Wind Los Angeles County

Forceful winds sweeping down from the north Monday morning caused thousands of electrical power outages in Sun Valley and Van Nuys, but did little damage. Fire and law enforcement officials reported no downed trees or wind-related accidents. Los Angeles Department of Water and Power spokeswoman Jan Merlo said about 2,000 customers lost power between 5:30 a.m. and noon, but electricity had been restored to all of them.

A late-season storm swept out of Southern California with a flourish Tuesday, spawning a gale in Paramount that snapped power poles, ripped off roofs and overturned a mobile home. Before daybreak, darkness exploded as power transformers arced in white flashes and the wind wrenched aluminum siding from trailers and hurled it into the air. By afternoon, meteorologists had determined that the phenomenon had not been a tornado, but a micro-burst--a furious downdraft of cold air.

Streaking Santa Ana winds that whipped destructive fires out of control and left thousands of Southern California homes without power are expected to ease today, but may return by the first of the week, forecasters cautioned.

Forceful winds sweeping down from the north Monday morning caused thousands of electrical power outages in Sun Valley and Van Nuys, but did little damage. Fire and law enforcement officials reported no downed trees or wind-related accidents. Los Angeles Department of Water and Power spokeswoman Jan Merlo said about 2,000 customers lost power between 5:30 a.m. and noon, but electricity had been restored to all of them.

When fires fanned by raging Santa Ana winds erupted in the Los Angeles area early Thursday, the city and county fire departments committed about 50% of their on-duty forces to battle the blazes and protect the community, officials said.

First the lights went out. Then the metal frame shuddered and groaned, its canvas folds billowing in the hurricane-force winds that roared out of nearby Azusa Canyon. The 3-feet-long steel spikes that anchored the support beams of the huge tent jerked 8 inches out of the ground, cracking the surrounding asphalt. The tent's aluminium frame bounced wildly up and down with the breeze.

Gale-force winds swept through the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys Saturday, causing minor damage and inconveniencing some people--but delighting others. The Santa Ana winds toppled trees in the Chatsworth and Northridge areas, blew the camper unit off the back of a moving pickup truck in Canyon Country and sent tumbleweeds the size of sedans rolling across the Antelope Valley Freeway. The heaviest recorded winds in the area were 39 m.p.h.

The fires came with ruthless suddenness. In La Verne, it was a wind-hounded brush fire, nipping at the edges of the San Gabriel Valley foothill community, bounding past entire blocks before settling randomly here and there on a house, or a pair of houses. "The wind was just ferocious," said Jim Wiley, whose home was destroyed. "It was like sparklers going off everywhere."

Hellish firestorms, pushed by Santa Ana winds as harsh as 100 m.p.h., destroyed 22 houses and damaged nine others in Baldwin Park and in the La Verne area early Thursday morning, forcing hundreds of residents to flee their homes. Damage from the blazes was estimated by county fire officials at $10.5 million. Officials said the fires devastated a commercial building and an apartment house under construction and damaged nine other apartment buildings and five commercial structures.

A late-season storm swept out of Southern California with a flourish Tuesday, spawning a gale in Paramount that snapped power poles, ripped off roofs and overturned a mobile home. Before daybreak, darkness exploded as power transformers arced in white flashes and the wind wrenched aluminum siding from trailers and hurled it into the air. By afternoon, meteorologists had determined that the phenomenon had not been a tornado, but a micro-burst--a furious downdraft of cold air.

Gale-force winds swept through the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys Saturday, causing minor damage and inconveniencing some people--but delighting others. The Santa Ana winds toppled trees in the Chatsworth and Northridge areas, blew the camper unit off the back of a moving pickup truck in Canyon Country and sent tumbleweeds the size of sedans rolling across the Antelope Valley Freeway. The heaviest recorded winds in the area were 39 m.p.h.

Streaking Santa Ana winds that whipped destructive fires out of control and left thousands of Southern California homes without power are expected to ease today, but may return by the first of the week, forecasters cautioned.

When fires fanned by raging Santa Ana winds erupted in the Los Angeles area early Thursday, the city and county fire departments committed about 50% of their on-duty forces to battle the blazes and protect the community, officials said.

First the lights went out. Then the metal frame shuddered and groaned, its canvas folds billowing in the hurricane-force winds that roared out of nearby Azusa Canyon. The 3-feet-long steel spikes that anchored the support beams of the huge tent jerked 8 inches out of the ground, cracking the surrounding asphalt. The tent's aluminium frame bounced wildly up and down with the breeze.

The fires came with ruthless suddenness. In La Verne, it was a wind-hounded brush fire, nipping at the edges of the San Gabriel Valley foothill community, bounding past entire blocks before settling randomly here and there on a house, or a pair of houses. "The wind was just ferocious," said Jim Wiley, whose home was destroyed. "It was like sparklers going off everywhere."

Hellish firestorms, pushed by Santa Ana winds as harsh as 100 m.p.h., destroyed 22 houses and damaged nine others in Baldwin Park and in the La Verne area early Thursday morning, forcing hundreds of residents to flee their homes. Damage from the blazes was estimated by county fire officials at $10.5 million. Officials said the fires devastated a commercial building and an apartment house under construction and damaged nine other apartment buildings and five commercial structures.

Re "Judge to OK sludge transfer," Nov. 14 Sewer sludge contains toxics and heavy metals, some of which are carcinogenic. Kern County is doing the right thing in fighting against dumping Los Angeles sludge on farm fields near Bakersfield. In the 1960s, a cluster of a certain cancer occurred among the San Francisco 49ers football team. It was traced to a fertilizer put on a practice field. In Minnesota, sewer sludge put on fields owned by a large agribusiness contaminated a neighboring farm through wind erosion.

Hot, stiff desert winds shoved fast-moving grass fires across Ventura and Los Angeles counties Thursday, destroying two houses and two automobiles in Canyon Country and blackening 24 acres of grasslands north of Santa Paula. And causing further worry, a mild aftershock of the 1994 Northridge earthquake rattled homes and businesses in Simi Valley and the Conejo Valley, and the roofs of two residences in Camarillo briefly caught fire from a damaged power line.