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Snow Falls In West L.A., Malibu
I-5 Remains Closed Through Grapevine
POSTED: 8:45 am PST January 18, 2007
UPDATED: 9:01 am PST January 18, 2007
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LOS ANGELES -- Interstate 5 remains closed through the Grapevine due to snow and ice on Thursday morning. Northbound lanes are shut at Parker Road, and southbound lanes are closed at Laval Road.
CHP Officer Alex Gonzalez said crews hope to reopen the north-south artery by about 10 a.m.
In the Malibu area, Kanan Dume Road remained closed Thursday morning from Mulholland Highway to Pacific Coast Highway in the Malibu area, while crews work to clear snow from the roadway, according to the watch commander at the Malibu/Lost Hills Station.
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CHP officers escorted motorists -- 100 vehicles at a time -- through the Grapevine area on Wednesday. Vehicles were stopped on the side of the freeway as snowplows cleared paths.
"I go to work in Bakersfield, and I got stuck here," a trucker told NBC4. "It's beautiful."
CHP officers provided motorists with alternate routes, but warned that conditions on some of those roads also were dangerous because of ice and snow.
CHP Officer George White said about three inches of snow accumulated on the freeway, with a layer of ice underneath, causing a number of car and truck spinouts near the Pyramid Lake area. South of Pyramid Lake, in the Santa Clarita area, drivers were contending with hail and slushy snow.
Snow In West L.A., Malibu
Snow fell on the palm trees of West Los Angeles and Malibu Wednesday afternoon as Jack Frost visited the Southland again.
NBC4 forecaster Fritz Coleman said the mixture of precipitation in West Los Angeles at about 3 p.m. included a dusting of snow. Residents in West Los Angeles said the snow accumulated in parking lots, on cars and around palm trees near Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards and other areas.
Most of the snow fell south of Sunset Boulevard and just east of the 405 Freeway. Residents told NBC4 that several inches of snow fell in their yards.
The last snowfall recorded at Los Angeles International Airport was in January 1962, according to the National Weather Service. Trace amounts -- less than 0.5 inches -- were reported, according to the NWS.
Snow fell earlier Wednesday in Malibu and caused traffic problems on the area's winding and narrow roads. Sleet made driving treacherous on Kanan Dume Road, a steep route through the Santa Monica Mountains where it's more typical to see beach-bound cars loaded with surfboards than a snowplow.
"One of our sergeants said he hadn't seen anything like this in 20 years," said California Highway Patrol Officer Leland Tang at the West Valley Station.
A probation officer at a juvenile camp in the Santa Monicas said he was traveling down Kanan Dume when it began to snow.
"It was snowing pretty good," said Officer Oscar Cross. "The road was covered in ice and slush, and I saw one car slide into a ditch. Everyone seemed scared to drive."
Cross said that when he reached Pacific Coast Highway, the weather turned "nice and sunny."
"It's easy to mistake Malibu at sea level with the Malibu Hills," said Coleman. "Malibu Hills are about 550 feet to 580 feet. That's almost easy to understand. The sea-level snow is not."
More snow was reported in Canyon Country, where a resident said he has not seen snow for about 10 years.
In Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles, a portion of State Route 33 about 12 miles north of Ojai, was closed due to snow and ice, said Marie Raptis, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Transportation.
Weather Pattern To Continue
The National Weather Service said the wintry precipitation was from an upper-level low moving through the region.
The cold set in late last week, bringing night after night of freezing overnight temperature to many parts of the state and causing extensive agricultural damage.
Fire departments across Southern California have reported hundreds of calls in recent days about burst pipes. The Victorville courthouse got flooded when sprinkler heads ruptured, and broken irrigation lines may have caused a mudslide that blocked a private road to five Pasadena homes with 150 tons of debris Monday night.
In Los Angeles, the city's water mains don't freeze because they are underground, but extremely cold water can cause the cast iron pipes to crack, officials said. | |
