Floods California

For Bill Leisic, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is a sort of Huck Finn country where he can drop a line into his favorite fishing hole and hook his limit of bass. To officials in charge of moving water to Central Valley farmers and millions of people in Southern California, it is the state's most important spigot. Without its fresh water, much of the state would go thirsty.

More than half a billion dollars in political cash is likely to be spent in California by Tuesday, a staggering amount in a year when the presidential candidates are barely present and voters appear tepid about much of the state ballot. This election will rank among the top in California history for campaign spending -- without the governor's office or most other top posts in play. The money infused into ballot-measure campaigns, congressional races and bids for state legislative seats is a reminder that California is an election powerhouse in its own right.

Heavy rain flooded desert areas Thursday afternoon, briefly stranding motorists and closing sections of Joshua Tree National Park. It rained on and off for about three hours, said San Bernardino County fire Capt. Bob Buhrle. "There were vehicles stranded because the low spots in the road filled with three to four feet of water," he said. No injuries were reported.

A record number of investors and second-home buyers flooded the Southern California real estate market in December, though not enough to give sales in the region a bump over the same month a year earlier. With the investor dominance, low-cost homes reigned. That helped push the region's median home price back down to its lowest level in 12 months, according to San Diego real estate firm DataQuick. Sales fell 1.4% from the same month a year earlier, with a total of 19,247 homes bought throughout the six-county region.

President Clinton asked Congress on Monday to spend another $4.9 billion in emergency funds to repair the destruction that remains from the Northridge earthquake, warning that the federal government will have to shut off further relief if the money is not approved by May.

Acting with unusual speed, the two houses of the Legislature on Thursday approved separate parts of a multimillion-dollar package of tax relief benefits for individuals, businesses and local governments hard hit by heavy storms and floods last week. Both houses voted overwhelming approval of several emergency bills while meeting in a special session ordered by Gov. Pete Wilson.

A prominent Torrance couple were identified Tuesday as the drowning victims of a weekend flash flood in the Mojave Desert that swept their Jeep off California 14 into a ravine, where the current carried it for more than a mile. The Kern County coroner's office said Robert and Juanita Mantovani, both 44, died in the flood early Sunday evening that caused the California Highway Patrol to close the road from 7 p.m. until midnight and stranded about 40 vehicles.

A Sacramento radio station received calls from several worried listeners when it rebroadcast a 2-year-old story about Sacramento Valley floods. The anxious callers apparently thought the story on KFBK was new despite five interruptions by the station to let listeners know it was recorded in 1986.

In flood debris, the Assembly may finally find an organization plan and two co-leaders. If not, it risks being drowned in public scorn. At play is the old adage about not making a decision until you have to. That time is now for the Assembly. The lawmakers have to get their act together--at least temporarily--for today's special session on flood relief or they risk the righteous indignation of talk show hosts, editorial writers and, most importantly, voters.

For the first time since the San Joaquin River chewed through the old levee on its north bank and sent its surging flood waters his way, farmer Pete Andrew was ready to call it a day. He had fought a maddening, 24-hour battle against a river that California agriculture had tamed for more than half a century.

A Southern California financial services veteran is launching a fresh bank-buying spree, adding to a wave of private money flooding into California community banks despite the state's high unemployment and depressed real estate. Stephen H. Gordon, who founded Irvine-based Commercial Capital Bancorp in 1998 and sold it to Washington Mutual Inc. for nearly $1 billion in cash in 2006, heads an investment group that agreed this week to pump $460 million into Bay Cities National Bank, a five-branch Redondo Beach institution in need of capital.

Heavy rain flooded desert areas Thursday afternoon, briefly stranding motorists and closing sections of Joshua Tree National Park. It rained on and off for about three hours, said San Bernardino County fire Capt. Bob Buhrle. "There were vehicles stranded because the low spots in the road filled with three to four feet of water," he said. No injuries were reported.

More heavy rain fell on eastern North Carolina, delaying the ebb of flooding that has destroyed hundreds of homes since Hurricane Floyd, but forecasters promised a dry spell was on the way. The latest rains flooded most of the streets in Goldsboro, N.C., ruptured a dam and pushed up the Tar and Neuse rivers. In one more weather blow, the latest system spawned tornadoes that downed trees and damaged homes in the central part of the state.

Stephen Ball could design a house impervious to the seismic rumblings, sliding hillsides and raging firestorms of California, but it's doubtful it would sell outside the survivalist bomb shelter set. "I've sat down and brainstormed with structural engineers about what would be an indestructible house, and we all agreed no one would live in it," said Ball, a Laguna Beach architect who has designed buildings from Newport Beach to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

The first of an expected trio of storms pelted California on Saturday with heavy rain, which may have contributed to a head-on collision that left four dead in San Bernardino County and ruptured a pipeline in Ventura County that spewed thousands of gallons of crude oil into the ocean. The fast-moving weather system also dumped up to a foot of snow in much of the Sierra and threatened levees and homes in Northern California.

Two storm systems bashed California with dark fury Tuesday, forcing thousands of residents to flee fast-rising rivers in the north and creating havoc in the Southland as trees toppled, freeways flooded and roofs blew away in the tremendous winds. Fourteen counties declared local emergencies, the precursor to requesting federal disaster relief.

An $8.4-billion emergency relief package that provides flood money for California and postpones for one month the cutoff of benefits to legal immigrants passed the House on Thursday, but a controversial budget provision tacked onto the bill made a presidential veto virtually inevitable. At stake for California is $3.4 billion to assist recovery from a brutal spate of winter storms, and $10 million for a new transportation system at Yosemite National Park. The bill would also preserve until Sept.

An $8.4-billion emergency relief package that provides flood money for California and postpones for one month the cutoff of benefits to legal immigrants passed the House on Thursday, but a controversial budget provision tacked onto the bill made a presidential veto virtually inevitable. At stake for California is $3.4 billion to assist recovery from a brutal spate of winter storms, and $10 million for a new transportation system at Yosemite National Park. The bill would also preserve until Sept.

On the salt flats of the San Joaquin Valley, in the middle of J.G. Boswell's cotton empire, one of America's great phantom lakes has returned from the dead. Once the largest body of fresh water west of the Mississippi, Tulare Lake went dry in the 1930s when farmers choked off the four rivers that empty into its basin. But every 15 years or so, in the wake of a record winter storm or heavy spring snowmelt, the dams and ditches cannot contain the rivers.