Rains Knock Out Power, Roads : Storm: The downpour raised water levels at area reservoirs, but won’t affect cutbacks, officials say.

Flooding, mudslides, road closures and power outages occurred throughout Ventura County on Friday as heavy rainfall continued to pour over the region for the third straight day.

The northbound Ventura Freeway near the Santa Barbara County line was closed at 1:30 a.m. and reopened at 9 as Caltrans workers cleared debris from a mudslide.

California 33 in Las Padres National Forest north of Ojai, closed Thursday night due to mudslides, was reopened Friday evening, and Balcom and Grimes canyon roads between Moorpark and Fillmore were closed Friday due to slides, said T.J. McAllister, a highway patrol spokeswoman.

Several streets in Oxnard and Ventura were closed Friday because of heavy flooding, and the Ventura Fire Deparment was offering sandbags to protect homes from incoming water. Flooding was also reported along California 150 between Santa Paula and Ojai and on California 126 in Fillmore.

McAllister said there were dozens of minor rain--related accidents throughout the county, but no serious injuries or fatalities.

“It’s not really the rain,” she said. “It’s mostly people driving too fast in the rain” causing the accidents.

A power failure in the Casitas Springs area left 3,097 residents without electricity from 11:30 a.m. until noon Friday, said Mike Montoya of Southern California Edison Co.

Another outage occurred at 5:30 a.m. Friday in Simi Valley, leaving 1,900 residents without electricity for nearly two hours. More than 3,000 Camarillo residents lost power between 10:30 and 11 p.m. Thursday.

Meanwhile, agricultural officials said that even though the rain added significant amounts to the water levels of Ventura County’s major reservoirs, it would have little effect on the drought.

“It’s not going to make any difference as far as the emergency plans or cutbacks,” said Rex Laird, executive director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau. “It took five years to get where we are; we’re not going to get out of it overnight. I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but it’s too little, too late.”

Between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Friday, Ventura got a third of an inch of rain, while the east county, including Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks, got a quarter-inch. Meteorologists predicted partly cloudy skies throughout the region early this morning with little or no chance of showers.

Forecasters had predicted that a new storm front would hit the county early next week, but on Friday, agricultural meteorologist Terry Schaeffer of the National Weather Service in Santa Paula said the chance of more rain next week had decreased.

Dolores Taylor, senior hydrologist with the Ventura County Flood Control District, agreed with Laird’s assessment of the rain and its effects on the drought. She said that although the county has received about seven inches of rain since Wednesday, that is still far less than it would receive in a normal rain year. The rain year runs from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30.

During a normal year, the county gets 16 to 17 inches of rain, with 35% of it usually occurring in January and February. But until Wednesday, no rain had fallen since Jan. 10.

“We’re so far behind,” Taylor said. “It’s going to take a lot more than this” storm to ease the drought.

Still, Taylor said the county’s reservoirs had risen substantially since the rain began.

By Friday afternoon, Lake Casitas had risen 2 1/2 feet, a gain of 2,950 acre-feet of water. Lake Piru rose 2 1/2 feet and gained about 1,750 acre-feet, while Matilija Reservoir, located at the headwaters of the Ventura River and the smallest of the three, rose 13 feet with a gain of about 1,500 acre-feet. An acre-foot is 326,000 gallons, enough to supply two households for a year.

The Santa Clara River on Friday continued to spill over the new Freeman Diversion Dam on its way to the ocean. This is the first time in five years that the river has flowed all the way out to the ocean.

Officials of the United Water Conservation District, which built the dam, said they hope to capture 5,000 to 10,000 acre-feet of runoff from the storm. The $31-million dam, which was dedicated two weeks ago, is designed to divert water to ponds used to recharge seven ground-water basins.

United provides all or part of the water supply for about 300,000 residents and 800 growers in Ventura, Oxnard, Camarillo, Fillmore, Santa Paula and Port Hueneme.

Jim Gross, a spokesman for the district, said the dam is only designed to handle 375 cubic feet of water per second. He said he did not know how much water had been diverted or how much had spilled over the 60-foot-high dam.

Gross said the district is studying ways to expand the dam’s water capacity. This could be done by enlarging an adjacent 3,500-foot-long canal that feeds water to a pipeline that carries it to ponds about a mile away.

But for now, Gross said, the rain would not have a lasting effect on the drought. He said it would merely decrease demand on United’s supplies, which have been overdrawn for years. The district is currently studying ways to restrict water use.

Officials with the Metropolitan Water District, which delivers water to about 450,000 Ventura County residents and more than 700 growers, also said the rain would have no effect on the mandatory cutbacks imposed by the district on Friday. Residential customers have been ordered to cut back 20% and agricultural users 50%. The district provides water for more than 700 growers in the east county.

County Rainfall Annual total and year-to-date rainfall through March 1, in inches, at County Government Center in Ventura. Rain year runs from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30. ‘91: 7.47* *as of 4:30 p.m. Times Staff Writer Kim Kash contributed to this report.

Related STORY: B6