Calleguas Creek Deluge Damages Crops : Agriculture: The flooding of 900 acres has hurt strawberry, flower and other fields. Officials will assess the loss after storms pass.

A rain-swollen creek that topped its banks during a two-day deluge inundated about 900 acres of Oxnard farmland and caused significant damage to at least four county crops, officials said Tuesday.

Ventura County Agricultural Commissioner Earl McPhail told county supervisors Tuesday that strawberry, flower, vegetable and sod crops were damaged by flooding and decay after Calleguas Creek broke an earthen bank.

The creek and other county flood-control channels filled after a storm that began Sunday dropped more than three inches of rain on most parts of the county.

McPhail said he will wait to estimate the losses to the county’s $805-million agriculture industry until the end of the week, after a second set of storms is expected to pass through the area.

Richard Rogers at Pacific Sod estimated the damage to his crop at $250,000 when Calleguas Creek, a major county flood control channel, overflowed near Camarillo State Hospital.

“We’re pumping out the water, sandbagging and doing everything we can,” Rogers said. “This channel is just completely insufficient” for the area it drains, he added.

A nearby vegetable grower set his losses at $100,000, and a flower grower unable to pick his crop to fill his Valentine’s Day orders estimated his losses at up to $25,000.

“Anything that is grown outside got hit hard,” McPhail said. “We just pray that the storms for the rest of the week aren’t as big as we anticipate and that we get a break of seven to 10 days” before the next storm.

But Terry Schaeffer, National Weather Service meteorologist in Santa Paula, said a respite is unlikely. A storm expected to arrive early today and continue through Thursday could carry three to five inches of rain, coming in intense waves much like the storm earlier this week, he said.

However, a third storm predicted for Saturday will probably hit Ventura County with only a “glancing blow,” carrying most of its moisture to Northern California, he said.

“But the Pacific will remain fertile ground for spawning storms. This could end up being the February miracle,” he said, referring to the Miracle March of 1991 when 11 inches of rain fell on much of the county.

The storm that pounded the county Sunday and Monday with some lingering showers on Tuesday brought rainfall totals to above normal levels for this time of year.

The rain swelled Matilija Creek northwest of Ojai, causing water to spill over Matilija Dam into the Ventura River, frequently a dry bed. The racing water in the river washed out the access to a tiny unincorporated community west of the river and north of Meiners Oaks, forcing residents to use a suspension bridge to reach their homes.

The rain helped the county’s reservoirs, raising Lake Casitas by 5,000 acre-feet since the first of the wet weather Feb. 5 and adding nearly 7,000 acre-feet to Lake Piru on the northeast end of the county. The rain also filled the normally trickling Santa Clara River, prompting a pair of unidentified men to try to ride the river in a dinghy. Ventura County sheriff’s deputies rescued them near the Harbor Boulevard bridge just before they reached the ocean.

A mudslide that oozed onto Pacific Coast Highway at Point Mugu forced officials to close the road. Late Tuesday, Caltrans had no estimate of when the highway would reopen. The storm sent Ventura County crews scrambling to patch flood control channels, which failed in Camarillo and Thousand Oaks.

In Thousand Oaks, workers dumped huge boulders into a branch of Arroyo Conejo to shore up a concrete channel that washed out early Tuesday morning in the 2000 block of Sirius Street. The force of rushing water washed away about 20 feet of an unidentified resident’s back yard and his fence, workers said.

Alex Sheydayi, deputy director of Ventura County Public Works Agency, said crews worked into the night to shore up the canal.

Crews also worked overtime to patch a portion of the Hueneme Drain, a concrete channel that runs along Ponderosa Drive through Camarillo, he said.

Arthur Goulet, director of public works, said, however, that the portion of Calleguas Creek that topped its banks near the state hospital in Camarillo is privately owned. Consequently, officials said, the county is not liable for damage incurred by nearby property owners.

Goulet said the county has repeatedly requested that the Army Corps of Engineers widen the channel and reinforce the earthen banks of Calleguas Creek.

“This will just give us more ammunition to support a federally funded flood-control project on Calleguas Creek,” he said.

Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), who toured the damaged area by helicopter Tuesday, said the Corps does not traditionally build flood control projects to protect agricultural land.

“But we’ve argued that this is the richest agricultural land on the face of the Earth,” he said. “The potential for loss of human safety is also significant.”

Dolores Taylor, county engineer and hydrologist, said Tuesday that the Calleguas Creek channel had been cleared of debris that restricted the water flow.

Even if the county gets five more inches of rain in the next few days, the creek should be able to handle the flow, she said.

Taylor and other flood control officials said the county’s rivers and most of its creeks have the capacity to carry runoff from the predicted rainfall.

Overall, she said, the effect of the rainfall on the formerly drought-parched county can only be seen as positive.

“Even with the 900 acres of valuable farmland inundated, the value of the water to the rest of the ranchers, to the underground supply and to prevent seawater intrusion of the aquifers overshadows the small damages,” she said.

Other growers in the county agreed with Taylor, saying that the benefits from the storm far outweigh the problems it caused.

“We’re just sitting back to enjoy it,” said Chris Taylor, vice president of farming at Limoneira Associates, the largest lemon grower in Ventura County. “The lemon trees like the rainwater better than pumped ground water because it’s more pure.”

He said the rainfall will help clear minerals from around the trees’ roots and help produce slightly larger lemons.

He said that the rainfall also allowed Limoneira to turn off its sprinklers, saving an estimated $270,000 worth of water on the grower’s 3,000 acres.

Times staff writer Collin Nash and correspondent Jane Hulse contributed to this story.

County Rainfall

Here are rain statistics from 8 p.m. Monday until 8 p.m. Tuesday from the Ventura County Flood Control District. Annual rainfall is measured from Oct. 1, the start of the official rain year.

Rainfall Rainfall Normal rainfall Location since Monday since Oct. 1 to date Camarillo 0.63 10.92 8.19 Casitas Dam 0.75 15.03 14.29 El Rio 0.16 11.06 9.13 Fillmore 1.34 13.87 11.57 Moorpark 0.83 11.90 8.89 Ojai 1.46 16.15 12.82 Upper Ojai 3.23 18.57 13.82 Oxnard 0.24 11.35 8.79 Piru 0.79 13.88 10.38 Port Hueneme 0.24 12.46 8.64 Santa Paula 1.85 15.53 10.75 Simi Valley 1.97 12.72 8.55 Thousand Oaks 0.79 14.06 9.23 Ventura Govt. Center 0.28 12.12 9.73

Storm Safety Tips

Red Cross officials have issued the following advice for dealing with the storms expected to drop more rain on soggy Ventura County:

* Emergency plans--Residents should have an evacuation route planned and store drinking water in bathtubs or other large containers.

* Crossing streams--Residents fleeing flooded areas should not drive across flooded roads or wade across a flowing stream where water is above knee-level.

* Watch children--Children should be kept away from flooded areas, streams or low-lying areas.

* No visiting--Residents should not visit disaster areas because onlookers could hamper rescue and emergency operations.

* MAIN STORIES: A1, A18