Residents Prepare for New Storm : Weather: Umbrellas were opening again as a tropical front moved into areas already soggy from the last rain. Forecasters are expecting up to 1 1/2 inches.

Ventura residents, whose yards turned into rivers of mud during last week’s downpour, were building barricades as rain began to fall again Monday.

“We’ve been told that rain is coming tonight and tomorrow, so we’ve been trying to preserve what’s left,” said Kathy Wiltsey, 35, a Foothill Road resident. Mud knocked down a fence and destroyed landscaping in her yard, she said.

“With the drought and the fires, there’s nothing on the hills to hold the water back,” she said.

By Wednesday, the tropical storm could dump one to 1 1/2 inches of rain on coastal areas already soggy from the last deluge, said Terry Schaeffer, an agricultural meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Santa Paula. He predicted at least two inches of rainfall for the mountains.

“It could cause more mudslides, but it’s not going to be the downpour we had last week,” Schaeffer said. “It’ll bring a lot of moisture with it” but will lack the winds of the last storm, he said.

By late afternoon, storm clouds dropped nearly half an inch in the Pine Mountain area, said Dolores Taylor, senior hydrologist at the Ventura County Flood Control District.

The rain threatened some residences and yards, but farmers were delighted with the new storm.

“For citrus growers that didn’t get nailed by the frost, this is a godsend,” said Rex Laird, executive director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau. “We have not had good, intense storms during the winter.”

A three-day downpour last week drenched the county with the heaviest rains since the drought began five years ago, filling reservoirs with much-needed runoff. Lake Casitas near Ojai has risen about 2 1/2 feet since the last rain, park rangers said.

That storm triggered mudslides on major highways near hills ravaged by fire and parched by drought.

Slides temporarily closed the Pacific Coast Highway, California 33 above Ojai and California 23 in Grimes Canyon near Moorpark, Jim Utter, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol, said. Balcom Canyon Road, also near Moorpark, remains closed, and CHP officials could not say when it would open.

“With the rainy weather, we’re always concerned about mudslides,” Utter said. “Everything’s softened up. Once those hillsides get loosened up, sometimes you keep continuing to have them. Sometimes it doesn’t happen until a day or two after the rains.”

A few hillside residences on Fuschia Lane in Santa Paula received damage from a mudslide, Norm Wilkinson, city public works director, said.

In Ventura, Rick Achee, assistant city fire chief, said fire crews spread sandbags around six houses to prevent further damage in the Foothill Road area.

Nearby Arroyo Verde Park remained closed because of an accumulation of branches and mud.

“It’s really a Catch-22,” Achee said. “We want the rain, but we don’t want the flooding.”

A rush of water from the hills last week washed mud into Bob Earl’s residence and filled his swimming pool.

Monday, Earl, 39, had just finished sandbagging the foundation of his residence in anticipation of another storm when a light rain began falling.

“I’m just hoping this is a slow, steady rain and the barrancas are handling it,” Earl said as he looked forlornly at mud piled about three feet high in his driveway. Mud had filled his garage, family room and kitchen, damaging furniture and carpets, most of it uninsured.

“Fortunately, it’s all stuff we can replace,” he said. “I’m up high and there’s no rivers nearby. It never dawned on me to get flood insurance up here.”

Correspondent Christopher Pummer contributed to this report.