Season’s Rainfall Hits Normal Level : Drought: More storms are expected through the weekend. But water officials warn that nearly five dry years cannot be wiped out in one month.

A two-day storm that ended early Tuesday added about 10,000 acre-feet of water to Ventura County’s two largest reservoirs, swelled rivers and streams and brought seasonal rainfall figures to normal levels for the first time since 1986.

The storm dropped 5.23 inches of rain at the County Government Center in Ventura, bringing the season rainfall total there to 13.44 inches, a fraction of an inch above the normal rainfall for this time of year.

A new storm sprinkled parts of the county Tuesday evening, and the National Weather Service forecast another one to two inches of rain, accompanied by thunder, today and Thursday. Another, larger storm could move into the area Saturday, said weather service meteorologist Terry Schaeffer.

“The weekend storm could turn out to be a real monster,” Schaeffer said.

Tuesday’s storm was the second-largest of the season. A three-day series of storms that ended March 2 dropped more than six inches of rain at the County Government Center and nine inches in Santa Paula.

Authorities reported numerous cases of rocks or debris rolling onto roads. California 33 from Casitas Springs to Ojai was reopened after a brief closure because of a rockslide, but California 23 over the steep and winding Grimes Canyon pass between Moorpark and Fillmore remained closed Tuesday.

No major injuries were reported as a result of the storm, but Ventura County sheriff’s deputies used a helicopter to rescue one homeless man from rising waters in the Ventura River. Allen Mosher, 32, was plucked from the top of a two-room shack that he and a friend inhabited in the river bottom, said Barry Simmons, a spokesman for the city of Ventura’s Fire Department. Mosher’s dog also was rescued.

The storm drew spectators to the San Buenaventura State Beach on Tuesday, where they watched from their cars as winds gusting to 30 m.p.h. whipped the waves that had been turned brown by mud carried down the rivers.

“It’s nice to see it flowing again,” said Paul Leitzell, a former Ventura resident in town on business. Leitzell, who lives in Valencia, said he wanted to “check in” with the river.

The storm also kept local contractors busy with frantic calls from residents with leaky roofs.

“We look like the DMV in here,” said Bob Gorenflo, owner of Gold Coast Roofing in Oxnard.

Gusty winds caused electric outages throughout the county as trees became uprooted from soggy soil and toppled onto power poles. About 34,000 county residents were without power for varying lengths of time between 10 p.m. Monday and 10 a.m. Tuesday, said Mark Olson, area manager of Southern California Edison.

Tuesday’s storm also dropped 8.31 inches of rain at Casitas Dam northwest of Ventura, adding about 5,000 acre-feet of water to Lake Casitas, enough to serve 10,000 families for a year. The 4.31 inches of rain that fell in the Fillmore area also raised the level of Lake Piru north of Piru by about 5,000 acre-feet.

The rainfall was expected to raise ground-water tables by several inches. No measurements of ground-water levels had been taken by Tuesday. But the Freeman Diversion Dam, which captures Santa Clara River water and diverts it into ground-water basins, was capturing the maximum of 750 acre-feet a day.

The river runoff will probably continue for several days, enabling the Freeman dam to divert a total of 5,000 acre-feet, said Frederick J. Gientke, general manager of United Water Conservation District. “It’s better than great,” he said.

But Gientke and other water experts warned that the effects of nearly five years of below-normal rainfall cannot be wiped out in one month.

Gientke said the rain may eliminate the need for restrictions on pumping in the Fillmore and Piru areas of the United district.

But the United board of directors will still consider pumping restrictions on basins in the Santa Paula, Ventura and Oxnard areas, Gientke said. Those basins had reached record lows before the storms began.

Even with seasonal rainfall exceeding normal levels for the first time since the drought began in 1986, the county is still 29 inches below normal for the five-year period, weather experts say.

United completed the Freeman dam last month in time for the year’s two biggest storms. The dam captured 5,000 acre-feet during the storms earlier this month.

The Casitas Municipal Water District, which has received a total of 10,000 acre-feet at the Casitas reservoir during the last two major storms, also plans to proceed with discussions on household restrictions, said Richard Hajas, assistant general manager of the district. Casitas will probably retain a moratorium on new hookups and consider moving from voluntary conservation to mandatory household rationing of about 425 gallons per household per day, he said.

VENTURA COUNTY RAINFALL

As of 8 a.m. Tuesday

Rainfall Rainfall normal Location Storm total year to date this time of year Upper Ojai 5.85 18.86 19.08 Ventura 5.23 13.44 13.33 Oxnard 4.13 9.88 11.99 Port Hueneme N/A N/A 11.64 Camarillo 2.36 7.67 11.02 Thousand Oaks 2.38 9.33 12.55 Simi Valley 2.35 11.00 11.71 Moorpark 1.73 7.49 12.01 Santa Paula 4.33 14.44 14.72 Fillmore 4.31 13.62 15.70

Times staff writer Tina Daunt and correspondent Karen McKean contributed to this story.