N. California Rains Continue

GUERNEVILLE, Calif — Rain let up along the flooded Russian River Thursday but continued to fall steadily elsewhere in Northern California, prompting Gov. Pete Wilson to declare emergencies in 26 counties as surging rivers washed out roads, covered farmland and forced residents to flee their homes.

Authorities ordered 15,000 people in the region south of Sacramento to evacuate as the serene Consumnes River jumped its banks and morphed into a flowing sea that swamped homes and ranches, swept across California 99 and forced closure of Interstate 5.

Meanwhile, south of Lake Tahoe the Alpine County seat of Markleeville was virtually marooned. The warm snow-eating rain halted skiing at Mammoth Mountain, while several reservoirs swollen by runoff strained at maximum capacity. And both Yosemite and Sequoia-King National Parks became inaccessible if beautiful islands as rising water washed out their main access roads but created new waterfalls.

The first California fatality of the storms was reported when Trinity County officials recovered the body of Robert Ryan, a Trinity Center resident whose car went off a bridge on New Year’s Eve. But three hikers missing on Mount Shasta since Dec. 26 were found safe and in good shape.

The day’s major drama--complete with dramatic helicopter rescue missions and stranded cows mooing as muddy water lapped at their hoofs--occurred south of Sacramento in the town of Wilton, where the relentless waters broke a levee on the Consumnes River. At one point, the river was measured at 19 feet--seven feet above flood level.

“Evacuate immediately. Get out of the area,” Bob Thomas, the Sacramento County executive, urged in an afternoon television broadcast.

Two men who were trapped atop their car for more than a hour were rescued by a National Guard helicopter.

The crisis took disaster officials by surprise. The “Pineapple Express” off the Pacific that had pounded the region for a week had subsided in some areas by early Thursday, lulling some into letting down their guard. But even without fresh downpours, the rivers continued to rise, as runoff from earlier rain and melting snow gushed down from the mountains.

Just two days into January, the Northern California watershed had received fully 93% of its average rainfall total for the month--and there was no way the saturated ground could absorb it all. Thus the Consumnes, Feather, American and Sacramento rivers were all running at or above maximum capacity--leaving disaster officials hoping--”no, we’re frankly praying”--that the runoff will slow down, said Bill Draper, a spokesman for the joint state and federal flood center in Sacramento.

“The more water we have, the less control we have, and lately, we’ve been stretched right to the limit,” Draper added.

Rains Should Be Subsiding

Though another storm is lurking near Hawaii, ready to swing into California over the weekend, meteorologist Jon Erdman predicted only scattered, relatively light rainfall for the next few days. “There will be hit and miss showers, but nothing like the intense rains they’ve been getting in the Sierras,” said Erdman of WeatherData Inc., which supplies forecasts for The Times. “It looks like things are finally winding down.”

Winding down for storm watchers, maybe--but not for disaster officials.

Draper said the web of rivers around Sacramento and into the San Joaquin Valley will be “of concern--and I mean serious concern--for at least another 48 to 72 hours,” or until the waterlogged foothills finish draining most of their runoff. “If the sun came out tomorrow, and it was a beautiful sunny day, we’d still have flood threats,” he said.

Amid the general gloom--and the pockets of sheer panic--there was some good news Thursday. The flooded Russian and Napa rivers through the wine country subsided, though edgy residents still had plenty of muck to clean out of their homes.

And in Yosemite, some 900 tourists who shunned a convoy out of the park Wednesday plucked a rainbow out of the washout, marveling at the spectacular waterfalls that appeared overnight.

“We are not having a flood,” concessions worker Chet Brooks said with a chuckle. “We are having an aquatic inconvenience with a beautiful upside.”

But the storms were no joking matter for the authorities who regulate California’s dams. With reservoirs at or near maximum capacity, water officials anxiously debated how much water to release. As they well knew, they needed to spill water to preserve the reservoirs--but doing so could cause flooding or destruction downstream.

At Shasta Dam, for example, federal officials released water at just half the rate it was flowing in, in hopes of easing pressure on the reservoir without overwhelming the Sacramento River.

“So far, it’s been doing pretty well,” said Lynnette Wirth, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

But with the water level creeping up above 95% of capacity in the reservoir, Wirth said officials will likely have to open the dam gates wider today, even at the risk of destroying some agricultural pumps, storage shacks and houseboats downstream.

The delicate task of determining how much water to hold and how much to release is as much art as science, as much gut feel as number crunching. Though satellite monitors help a bit, the primary technology for monitoring water flow is the human eye, water officials said.

Through the muck and the rain, observers trudge around watching the reservoirs, streams, dams and levees that are supposed to keep California in drinking water but out of floods. They search for telltale signs that a river is about to bust out of its channel--slow seepage, or bubbling geysers, or wind battering away at the soil along the banks.

