Expected Big Storm a No-Show : Weather: The county is hit by a brief but intense rain in the early morning hours. Residents and emergency officials relax as the skies begin to clear.

By MACK REED

Feb. 16, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Mudslides blocked off a canyon community in Ojai, a creek in Oak View flooded nearby homes, and farm workers had to be airlifted off a Camarillo hillside Saturday after their field was flooded by a brief but intense pre-dawn storm that dumped 1 to 2 1/2 inches of rain on Ventura County.

But while high, storm-driven surf thrashed Ventura County beaches--which remained closed due to sewage in the water--emergency officials began to relax when their fears of a repeat of Wednesday’s killer storms never materialized.

Saturday’s rain was “just a garden-variety winter storm” that should be followed by several days of clear weather before another storm midweek, said Terry Schaeffer, National Weather Service meteorologist.

The storm Wednesday killed seven people, left three missing and caused more than $23 million in damage to property throughout Southern California.

Ventura County Fire Department spokeswoman Karen Guidi said last week’s storms and flooding damaged about 1,000 homes throughout the county and caused $1 million to $2 million in damage to crops. However, she said it will be weeks before the county can figure out how much it has spent on overtime put in by county rescue workers and public works crews.

By late morning, the heavy rain had stopped, and cloud-dotted blue skies prevailed.

The Ventura County Fire Department shut down its emergency operations center Saturday afternoon, officials said.

But county sheriff’s helicopters continued buzzing creek banks and drainage channels to warn people away from the rain-swollen watercourses. Some youths, who were seen trying to launch rubber rafts in the muddy brown water, risked being capsized by submerged debris and drowned in the swift currents, said Sheriff’s Lt. Michael Gullon.

Two youths fell into a drainage channel in Thousand Oaks but managed to pull themselves out of the swift water, he said.

“Your boat might turn over and if you aren’t able to swim in fast waters like that,” you could drown, Gullon said.

The Red Cross shelter in Ventura on Friday night housed about 100 homeless people whose campsites in the usually dry Ventura River bed were washed away by Wednesday’s flooding.

Many had wanted to return to reclaim their belongings from the mud, but agreed to stay in the shelter until Saturday’s rains passed in exchange for food, clothing and a sleeping bag from Ventura outreach workers who wanted to keep them out of the storm.

The rain hit hardest Saturday in the Ojai mountains, said Schaeffer.

Some Ojai Valley residents used the debris from Wednesday’s storm to protect their property from flooding Saturday.

Mike and Kandee Riddle filled huge black planters with mud and detritus left on their property by Wednesday’s rain and built a wall at the mouth of their driveway to block out heavy mud flows in the weekend storm.

Riddle said he pulled from the river a six-foot-long measuring stake that a friend had made after last March’s heavy rains.

He laughed as he read off the markings from bottom to top: “Eat soup, buy a boat, move, select two animals from every species except the rooster.” Kandee Riddle skidded around in the mud, grinning. “It’s my Olympic mud-skating routine,” she said.

Donnie Coleman and his friend, Russ Grimes, began trying to clear debris out of a clogged drainage ditch, which he said contributed to the floodwater soaking the floors of some homes in the Live Oak Acres neighborhood.

“The water’s not draining,” Coleman said. “Ain’t nobody else gonna come by here. We got to help each other.”

Elsewhere in the Ojai Valley, hail fell shortly after dawn, and heavy runoff deposited dozens of oranges on the road outside Chris Shepherd’s house.

“God, it was so fast, it was unbelievable,” Shepherd said, taking pictures of the oranges in the gutter. “The deck had ice all over it. It hailed harder than I’ve ever seen. I’ve lived in Southern California all my life.”

Mudslides blocked access to 45 homes in Matilija Canyon, but the two-thirds of the residents who did not evacuate Friday simply scrambled out over the slides to their cars, which they parked close to California 33 in anticipation of the blockage, Gullon said.

Allen Carrozza said a few of his neighbors in Matilija Canyon who own backhoes and tractors pitched in last week to build dikes to funnel away the worst of the floodwaters and mudslides from their homes.

He said he was glad that Saturday’s storm was milder than he feared. “I was just happy enough to stay ahead of it,” he said. “Everyone was ready for a good punch.”

Carrozza said the rain has saturated the hillside behind his home and overfilled four underground ponds beneath his property.

“The hillsides have taken so much rain that the rain has soaked into the hill and is starting to pop up. It’s just erupting like a water fountain,” he said. “And then at night we have hundreds of frogs that have somehow realized there’s a playground out there, and with all the tranquillity, you sleep like the Waltons at night here.”

Reservoirs have fared well since the rains began Feb. 2. The water level has risen nearly eight feet in Lake Casitas, 37 feet in Lake Piru and 33 feet in Lake Cachuma, the main reservoir for Santa Barbara County.

Times photographer Alan Hagman contributed to this report.

* RELATED STORY: A1

County Rainfall

Here are current rain statistics from the Ventura County Flood Control District.

Rainfall Rainfall Normal rainfall Location since Friday since Oct. 1 to date Camarillo 0.67 13.13 8.52 Casitas Dam 1.65 20.10 15.77 El Rio 1.10 13.59 10.07 Fillmore 1.10 16.79 12.76 Moorpark 0.47 14.79 9.72 Ojai 1.42 20.49 14.22 Oxnard 0.43 13.49 9.71 Piru 0.20 16.45 11.39 Santa Paula 0.98 17.51 11.92 Simi Valley 0.91 16.19 9.39 Thousand Oaks 0.71 17.21 10.15 Ventura Govt. Center 0.98 14.25 10.74

Road Closures

A few roads in Ventura County remained closed due to flooding and mudslides as of 6:30 p.m. Saturday:

WEST COUNTY

* Main Street off-ramp and on-ramp at the Ventura Freeway.

* State Beaches exit of the Ventura Freeway.

* Arnold Road at Hueneme Road.

* Laguna Road between Hueneme and Las Posas roads.

* Lewis Road at Potrero Road.

* Central Avenue between Santa Clara Avenue and Beardsley Road.

NORTH COUNTY

* Old Creek Road at California 33.

* Camino Cielo at California 33.