Homeowners, Merchants Map Battle Plans : Weather: As storm approaches, many are hoping the barriers of sandbags and hay bales hold.

LAGUNA BEACH — Tired of worrying whether the next rain will wash away his home, Dick Spangler took the day off Friday, rented a U-Haul and hired day workers to help him fill another 400 sandbags.

Then the 46-year-old locksmith stacked them around his three-bedroom, wood-frame home on Laguna Canyon Road, more than doubling the size of the fortification already in place and, he hoped, giving him more peace of mind. “I’m getting prepared for a deluge,” Spangler said.

As another storm approached the coast Friday, other homeowners and merchants here were also crossing their fingers, hoping that the barriers of sandbags and hay bales erected throughout the city will hold.

There is an increasing chance of showers and a few thunderstorms by this afternoon, according to WeatherData, which provides forecasts for the Times. By Sunday, the weather should clear, although there is a chance of morning showers, said meteorologist Steve Pryor. The storm is expected to dump about a half an inch of rain on the coast and one to two inches in the mountains, forecasters say.

But even a light rain could cause mudslides in Laguna Beach, where the hills were denuded by the October wildfire. Work crews from the city, the California Conservation Corps and the state Department of Forestry joined residents in preparing for the next storm, cleaning street gutters and storm drains so they would not clog with debris and and worsen flooding.

Terry Brandt, the city’s director of municipal services, said that workers from the Department of Forestry were placing sandbags on a hillside above Skyline Terrace on Friday. Hand crews and about 30 workers from the California Conservation Corps were also busy digging out debris that had collected behind hay bales after last weekend’s rain.

The Conservation Corps crews had been working all week, Brandt said, and were focusing Friday on the watershed above the Canyon Acres neighborhood, where about 20 homes that escaped the fire are especially vulnerable to flooding.

Donna Cobb, a resident of Canyon Acres, said her Volkswagen Rabbit floated down the street in the first storm after the fire and hasn’t started since, despite the best attempts of mechanics to fix it. That first storm, she said, persuaded her and her husband to start sandbagging in earnest.

“The sandbagging makes me feel better, like I’m doing something to help,” she said.

City officials in Villa Park also hope the rain will hold off long enough for the city to finish its annual Christmas Candy Parade, which was cut short by last Saturday’s downpour. The parade includes a firetruck filled with carolers and a Santa Claus who passes out candy to children.

“If we get rained out on our rain date, that’s it,” said City Clerk Kaysene Miller. “There’s just not enough time” to reschedule, she said.

In Newport Beach, the annual Newport Harbor Christmas Boat Parade is scheduled to go on as planned today unless high winds and stormy seas prevent it.

Merchants in outdoor shopping malls are hoping the rain will stay away or Christmas shoppers will brave the elements on what is for many the biggest weekend of the year.

“I’m hoping for no rain and beautiful weather and sunshine,” said Yolanda Cavina, who sells holiday-decorated inflatable gift wrap at an outdoor push cart in Fashion Island.