‘Humdinger’ of Storm Heading for Ventura : Weather: Up to four inches of rain is forecast. Damage in Southland so far is estimated at $23 million.

A hammering downpour was expected again in Southern California by sunrise today, the last in a wave of brutal storms that already have left at least seven dead and three missing and caused at least $23 million in damage.

In Ventura County, two to four inches of rain was forecast for today, with the heaviest amounts falling between 6 a.m. and noon. State parks officials warned that the storm, combined with high tides at about 6:30 a.m. and 8 p.m., could bring surf of eight to 10 feet crashing onto Ventura County beaches.

Today’s storm, churning out of the Gulf of Alaska, was expected to bring thunder and snow down to about the 4,000-foot level. Temperatures will be cooler, mostly in the 50s, according to forecasters.

Avalanche warnings went up for the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada on Friday, and violently rotating funnel clouds formed off San Diego.

“On satellite, it looks like it’s going bonkers,” said Steve Burback of WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times. “It’s a humdinger.”

Health officials said Friday that all Ventura County beaches will remain closed until after the ocean has cleansed itself of sewage washed into it by the floods.

County flood control workers shored up damaged dams in the Arroyo Simi in Moorpark and the Calleguas Creek in Camarillo, which were weakened by heavy flows during Wednesday’s storm, said Alex Sheydayi, a county deputy public works director. Workers are also strengthening levees along the creek, which overflowed and flooded surrounding agricultural fields, he said.

Snowshoe-clad rescuers, poking long sticks into the deep powder, took advantage of Friday’s lull to continue the hunt for two skiers believed buried in an avalanche at Mt. Baldy. Tim Pines, 31, of Dana Point and Charles Prior, 34, of San Clemente have been missing since Tuesday, and authorities fear heavy snow could thwart any chance of finding them alive.

After two days, officials gave up the search for Lance Cpl. Jeffrey B. Johns, a 22-year-old avionics technician who was the only member of a nine-person crew not pulled from the ocean after a U. S. Marine helicopter went down in stormy weather Wednesday off the Ventura County coast.

But sheriff’s deputies Friday continued searching for an unidentified homeless man who was reported missing in the storm.

While Ventura County residents prepared for the next rains, they continued to cope with the damage done by the last storm.

The relatives of a Foster Park couple killed Wednesday in a mudslide began making funeral plans for Monday. An open-casket service is planned for Glenn Queen, 30, Michele Bovee, 27, and the 8 1/2-month-old fetus Bovee was carrying when she died.

The fetus, removed during an autopsy by the county coroner, will be laid in his mother’s arms for burial, according to the Joseph P. Reardon Funeral Chapel.

No services have been planned yet for the other Ventura County storm victim, Ed (Jim) Butler, a 32-year-old transient who suffocated in the mud in Wednesday’s deluge, according to the coroner’s office.

The Ventura City Council met in emergency session Friday morning to declare the city a disaster area so it would become available for state relief money.

Also on Friday morning, Gov. Pete Wilson toured flood-stricken areas of Los Angeles County by air. He turned back at the Ventura County line because his flying time was cut short by a delay in getting an airworthy National Guard helicopter, said press secretary James Lee.

At a fire station not far from the Sepulveda Dam, the governor, U. S. Sen. John Seymour and Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley thanked firefighters, highway patrol officers and a helicopter pilot who helped rescue motorists trapped Monday in as much as 15 feet of water.

Asked if he thought there had been too much residential development on flood plains such as the one where the Ventura RV park was located, Wilson said zoning was purely a local matter, although “you may question the decision in individual instances.”

Ventura Mayor Greg Carson said he supports a county proposal for mandatory evacuation of low-lying areas around the river whenever a warning is issued by the county Flood Control District.

Some flood refugees from the washed-out Ventura Beach RV Resort complained that they were warned too late to save their motor homes and campers, 10 to 15 of which were washed out to sea in the deluge Wednesday morning.

“I am angry because we were not issued any warning of a flood that started hours and hours” before, Doc Prairie said, sipping coffee at the American Red Cross shelter.

“I can’t believe that nobody was drowned or died in that mess,” he said. “The old man upstairs must have been looking out.”

Flood control officials “were having trouble and they knew it,” said his wife, Star, adding that there were “no sirens, no nothing.”

Park owner Arnold Hubbard acknowledged that district officials warned him of flooding at 8:30 a.m., but he did not pass the warning on to the 110 park residents until 9:15.

“We’d be very happy to sit down with the officials and try to learn from experiences,” he said.

But Hubbard blamed the flooding of his park on the riverbed’s condition, not on the fact that he built the park on the riverbed.

“The problem was not the rising of the river,” he said. “The problem was that the river was congested with debris and overgrowth.”

However, county flood control officials said they have no responsibility to clear away brush and debris from the Ventura River. Heavy rains naturally disgorge the material, which has built up during the six-year drought, they said.

Meanwhile, outreach workers had to act quickly to keep transients from moving back to their riverbed campsites, which could be flooded again in today’s storm.

The workers cut a deal with the homeless, said Bob Costello, case worker for a program called Project Understanding. If they stayed in a shelter Friday night, they would get free food, clothes and a sleeping bag.

“Our fear was that they’d go back, set up whatever they could and then get blown out again,” Costello said.

Costello said he expected 100 homeless people who camp in the usually dry river bottom to stay instead at a Red Cross shelter in the De Anza Middle School gymnasium.

However, some homeless people said they decided to go back to their campsites in the face of today’s storm because the Red Cross shelter just was not enough like home.

“Where else are we going to go?” said Joshua Kamapp, whose tent--on higher ground than most--was only dampened by the floodwaters this week. He said he wanted to return to protect his belongings from scavengers.

Those who agreed to stay in the shelter planned to rebuild their camps when the river recedes.

“My house is buried under four feet of mud,” said David Lee, who lived in a 10-by-16-foot plywood shelter with windows and a wood stove. “I’m going to have to rebuild. Everything was destroyed.”

Near Ojai, hardy Matilija Canyon residents whose homes may be cut off by mudslides during today’s storm said they will ignore the Ventura County sheriff’s recommendation to evacuate.

Meanwhile, water officials rejoiced at the rains that raised water levels in Lake Casitas reservoir by seven feet and in Lake Piru reservoir by 37 feet since Feb. 6.

These roads are still closed by order of the California Highway Patrol: California 33 at Wheeler Gorge, the State Beaches exit of the northbound Ventura Freeway, the West Main Street ramps to the Ventura Freeway and Malibu Canyon Road south of the tunnel. California 126 and California 150 were reopened Friday after Caltrans crews finished clearing mud and rock off the roads.

Times staff writers Daryl Kelley, Tina Daunt and Jesse Katz, and Times correspondents Caitlin Rother and Peggy Y. Lee contributed to this report.

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