Winds Churn Sea, 2 Feared Dead; Pier Takes a Battering

Gale-force winds on Sunday whipped up rough seas that left two boaters lost and presumed dead, swept a West Covina couple from another craft, closed Avalon Harbor on Santa Catalina Island to sailboats and washed away most of what remained of a burned-out section of the Redondo Beach Municipal Pier.

Firefighters were kept busy battling wind-fanned brush fires in Carson and Griffith Park, and the winds were blamed for keeping holiday beach crowds unusually light.

One passenger was lost when heavy seas swamped a 38-foot powerboat, disabling the craft’s three engines and sinking the vessel in 50 feet of water, about 50 feet from a pier in San Pedro, authorities said.

Four of the six people aboard swam to shore, and another was rescued by a passing boat, Long Beach lifeguard Luis Martinet said. A sixth passenger, however, was last seen clinging to the hull of the sinking craft and has not been found, he said.

Martinet said he and other lifeguards dived to the sunken boat but could find no sign of the missing passenger.

U.S. Coast Guard officials said the passenger was missing and presumed dead.

Another boater was lost and presumed dead off Catalina, when the sailing canoe carrying him and his brother capsized, Coast Guard Lt. Debra Harbaugh said. The brother who was rescued told authorities that he saw his brother slip beneath the water.

The crew of a private boat rescued Starvis Rogers, 25, of West Covina, more than two hours after a large wave knocked her and her fiance, Joseph Benjimin, overboard from a 24-foot sailboat that was en route from Avalon to Marina del Rey, Coast Guard officials said.

Rogers was in stable condition at Avalon Municipal Hospital, authorities said, and Benjimin was able to swim back to the disabled boat, which later washed ashore near Avalon.

Coast Guard Deluged

The Coast Guard was deluged with calls for assistance on Sunday, with one rescue requiring a helicopter to lift four children and an adult from a floundering 40-foot sailboat off Catalina.

Six people who remained aboard the craft appeared to be safely anchored in a protected cove late Sunday, officials said.

“The (Avalon) harbor is full of pleasure boats and small crafts whose owners have been advised not to try to return to the mainland because of high seas,” a Los Angeles County sheriff’s spokesman said Sunday.

The churning seas also washed away about 300 feet of charred pilings from the Redondo Beach Municipal Pier, which was swept by a devastating fire on Friday.

Sunday’s battering from waves prompted officials to close the pier and most of its remaining businesses for the second time in three days.

200 Evacuated

Shortly after 5 p.m., authorities began evacuating about 200 people from what was left of the horse-shoe-shaped section of the pier. That portion was closed but is expected to reopen today, said Redondo Beach Police Capt. Ray Graham.

The kitchen area of the Cattlemens Steak House fell into the sea and the western edge of the restaurant collapsed on a section of the pier supported by a single piling. An overhead crane worked on another part of the pier, cleaning up debris from Friday’s $7-million fire and removing telephone-pole-sized pilings washed away in Sunday’s 10- to 12-foot seas.

At Los Angeles International Airport, winds up to 45 m.p.h. were recorded on Sunday, and gusts reached 60 m.p.h. in mountain and canyon areas.

Stiff winds kept firefighters busy with a fast-moving, 145-acre brush fire in Carson. County firefighters needed an hour to contain the blaze at Torrance Boulevard and Main Street. No structures were threatened.

About 100 Los Angeles firefighters battled a 10-acre brush fire in the hills above the Los Angeles Zoo and Traveltown in Griffith Park for 90 minutes late Sunday afternoon before bringing it under control.

Firefighting efforts were hampered, an official said, because “we just don’t have enough water droppers (helicopters) up here.”

Call for Help

The city firefighters requested additional helicopters from the county Fire Department. No structures were threatened in the fire, but a music concert at the Greek Theater was canceled as a precautionary measure, officials said.

The causes of both fires were under investigation.

About 800 customers in the El Sereno section of Los Angeles were without electrical power for about half an hour Sunday because of high winds, as were another 200 customers in South-Central Los Angeles, a spokesman for the Department of Water and Power said.

A pressure differential between a cold front moving east into Arizona and a high-pressure system over the Pacific was responsible for the strong winds in the Los Angeles area Sunday, but the gusts should die down today, allowing the mercury to inch up a few notches for the Memorial Day holiday, forecasters said.

“It will still be breezy, but the winds will decrease,” said Janice Roth, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times.

Chilly for Beach-Goers

Still, it will be chilly for beach-goers today as winds gust up to 25 m.p.h., Roth said.

“Only about 8,000 to 10,000 people showed up” Sunday, said county lifeguard Terry Hearst, who is assigned to Will Rogers, Santa Monica and Venice beaches.

“Normally on a holiday weekend like this we’d have 250,000 or more, but the blowing sand makes it kind of painful to be on the beach,” Hearst said.

Winds today will reach 30 m.p.h. in mountain areas, Roth said, and the high deserts could see winds up to 50 m.p.h. The National Weather Service issued high-wind warnings for the mountains and deserts on Sunday, and a gale warning was in effect for coastal waters until Sunday evening.

Light rain and drizzle fell at the airport and in some foothill and mountain areas on Sunday, but Roth said there would be no precipitation today. Heaviest rainfall was .33 of an inch at Beaumont.

A slow warming trend will begin today, Roth said, as the cold front moves off into the Rocky Mountains and the leading edge of a high-pressure system settles in over Southern California. Times staff writers Nieson Himmel and Karen Roebuck contributed to this story.