CLASSES WASHED OUT 24-HOUR RAINFALL BEATS YEAR'S TOTAL IN '02.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick and Greg Botonis Staff Writers

PALMDALE - More rain than fell all last year was dumped Wednesday on the Antelope Valley, inundating scores of roads, flooding a handful of homes and leading Palmdale school officials to cancel classes today.

Palmdale School District officials said flooded streets Wednesday around several campuses forced bus drivers to pull onto playgrounds or rear streets to load up children for the ride home. Officials brought in additional buses to give rides to children who usually walk, and a spare bus had to be used to ferry youngsters across a flooded street at one school.

``The weather forecast indicates even heavier rain and flooding expected (today),'' Palmdale School District spokesman Isaac Barcelona said. ``Due to safety concerns, school has been canceled.''

On Wednesday, Los Angeles County fire camp crews piled sandbags around a dozen Quartz Hill homes where water lapped at their foundations and officials around the valley offered sandbags to worried residents.

``This is the worst I have ever seen it here,'' said Thomas Avale, 63, whose garage floor was covered with an inch or two of water at his 52nd Street West home. ``It came so quick we did lose a lot of stuff: pictures, photo albums and old records, stuff we can't replace.''

Streets all around the Antelope Valley looked like rivers, backing up traffic and contributing to crashes. Several entire streets in Lancaster and Palmdale were closed to traffic, but some motorists drove around the barricades and ended up stalled in deep water.

``We're really wet,'' said Palmdale Public Works Director Steve Williams, whose crews were to be out around the clock Wednesday and early today looking for trouble spots.

A rain gauge at the Palmdale Water District office measured 2.4 inches of rain from midafternoon Tuesday to the same time Wednesday - on top of 0.65 of an inch that fell earlier Tuesday.

Last year - the driest on record in Los Angeles - rainfall totaled only 2.13 inches in Palmdale, records show. The average annual rainfall is 7.8 inches in Palmdale.

The storm filled Marie Kerr Park catch basins, overflowing one of them and prompting officials to open the exit valves wide. When the water started to breach the earthen walls of a nearby temporary catch basin, city workers and fire camp crews began piling sandbags and digging diversion ditches to keep the water out of nearby homes.

Pumps were expected to be at work all night lowering the level in the basins.

But some people got pleasure out of the rain: About 10 teenagers in wet suits were seen sliding on surfboards across a huge pond accumulated off 50th Street West near Avenue N.

The National Weather Service predicts even more wet weather: showers today, with a chance of more thunderstorms, and a 30 percent chance of showers Friday. After partly cloudy skies Saturday, the Weather Service predicted another chance of showers Sunday.

Among the most precarious situations Wednesday were those faced by residents in the neighborhoods just west of 50th Street West and from Avenue N to about Avenue K-14 in Quartz Hill.

The neighborhood gets water running downhill out of west Palmdale in heavy rains, and Wednesday was no exception.

About a dozen garages were flooded, and two or three homes had minor damage by midafternoon, with more rain on the way, fire officials said.

Some homeowners set up hoses to siphon water out of back yards and garages and direct it back into the street. Many homes along 52nd Street West had water lapping at their foundations.

``We started moving stuff out of the garage because we knew the storm was coming, but we never expected this,'' said Avale, who has lived on 52nd Street West since 1994.

In Lancaster, city officials piled sand in the public works yard's parking lot for residents to come to fill sandbags. Palmdale also had sand and bags available for residents at its city yard, and fire stations were giving out bags.

``People are calling because they're worried about it,'' city spokesman Anne Aldrich said.

In Palmdale, school trustee Shawny Barcelona said canceling classes because of the weather is a rare event, but officials decided it was warranted today.

``They looked at the radar screen, and it looks like everything is flooded. They thought, for safety precautions, it would not be good to have the kids in school,'' she said.

Barcelona said her mother is a crossing guard at Desert Rose School, where water in the street was up to her knees.

``She was wading kids across the street,'' Barcelona said.

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) A car is stalled Wednesday in Palmdale in water higher than its front bumper on 35th Street East, south of Palmdale Boulevard.

(2 -- color) City workers Clifton Young, left, and Joe Gamez lay sandbags to reduce flooding as water overflows from a retention basin at Marie Kerr Park in Palmdale on Wednesday.

(3) Traffic inches through deep water Wednesday on Palmdale Boulevard at 35th Street East.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer