OFFICIALS FORM `1-STOP' FLOOD CONTROL PLAN; EL NINO PRODS PERMIT CHANGES.

Byline: Eric Wahlgren Daily News Staff Writer

With El Nino predicted to unleash dreaded storms on Southern California as early as December, federal officials announced plans Tuesday to make it much easier for local governments to get permits to clear out flood-prone waterways.

At a summit on the global weather phenomenon, U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer said the federal government is setting up a ``one-stop shopping'' process to ensure the clean-up work gets done before winter storms hit.

Many projects to ready local streams, rivers and other drainage channels for the anticipated record rains are stalled because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other agencies have yet to give local governments the green light.

The coordination effort will save ``urgent time, tax dollars and most important of all, it will save lives,'' Boxer, D-Calif., told nearly 1,000 people gathered at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. The group included representatives from businesses, local governments and disaster relief agencies from across the West.

The turnaround time for the permits could shorten from months or even years to a matter of 15 days, federal officials said.

Carl Blum, deputy director of the county's Department of Public Works, said about 10 percent of the county's drainage channels have earthen or soft bottoms, requiring the county to get federal approval before it can do any clearing.

Blum said the quicker process means the county could begin work on many of these yet-to-be-cleaned waterways Oct. 27.

Sponsored by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the El Nino Community Preparedness Summit was touted as the first-ever federal meeting held in advance of an expected natural disaster. Using the summit as a launch pad, FEMA director James Lee Witt unveiled ``Project Impact,'' a national initiative designed to shift the agency's focus from response and recovery to disaster preparedness and mitigation.

``We're not waiting for the landing,'' Vice President Al Gore said of El Nino. ``We're here on the takeoff.''

Thanks to new satellite technology and stronger computer programs, weather specialists are now able to predict an El Nino - caused by the warming of a large patch of the Pacific Ocean - early enough to give people time to prepare.

The Los Angeles area could get doused with 200 percent more rainfall than average with the worst storms raking the region in December, January and February, said Ants Leetmaa of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Leetmaa, director of the NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, said this El Nino could rival the one that occurred in 1982 and 1983, causing an estimated 2,000 deaths and $13 billion in damage worldwide.

``It will not be bigger than that event,'' said Leetmaa.

During the all-morning summit, a panel of more than 20 disaster relief officials, business representatives and community members proposed scores of actions residents can take to gear up for what could be a very stormy winter.

Like a mantra, many repeated over and over again their belief that homeowners should purchase flood insurance, a coverage not normally included in a typical homeowner policy.

Every family should develop a disaster response program that includes stocking water and extra food, panelists agreed. Companies were urged to come up with a plan that would allow their workers to work out of their homes or report to the job at different hours if storms were to snarl roadways.

And Boxer called on school districts to draft plans to evacuate and shelter students if facilities become flooded.