Bulldozers piled up sand barriers along the coast and homeowners stacked sandbags farther inland as the first in a pair of powerful, wind-swept storm systems began moving inland across California late Friday, threatening to drench the Rose Parade for the first time in more than 50 years.
Flash-flood watches were issued for hillsides stripped bare by the fall wildfires in Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties, and forecasters warned of flooding at low-lying intersections.
Ten inches of rain -- or more -- could fall on some south-facing slopes before the storms ease late Monday, meteorologists said.
The forecasts were ominous for planners of the Rose Parade, which is to start at the foot of those slopes in Pasadena at 8 a.m. Monday.
"It appears that the most likely time for the heaviest rain and strongest winds will be Sunday night and Monday morning," the National Weather Service said in an advisory issued Friday. "We don't see a scenario whereby the Rose Parade will not be affected by heavy rain, urban flooding and gusty winds."
But despite the expectation of foul weather, the parade will go on as scheduled, Tournament of Roses officials said. The last time it rained on a Rose Parade was Jan. 1, 1955, and it has rained only nine times in the parade's 116-year history.
No matter how hard it rains on Monday, however, the hundreds of thousands expected to gather along the parade route will not be allowed to use tents, Pasadena police said. Officers said the main reason for the ban is that tents impede pedestrian traffic on sidewalks and block spectators' views.
Rain began falling Friday morning in Sonoma and Napa counties and gale-force winds hammered Eureka as the first storm began moving down the coast toward San Francisco. A flood watch was in effect for much of the Bay Area, and work crews cleared catch basins and storm drains in the expectation of heavy runoff.
Officials also released water from Oroville Dam to create extra "flood space" in the reservoir above the dam. They said they expected to open floodgates on the Sacramento River to allow excess water to spill over into the Yolo bypass.
The first storm was not expected to reach Southern California until today, with the strongest rain showers in the Los Angeles Basin this afternoon and tonight.
At Venice Beach, where swells up to 15 feet were expected, about 25 bulldozers scooped up sand Friday to create protective berms along more than a mile of shoreline.
