‘Humdinger’ of Storm Moving on Southland : Weather: Flood control officials keeping close watch on Buena Park channel, Aliso Creek in South County.

Torrential rain was expected again in Southern California by sunrise today, the last in a wave of brutal storms already responsible for at least seven deaths, four people missing, an estimated $23 million in damage and some of the century’s worst flooding.

Forecasters said Friday that another inch or two of rain should fall, with as much as four inches in some canyon areas, raising concerns that the deluge would again send hundreds of people across the Southland scrambling for higher ground.

“On satellite, it looks like it’s going bonkers,” Steve Burback of WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times, said of the weekend storm. “It’s a humdinger.”

Snowshoe-clad rescuers, poking long sticks into the deep powder, continued the hunt Friday for two skiers believed buried in an avalanche at Mt. Baldy. They again found no signs of Tim Pines, 31, of Dana Point and Charles Prior, 34, of San Clemente, missing since Tuesday.

Ryan McIntosh of Santa Ana, the 11-year-old who survived three days in cold, snowy conditions in the same San Bernardino mountains on Thanksgiving week, visited a rescue station where the families of Pines and Prior were keeping a vigil.

“They are still on the mountain,” said John McCallum of the Mt. Baldy Fire Station.

“We still don’t have any information on their safety, but we have reason to remain optimistic.”

After two days, authorities gave up the search for Lance Cpl. Jeffrey B. Johns, a 22-year-old aviation technician from Uniontown, Ohio. He was the only member of a nine-person crew not pulled from the ocean when a U.S. Marine helicopter from Tustin went down Wednesday in stormy weather off the Ventura County coast.

Taking advantage of a lull in the storm Friday, federal, state and local officials spent the day assessing the performance of emergency workers and girding for the coming rain.

In Orange County, Caltrans and county public works crews cleared catch basins, and repaired damaged roadways in anticipation of today’s expected storm.

Thomas Connelie, manager of maintenance systems for the county’s Environmental Management Agency, said weekend crews will keep a close watch on two areas, including a flood control channel in Buena Park and Aliso Creek in south Orange County.

During this week’s peak rainfall, Fullerton Creek Channel, which runs beneath Beach Boulevard in Buena Park north of Orangethorpe Avenue, overflowed and damaged the concrete lining, said Connelie.

“If we get another flow just like the heavy rainfall we had on Wednesday, we’ll get some damaging of the channel and possibly damage because of flooding to some businesses and homes near the channel,” he said.

An agreement was reached with the U.S. Corps of Engineers at Brea Dam who were asked by the county not to release water into the channel if county officials expect the channel to rise over capacity, Connelie said.

“If the water level comes up to three feet of the bridge at Beach Boulevard, we’ll have to close Beach from traffic,” Connelie said.

In South County, county repair crews were dumping large rocks along Aliso Creek to strengthen the banks, which were destroyed by heavy flooding this week.

Burback said that Orange County’s coastal areas can expect from one to two inches of rain today, which, combined with high tides and storm surf, can cause some beach erosion.

“We’ve had to move our towers back twice this week, and the beach has lost 10 to 15 feet in places,” said Steve Seim, a marine safety officer in Huntington Beach.

High winds and storm surf were expected to push the expected high tide of nearly 6 1/2 feet another foot higher, according to information provided to lifeguards by the National Weather Service, Seim said.

Orange County residents in need of free sandbags can pick them up in Fountain Valley at Fire Station No. 1 at 17737 Bushard St., or Fire Station No. 2 at 16767 Newhope St., and also at all Home Depot hardware stores in Orange County.

Residents can use dirt from their yards to fill the bags. Sand will also be available at the city yard, at 18240 Ward St., and at Home Depot stores.

Newport Bay and a mile-long stretch of ocean waters at the mouth of the Santa Ana River will remain closed to swimmers for at least another week after three raw-sewage spills forced their closure, health officials said Friday.

Warning signs have been posted warning the public to stay out of the water for half mile on each side of the Santa Ana River mouth at the border of Huntington Beach and Newport Beach. The area is popular with surfers.

Also closed to swimming are Newport Bay waters, including those off Balboa Peninsula and Lido Island.

At a fire station not far from the Sepulveda Dam, Gov. Pete Wilson, Sen. John Seymour and Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley thanked firefighters, Highway Patrol officers and a helicopter pilot who helped rescue motorists trapped Monday in as much as 15 feet of water.

“There are all kinds of unsung heroes,” Wilson said. “There are a lot of people who didn’t make it to the front pages and the evening news, who quietly, and very quickly, did very heroic work.”

