drought-stricken Orange County and lightly dusted the Saddleback peaks with snow.

The first storm of the new decade accounted for a rash of traffic accidents, including an eight-car collision on the San Diego Freeway near Harbor Boulevard just before dawn.

While every drop helps, rainfall fell far short of the amounts experts say are needed to replenish county water supplies and alleviate the unusually dry conditions so far this season.

“If we get 40 more days and nights of this, it will be great,” said Stan Sprague, general manager of the Municipal Water District of Orange County. “It was a nice rain, but we need considerably more of the same type of rain to have an impact on the drought.

“A good snow pack up in the local mountains will be more important. Once the rain hits the flatland, there’s not a whole lot of ways to capture it.”

Tim Skrove, spokesman for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, said the showers “will dampen people’s demand for water usage considerably over the next week or two, but it really was not that much rainfall.”

From its entrance over Orange County late on New Year’s Day until clearing Tuesday morning, the storm brought rainfall in amounts ranging from .31 inches in Fullerton and Yorba Linda to .67 inches in Huntington Beach, according to county flood control officials.

Other readings included .59 inches in Anaheim, .35 inches in Santa Ana and .63 inches in San Juan Capistrano. The El Toro Marine Corps Air Station reported .43 inches.

County Public Works spokesman Pete Dalquist said the storm did not create any major problems for the county’s flood control systems.

About the only major effect of the storm was felt on rain-slick streets and freeways. A rash of fender-benders kept law enforcement officers busy.

California Highway Patrol spokesman Keith Thornhill said the Santa Ana office that normally handles three or four minor accidents at any time suddenly faced more than double the usual workload.

“You just keep working,” Thornhill said. “You go from one to the next and do the major ones first.”

Fortunately for the officers, he said, none of the many accidents involved major injuries. Some injuries were reported, however, in the eight-car pileup that started at 5:15 a.m. and involved a series of separate crashes over the next 15 minutes in the rain on the southbound San Diego Freeway.

It began when a car driven by Doris Ann Roberts, 41, of Fountain Valley, was splashed with water, causing it to spin out of the car-pool lane. Another driver swerved in attempting to avoid Roberts’ car, but struck it anyway and ended up in the fast lane.

Then six other drivers came along--some two at a time--and struck the other vehicles. In all, five people received minor injuries, CHP spokesman Angel Johnson said.