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Posted on 11/26/2002 12:11:11 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Edited on 04/14/2004 10:05:39 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Santa Ana winds, which kicked up huge dust clouds Monday that created a haze across much of the county, will gust to 40 mph or higher today, prompting the National Weather Service to issue a red-flag warning. The advisory means forecasters expect the wind to blow 25 mph or above for sustained periods and for humidity to drop below 15 percent.
(Excerpt) Read more at 2.ocregister.com ...
By GARY ROBBINS The Santa Ana windstorm that downed trees and stirred up blinding clouds of dust Monday will wail across Orange County again today, leading firefighters to position themselves to pounce on the sort of brush fires that charred 477 acres in the Yorba Linda area last week. The region is so dry that the National Weather Service issued a red-flag alert, a warning that winds could blow 25 mph or faster for sustained periods while the humidity could drop below 15 percent. The Orange County Fire Authority has a strike team deployed at El Toro and has increased staffing for bulldozer and helicopter crews. The windstorm began Monday morning when Santa Ana winds began blowing from the desert to the sea. The winds gusted to 70 mph in Fremont Canyon, above Anaheim Hills, and to 41 mph at John Wayne Airport, where pilots had to change their takeoff direction. The wind also hit 41 mph at the Huntington Beach Pier, lifting trash barrels into the air. Some of the worst damage occurred in San Clemente, where trees fell onto a car outside the main post office and onto a house next to the municipal golf course. Mike Susoeff was stuck in traffic at the entrance to the post office on Avenida Pico at about 4:15 p.m. when the 3-foot-wide trunk of a 50-foot eucalyptus tree slammed onto his Toyota 4-Runner, crushing the rear. "Thank God I'm alive," said Susoeff, 47, who escaped injury. "It's amazing, isn't it?" he said. "If I would've just been a few inches back ... ." A couple of miles south, on Calle del Comercio, Mary Esther Lippert and her sister, Erica, heard something brushing against a window of the family's rented condominium at about 4:30 p.m. "I looked over and saw the tree come toward us," said Mary Esther, 19. "The whole house was shaking, and we rushed downstairs." When the shaking stopped, the two girls went into their parents' bedroom, which faces San Clemente Municipal Golf Course. The trunk of another eucalyptus tree - about 5 feet in diameter - had ripped a huge hole in the wall. The roof lay in splinters on the carpet, and two 4-foot-long pieces of insulation lay in the bed. The tree had stood along the sixth hole of the golf course. "Had this happened just a few hours later, it would have killed Dad," Mary Esther said. "He likes to go to bed early." Their father, Richard, 63, was at work when the tree fell. Their mother, Mary Lynn, 43, was at a grocery store with the family's youngest daughter, Kelly, 15. Kelly laughed in disbelief when her sisters called their mother to report what had happened. "I thought it was a piddly little branch that had fallen in the house," Kelly said. "Once I came in the house, I realized there was no room back there anymore." The biggest of four blackouts reported by San Diego Gas & Electric in San Clemente affected 3,917 customers and was caused by a tree branch that got stuck in power lines. Gusts also caused scattered power outages for more than 1,500 Southern California Edison customers in Tustin, Santa Ana, Huntington Beach and Brea. Authorities reported that a 12-car carport at the Ridgecrest Apartments in Lake Forest collapsed after a tree was felled by the winds. In Laguna Beach, a 25-foot eucalyptus branch fell on the roof of a house in the 300 block of El Camino Del Mar about 2:30 p.m., cracking the ceiling, Sgt. George Ramos said. No one was hurt in either incident. Commuters faced delays because of the wind. The California Highway Patrol issued a high-wind advisory Monday afternoon after a big rig jackknifed at Chapman Avenue in Fullerton, causing an hour delay on the southbound Orange (57) Freeway. Another SigAlert was issued after three 60-foot trees fell onto the Magnolia Street off-ramp on the eastbound Garden Grove (22) Freeway. The windstorm lasted throughout the day, carrying foul odors from dairy farms in the Chino area all the way to Huntington Beach. The gusts were hard and sustained enough to kick up enormous clouds of dust, which shrouded tall buildings. The particles swirled up to 2,000 feet high and were blown out to sea, where they can benefit the ecosystem. "The dust is partly composed of iron, which is an essential nutrient for phytoplankton, a key part of the marine food chain," said Keith Moore, an oceanographer at the University of California, Irvine. Most of the dust was top soil that dried out after the storm that dropped about 2 inches of rain on the county's canyons and foothills Nov. 7-9. Today's winds will help kick up 4- to 6-foot seas, making the ocean choppy from Orange County to Santa Catalina Island, where the wind gusted to 27 mph in Avalon Harbor on Monday afternoon. "My advice to boaters: Stay in port," said Stan Wasowski, a National Weather Service forecaster.
The Orange County Register
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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