Storm drops lots of rain, snow, prompts rescues of two dogs
By Charles F. Bostwick and Phillip W. Browne
Staff Writers
The Alaskan storm that swept across Southern California on Wednesday set record rainfall levels and dumped up to 18 inches of snow on the San Gabriel Mountains, allowing Mountain High ski area to open Wednesday for the first time ever in October.
"It's lots of powder, and it's snowing pretty hard right now," snowboarder Eric Rodebock, 20, of Lakewood said Wednesday afternoon at Mountain High. "Right now it looks better than it did all last season, so I think it's going to be a good one."
The second powerful storm of the season dumped 1.62 inches of rain in downtown Los Angeles, setting a 100-year October record total of 4.55 inches. Previously, the heaviest rainfall recorded in October was 2.37 inches in 1987.
The storm caused widespread street flooding, increased traffic accidents, water spouts off the coast of Malibu, power outages and prompted several rescues from storm channels, and the rescue of two dogs, one of which was televised live.
Authorities received separate reports between 3:40 p.m. and 4:15 p.m. that two two dogs had been swept away in the river, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said.
Firefighters stationed along the river spotted the first dog near Radford Avenue in Studio City, lowered a ladder and rescued it unharmed.
In the televised rescue, the second dog was spotted in the river near the Lakeside Country Club in Toluca Lake. The dog, a purebred yellow Labrador, was trapped in water about 6 inches deep. A helicopter hoisted a member of the city's swift water rescue team and the dog onto the nearby golf course about 5:05 p.m.
The rescue drew interest from several national news shows, Humphrey said, adding that the decision to conduct a risky rescue operation to save an animal is made on a case-by-case basis.
"It's driven by the situation," he said. "We do our best to rescue animals, but if there were people to be rescued, the dogs would have had to wait."
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks