Region Gets an Icy Jolt From Gusting Winds

Blasts of Arctic air, riding bitterly cold winds gusting up to 25 m.p.h., swept into Southern California on Thursday, pushing temperatures below freezing in some areas and prompting travel advisories in desert and mountain areas.

Although temperatures in some parts of Orange County crept as high as the low 60s in the early afternoon, the prospects of overnight lows in the 30s created overflow conditions Thursday night at the Orange County Rescue Mission in Santa Ana.

“We’ve got our 30 beds filled, but there’s still about 25 guys standing outside who are going to have to sleep on the floor in the lobby,” said Gary Blanks, an attendant at the mission.

The high at Los Angeles’ Civic Center reached only 58, and the prospects of an overnight low in the 30s sent hundreds of homeless people scurrying for shelter in downtown missions.

“We’re quite full,” said a staff member at the Union Rescue Mission on Main Street. “We’ve had to turn them away in the hundreds, and that’s something we haven’t had to do for quite a while.”

Along Towne Avenue, between 2nd and 5th streets, scores of homeless men and women set up impromptu cardboard shelters during the night.

Veteran staffers at area missions, said, however, that the streets were relatively empty because of the cold. They pointed out that the group of a dozen or so people gathered around two barrel fires along 5th Street would normally be two or three times larger in warmer weather.

Where dozens of homeless normally bed down along Main Street near the Union Rescue Mission, fewer than 10 were huddled in blankets and sleeping bags Thursday. The Weingart Rehabilitation Center on 6th Street, for instance, filled up at 3 p.m., staff members said.

“A lot of people will die tonight because of this weather,” Ted Hayes, an organizer of the homeless, told about 30 of his supporters Thursday evening as they rallied across the street from City Hall before moving into the Music Center tunnel. “This is as cold as I’ve ever seen it in California.”

By late Thursday there were no reports from authorities of any deaths among the homeless because of the cold weather.

Hayes told the group that they are the “warriors, the soldiers” who have to stand up for the rights of homeless people “who don’t have the strength to be here.”

The group set up Tent City II during the holidays as a temporary encampment for downtown’s transients before failure to secure liability insurance forced them to shut down. Hayes and two others were arrested last week after scuffling with state police officers at the site.

‘We Want Sleep’

Singing protest songs and chanting, “We want sleep,” the group was met by nine Los Angeles County security officers when it entered the tunnel just before 9 p.m. Hayes and the officers agreed that the group would be committing no violations of county ordinances as long as its members did not “take up lodging.”

“As long as we’re walking around, there’s no problem,” Hayes said. “It’s ridiculous not to have shelter in weather like this. Moving into the tunnel is a definite political step to make the Board of Supervisors move and move rapidly on providing shelter.”

Security guard Ernie Gomez said no arrests were going to be made as long as “they don’t try to establish lodging on county property.”

However, he added, if any violence occurs, or if the homeless put down their bags and try to sleep, “we’ll call in the LAPD and make arrests.”

Thursday’s frigid weather prompted freeze warnings for agricultural areas as far south as San Diego, and lows tonight will again dip into the 20s in some inland areas, including the San Bernardino area.

Temperatures plummeted to zero in some parts of the southern Sierra.

‘We’re Worried’

“We’re very concerned (about the temperatures),” said Jess Arellano, a manager at Foothill Properties, a citrus and vegetable grower in Corona. “We haven’t had any big problems in about four years, but we’re worried now.”

Growers were planning to use wind machines, irrigation and smudge pots to combat the low temperatures.

“If it’s near freezing, I’ll have to turn the sprinklers on,” said Shig Kinoshita, a strawberry grower in San Juan Capistrano. “The water turns to ice on the plant, and the ice has an insulating quality. . . . Otherwise, the strawberries that are blooming will just turn black.”

Vicki Lacuoague, also of San Juan Capistrano, said she and her husband, Danny, would sleep “with one ear open” Thursday night for wind machines that turn on automatically to protect their 200 acres of fruit trees when temperatures drop to freezing. “We haven’t run into real cold weather so far this year, but we’re pretty worried tonight,” she said.

Sheriff’s deputies in the Antelope Valley reported intermittent snow flurries Thursday in Lancaster, about 40 miles north of downtown Los Angeles. None of the snow stuck to the ground, however, a spokesman said.

High winds in the desert around Edwards Air Force Base halted tests of the super-light Eagle pedal plane that designers believe will set a new distance record for human-powered flight.

The weather did not bode well for the Daedalus Project’s plans to complete testing and try for the record before the end of January, when the students and professors must return to MIT for classes. Winds up to 17 m.p.h. were likely for up to five days, authorities said.

A try at setting a new distance record has been tentatively set for Jan. 21.

Project manager John S. Langford, 29, said breaking the 22-mile distance record is less important than gathering performance data to be used in designing another plane to fly 69 miles from Crete to the Greek mainland, the route the mythological Daedalus was thought by some to have taken on wings of feathers and wax in a tale 35 centuries old.

More Strong Winds

Strong north winds are expected to continue through tonight as the cold air mass moves into the area from a low-pressure system over Nevada and Arizona, the National Weather Service said. A high-pressure system off the coast of Washington is pumping the cold air south, where the upper atmosphere low is “sucking” it into Southern California, the weather service said.

Travelers advisories will remain in effect today for strong, cold winds in mountain areas, with poor visibility in places because of snow and fog.

Similar advisories were issued for desert areas, where the winds are expected to reduce visibility because of blowing sand and dust.

Gusting winds should become even stronger today, forecasters said, reaching 40 m.p.h. in some valleys and 50 m.p.h. over higher mountain ridges.

Skies are expected to begin clearing this afternoon, with temperatures in parts of Orange County in the upper 50s.

Thursday’s high of 58, although it felt chilly because of the wind, was nowhere near the previous record low maximum for the date, 49 degrees set in 1932. And the overnight low of 47 also fell far short of the record, 32, set in 1888, the weather service said.

The record low for today’s date was also set in 1888, when the mercury dipped to 31. The minimum high for a Jan. 16 is 50, recorded in 1907.

A slight warming trend will begin Saturday, especially in coastal and mountain areas, forecasters said.