This current storm has caused so many troublesome pockets that supervisors have had to call retired flood-fighters back into active duty, said Joyce Tokita, a spokeswoman for the Department of Water Resources. “They’ve recruited everyone,” she added. “They’re really short-handed.”

At Folsom Dam east of Sacramento, just getting the gates open was quite a task since one of them had been deliberately jammed with giant logs during repairs. Using huge cranes, officials managed to hoist the logs, freeing the spillway and allowing them to release 115,000 cubic feet of water a second, Wirth said.

With the pride of a grandma bragging about a precocious grandson, Wirth said that the dam appears to be holding its own, despite an extraordinarily heavy influx of water. “I call Folsom the little dam that could,” she said.

Nonetheless, authorities in the Flood Center in Sacramento continued to warily monitor Folsom, Shasta and the giant Oroville dam on the Feather River. Nearly all the rain water and snow melt in Northern California, including spill-off from these major dams, ultimately drains into the Sacramento and the San Joaquin rivers.

“We are looking at a very tense situation,” said David Kennedy, director of the state Department of Water Resources. “There is still danger in the Feather River.”

Damage from the storms has not yet been tallied, but horror stories already abound.

* The town of Guerneville, on the Russian River, lost its only grocery store, as the local Safeway was flooded and will be closed indefinitely. At King’s Sporting Goods and Tackle Store, owner Steve Jackson predicted that his business, too, will suffer even though he did not incur water damage.

“We’re right in the middle of our steelhead trout season,” he said. “We won’t be selling much fishing tackle now.” Most of the town’s resorts, he noted, had suffered heavy flood damage and would probably be closed for weeks or months.

* Elsewhere in Sonoma County, Asst. Agricultural Commissioner John Westoby predicted at least $3 million in crop damage. Swirling river currents can rip out grape vines or trellises, he said. The winter oat crop also took a big hit. And Westoby said that some baby lambs, born around this time of year, might have a hard time making it in the traumatic conditions of flooded pastures and general chaos.

* In Markleeville, the rising east fork of the Carson River blocked the only highway in or out. Shelves at the Markleeville General Store were almost empty.

* The Klamath River overflowed and washed away the Golden Bears Casino in Del Norte County. “I would say everything inside the casino was destroyed,” Sheriff’s deputy Terry McNamara told Associated Press.

* Sliding mud, tumbling rocks and mysterious sinkholes damaged dozens of roads. In Butte County, emergency center volunteer Don Willis spoke with this-too-shall-pass resignation of the 40-foot sinkhole that swallowed a mountain pass, blocking the only road into a small community of about 150 people. The county has not even begun to plan repairs, Willis said.

* Across the border in Reno, Nevada Gov. Bob Miller said the rains had caused “the most expensive flood damage we’ve ever had in northern Nevada.” The Truckee River, which also caused some flooding in California, jumped its banks and swallowed several blocks of downtown Reno.

Pine trees from the Sierra Nevada shot down the Truckee like torpedoes as the flooding cut off all air, rail and bus traffic into Reno. Of course, neither water gushing down the street nor the shut-down of the Reno/Tahoe International Airport could deter the most dedicated gamblers. While some casinos closed, others shored up with sandbag reinforcements and die-hards still pulled the slot machines, plunking in coins as though nothing were amiss.

By late afternoon Thursday, authorities were expecting the river to crest at around 15 feet above flood level, near its record of 17 feet in 1955. “I don’t think anybody wants to know what it would be like to break the record,” said city spokeswoman Mary Henderson. “We’ve got enough water.”

Storms Soak Western U.S.

People across the Western United States could echo that sentiment. High water and mudslides have closed major roads in Idaho, Oregon and Washington. At least 15 deaths have been blamed on a nonstop string of storms that began Dec. 26, and damage has been estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars.

In Idaho, helicopters and planes were airlifting hundreds of people to safety after flooding and mudslides isolated small towns. “All these roads are in narrow river canyons, and there’s no place to go,” said Bill Dermody, a state transportation spokesman.

Road closures stranded hundreds more at McCall, a ski-recreation resort community. An air taxi service had seven airplanes in the air Thursday taking people to Boise.

Hundreds of people in the western part of the state were forced to flee their homes as the rivers rose over their banks. Mudslides washed away large sections of road, including a 1,000-foot stretch of the state’s only north-south highway, U.S. 95. It could be days before it is repaired, forcing travelers to detour through Oregon and Washington.

In Washington, more than 60 homes in Seattle were evacuated because of landslides, and thousands of homes remained without power. Mudslides, sinkholes and flooding blocked or restricted travel on more than 20 roads around the state, and three hikers were still missing near Stevens Pass.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Mark Arax in Fresno, Dave Lesher and Jenifer Warren in Sacramento and Carla Hall in Los Angeles. Times researchers Nona Yates in Markleeville and Norma Kaufman in San Francisco, correspondents Martin Forstenzer in Bishop and Michael Ybarra in Reno and Associated Press also contributed.