Burst of Rain Causes Some Power Outages : Weather: Brief storm dumps 1.3 inches in the mountains. Farmers welcome new showers, despite recent floods.

A short but hearty burst of showers dropped as much as 1.3 inches of rain in the mountains of Ventura County late Thursday and early Friday, downing a power line in Camarillo and knocking out electricity to 400 homes and a golf course for nearly 10 hours.

Early morning rains may linger today after light showers Friday night, again falling most heavily in the mountains, said Terry Schaeffer, agricultural meteorologist for the National Weather Service.

By Friday morning, Matilija Dam had recorded 1.3 inches of rain, bringing the total for this rain year, which began Oct. 1, to 29.09 inches. That is about nine inches more than what is considered normal for this time of year.

Port Hueneme received only 0.2 of an inch, the county’s low for rainfall in the 24-hour period ending Friday morning. The Ventura County Government Center received 0.78 of an inch during that time, and Thousand Oaks got 0.9 of an inch.

Although 900 to 1,000 acres of farmland was flooded last month during downpours, most farmers welcomed the latest brief showers, said Rex Laird, director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau.

The longer farmers can delay turning the irrigation pumps back on, the better.

“It saves the ground water and cuts down on energy,” Laird said.

Schaeffer predicted another one-quarter to one-half inch late Friday and early today. Temperatures are expected to be in the low 60s today, and a bit warmer on Sunday with partly sunny skies.

Power to the Camarillo Springs Road community went out at 12:30 a.m. Friday, prompting one resident to call county firefighters to move her paraplegic husband from an electric bed to a regular bed, said Bill Torrence, president of the Camarillo Springs homeowners association.

Torrence said he got up at 4 a.m. to saw off the plastic security gates to the complex, which were stuck in the down position.

The outage occurred when the main line feeding the residential community and golf course fell from an insulator box, which had been weakened by being used for target practice, said Southern California Edison spokesman Mark Olson.

Power was restored at 10:09 a.m. to all but 15 customers, who did not get electricity back until 2:30 p.m., Olson said.

About 1,200 customers in Ventura and Casitas Springs briefly lost power at 11:16 p.m. Thursday after a motorist crashed into a power pole on California 33 while heading toward Ojai, Olson said. Service on a second power line kicked in when the first line went down, he said. The driver apparently abandoned the car after the crash, said CHP spokesman Brad Prows.

That power outage was keeping Southern California Edison workers busy when the Camarillo line went down, said Roland Payne, foreman of the Edison crew that worked on the problem Friday morning.

Payne said that a service crew tried before sunup to find the downed line in a lemon orchard off Camarillo Springs Road, but got stuck in the mud and had to be pulled out by another truck.

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 0.39 14.97 10.03 Casitas Dam 0.63 24.62 17.78 El Rio 0.70 16.19 11.41 Fillmore 0.67 21.59 14.41 Moorpark 0.51 17.48 10.94 Ojai 1.26 23.67 16.11 Upper Ojai 1.10 28.31 17.52 Oxnard 0.39 15.66 10.99 Piru N/A N/A 12.85 Port Hueneme 0.20 15.27 10.74 Santa Paula 1.18 22.62 13.52 Simi Valley 0.55 20.35 10.62 Thousand Oaks 0.91 20.69 11.46 Ventura Govt. Center 0.78 16.95 12.17