Anxiety and Water on Rise : Downpour: A flood watch is in effect as officials monitor rivers and creeks. But no major emergencies are expected.

The National Weather Service on Friday declared a flood watch in Ventura County through the weekend, as a series of tropical storms was expected to follow a day of steady rain that caused rivers and creeks to swell.

Although no serious flooding was expected, officials were closely watching the county’s waterways as the first of back-to-back storms began pelting the county early Friday.

The rain-swollen Ventura River rose a foot in about three hours Friday morning as more than two inches of rain fell in the northern Ojai Valley. Most other county areas received more than an inch of rain.

“The gun is loaded and it’s pointed directly at Southern California,” said Terry Schaeffer, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Santa Paula.

Steve Burback, a meteorologist with the Kansas-based consulting firm WeatherData Inc., said Friday’s storm moved in more quickly than predicted and that a wet-weather break isn’t expected until Monday at the earliest.

“There won’t be any break as one wave after another moves through,” Burback said. “It’s going to be a very rainy weekend.”

Although the watershed already is saturated, Ventura County flood-control officials expect only minor flooding to occur over the weekend.

Forecasters predict that five inches of rain will fall today on the upper Ventura River, and about three inches will drop near the coast and in the east county. If flooding does occur, officials said it will probably happen this afternoon, as it did early Thursday when the Ventura River briefly jumped its banks near the Ventura Beach RV Resort in Ventura.

Last February, nearly five inches of rain in five hours caused a flash flood in the Ventura River that submerged dozens of mobile homes at the resort in a wave of mud and water. One recreational vehicle was washed out to sea.

At the height of that event, county flood-control manager Hassan Kasraie said, the river raged at 46,000 cubic feet per second.

The difference this year, Kasraie said, is that the heaviest showers have only produced an inch of rain per hour for two hours. At its peak, the river has flowed at about 20,000 cubic feet per second.

“It has been raining pretty good but it hasn’t been as intense as last year,” Kasraie said. “This storm that we are talking about doesn’t appear to be a major threat.”

Still, at the RV park, Mickey Smith wasn’t taking any chances.

As rain pounded the park Friday morning, the tourist from British Columbia hitched a 40-foot trailer to his pickup truck and prepared for a quick getaway.

He and his wife, Gloria, saw news footage of the park under water last year, and during their monthlong stay they have been evacuated twice from the nearly empty park. Smith spent much of the morning monitoring the rising river, and worrying that the steady downpour would force his evacuation once more.

“If it gets up to that point,” he said, pointing to a rock-strewn mud flat, “we’re out of here.”

Park manager Joe Crognale said Friday morning that he would not accept more customers until the rain slowed, but decided not to evacuate those already encamped there.

Instead, Crognale kept in constant contact with flood-control officials and checked the height of the river every hour.

“If it comes down slow like this, in a nice drizzle, that’s when the river can handle it,” said Crognale, who informs every potential customer about last year’s flood. “I’m not going to let anybody in here get hurt, and I’m not going to get hurt myself.”

Friday’s rain caused the closure of at least 10 roads throughout Ventura County. Oak View residents escaped injury Friday when a large oak tree smashed into their home.

In other parts of the county, wary officials kept a close eye on the water level in creeks and rivers.

David Buettner, the county’s chief deputy agricultural commissioner, said the heavy rains had failed to flood low-lying row crops by Friday afternoon. Last year, a two-day deluge inundated about 900 acres of Oxnard farmland, causing more than $5 million in crop damage.

“The potential is there, it’s just a matter of what we get this weekend,” he said. “If we get a significant amount of rain, there is a strong likelihood that there will be some considerable damage due to flooding.”

Also absent so far are massive mudslides such as the one that killed a couple in the Casitas Springs area last year.

“We’ve been really lucky so far,” said Kasraie. “But this storm is not done with us yet.”

County Rainfall

Here are rainfall figures from 5 p.m. Thursday to 5 p.m. Friday from the Ventura County Flood Control District. Oct. 1 is the beginning of the official rain year.

Rainfall Rainfall Normal rainfall Location since Thursday since Oct. 1 to date Camarillo 1.10 11.26 5.46 Casitas Dam 2.17 NA 9.69 El Rio .83 11.64 6.15 Fillmore 1.93 17.96 NA Moorpark 1.22 12.37 6.12 Ojai 1.69 19.37 NA Upper Ojai .79 19.03 9.14 Oxnard 1.22 10.97 5.90 Piru 1.18 15.76 7.01 Santa Paula 1.69 14.72 7.35 Simi Valley .75 13.38 NA Thousand Oaks .51 12.82 6.25 Ventura Govt. Center .83 12.42 6.54