Speaking later to reporters on a mud-slathered road in the dam basin, the governor said the storm caused at least $23 million in damage to public and private property in Southern California, not including cleanup costs.

Bradley asked property owners who suffered losses to report them to city officials so they can ask the federal Small Business Administration to make adequate low-interest loans available.

Meanwhile, a team of top National Weather Service officials flew in from their regional headquarters in Salt Lake City to weigh the work of forecasters in the west Los Angeles office.

Robert Richey, National Weather Service chief of meteorological services for the eight Western states, said he was concerned that flood warnings Monday in the Sepulveda Basin traveled in a “circuitous route” before getting to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which monitors the dam. He said meteorologists were busy Friday setting up a direct phone link with military officials.

“I think (the warning) could have gotten to them faster,” said Richey, adding that his findings would be made public at a news conference next Friday. “I want to make sure we have direct and immediate contact.”

But Col. Charles Thomas, who monitors the nearly 60-year-old Sepulveda Dam, said motorists were trapped in the basin partly because Monday’s forecast underestimated the strength of the downpour.

“I don’t want to point any fingers, but the forecast was different from what happened,” he said during a news conference at the Department of Public Works headquarters in Alhambra.

Thomas said that while the weather service had predicted at 8:30 a.m. that up to 0.4 inches would fall that day on coastal valleys, “in reality, the Sepulveda Reservoir recorded 4.05 inches of rain between noon and 6 p.m.”

Concern was also expressed by Los Angeles officials about the city’s preparedness to deal with emergencies in the Los Angeles River, where a 15-year-old boy, Adam Bischoff of Woodland Hills, died Wednesday when he was swept into swift waters.

Orange County lifeguard Steve Seim lamented the death and that no lifeguards were near.

“It was very difficult for us as lifeguards who know how to make rescues, to watch that boy. What bothered me was the kid was riding so high in the water. His head and his chest were out of the water. (But) nobody jumped in to help him,” Seim said.

“Just like I wouldn’t want to run into a burning building, I wouldn’t want a fireman to jump into the water. But we train for just such emergencies. We use boogie boards, a full wetsuit and a helmet. We know what to do . . . it was just so horrible to watch,” Seim said.

In Los Angeles, Councilwoman Joy Picus proposed that the city consider permanently attaching rescue nets and cables to bridges along the river. Police officials suggested stationing lifeguards in the San Fernando Valley during this weekend’s storm.

The county’s chief lifeguard, Don Rohrer, said lifeguards probably could have saved Adam using techniques employed in riptides. But Rohrer said that even if lifeguards had been summoned, they could not have reached the San Fernando Valley in time from their beachside posts.

Officials in Ventura County, as well as flood victims there, said they should have been warned more quickly that a recreational vehicle park and a homeless encampment along the Ventura River were about to be flooded Wednesday.

Ventura Mayor Greg Carson said he supports a county proposal for mandatory evacuation of low-lying areas around the river whenever a warning is issued by the county Flood Control District.

Arnold Hubbard, owner of the Ventura Beach RV Resort, acknowledged that district officials warned him of flooding at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, but he did not pass on the warning to the 110 park residents until 9:15.

The new storm wave, churning out of the Gulf of Alaska, was expected to bring snow down to about the 4,000-foot level. Thunder was predicted, and temperatures were expected to be cooler, mostly in the 50s. Avalanche warnings were issued for the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada on Friday, and violently rotating funnel clouds formed off San Diego.

To escape a waterlogged hillside that started slipping downward, six frightened families fled their Santa Clarita houses Friday.

By late in the day, the hill above the 19000 block of Maplebay Court had not collapsed, but authorities feared that the weekend rain could send a wall of mud crashing into the homes.

“All the property up above is just cracking like crazy,” said Marian Mohler, an insurance supervisor ordered to evacuate her house.

Talk show host Johnny Carson told viewers late Thursday night that he tried to get to work the day before, but cascading cliffs and boulders near his Malibu home made driving impossible. Frantic NBC executives, who offered to ferry Carson by helicopter to their Burbank studios, were forced to show a rerun.

Carson poked fun at the offer, saying traveling by helicopter in high winds and pouring rain was not the brightest of ideas.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Jack Cheevers, Tracey Kaplan, Eric Malnic, Amy Pyle and Jocelyn Stewart in Los Angeles; Tina Daunt, Daryl Kelley, Mack Reed and correspondent Caitlin Rother in Ventura County, and Marla Cone and Vivien Chen in Orange County.