Swollen River Threatens to Inundate Sewage Plant : Weather: Crews work to protect the Fillmore facility. Storm causes more slides and problems for strawberry growers.

A slow-moving storm dropped as much as 1 1/2 inches of rain on parts of Ventura County on Friday, prompting an emergency effort to keep the Fillmore sewage plant from releasing more than a million gallons of raw sewage a day into the Santa Clara River.

The showers also caused further rock slides on California 33 near Ojai and aggravated damage to the county’s ripening strawberry crop. In Oxnard, hardest hit by the latest wet weather, homeless men doubled up in sagging tents that serve as temporary housing at the Rescue Mission.

Forecasters predicted that scattered showers will continue through today and taper off Sunday morning as a low-pressure system and cool front pass through the area. Today’s storms could add another half inch to totals for the storm, which moved into the county Thursday evening.

Coming on the heels of Gov. Pete Wilson’s declaration that California’s six-year drought is over, today’s rains could cause isolated flooding because there’s nowhere for the water to go, said Dolores Taylor, county Flood Control District division engineer.

“Everything is so wet that it just slicks off of the ground like it was paved,” Taylor said. “There’s very little infiltration.”

Flood district workers were busy shoring up a collapsing wall of the Arroyo Simi, a primary storm drain in Simi Valley. The eroding bank has eaten into Darrah Volunteer Park and threatens to spread downstream to the yards of residences along Royal Avenue, Taylor said.

In Fillmore, emergency crews used bulldozers to pile sand along the edge of the swollen Santa Clara River to keep its muddy waters from inundating the adjacent sewage plant, which processes 1.2 million gallons of sewage a day. No spills have occurred, but city officials fear that if the river jumps its banks and floods the plant, it could carry off the raw sewage.

The threat of flooding caused Wilson to declare a state of emergency in Fillmore in late January. Since then, temporary barriers have shored up the levee that protects the treatment dam from the river.

Construction of permanent barriers is scheduled to begin Tuesday, said Bert Rapp, a Fillmore city engineer. “We’re racing to get everything done before the next big rain,” Rapp said.

Officials at Oxnard’s Rescue Mission could not stop water from seeping under two sinking tents that are meant to house 11 men each but were filled to double capacity because of the weather.

“Slowly they’re going down and there’s nothing we can do about it,” dorm manager Dave Deveraux said.

Residents of the makeshift shelters made the best of a muddy situation.

“I’m just dealing with it,” Charlie Burrell said. “It’s definitely better than being out in Mother Nature.”

Meanwhile, road workers surveyed the latest slides of mud and rock in the mountains above Ojai that have closed a growing stretch of California 33, now extending 40 miles from Wheeler Gorge Campgrounds to Ozena north of Pine Mountain.

Each new storm also compounds the problems faced by strawberry growers hoping to salvage what’s left of their delicate crops.

“I’ve been here 37 years and I’ve never seen it this bad before,” said John Meichel, a field supervisor at McGrath Farms in Oxnard, where workers were sent out in the morning rains to save what they could.

“If there is no more rain from now on,” he said, “it will take a month for the strawberries to come back.”

Moorpark resident A.J. Wilson also has seen enough damage for one rainy season. A slope in the back yard of his Moorpark house has slid 15 feet, creating a 50-foot-wide gash now covered by a plastic tarp. More rain could send the earth sliding toward his house, he said.

“We needed the rain to fill our reservoirs, but now that they’re full, it can quit,” said Wilson, who stayed home from work to keep watch on the 45-degree slope.

Dorothy DeFratus couldn’t take the day off because of the rain, even though she has to be in it. As a letter carrier, bad weather can’t keep her from her appointed rounds, but it can make them miserable.

“I end up going home drenched, (with) a lot of wet shoes, wet socks, soggy days,” DeFratus said as she delivered mail under temporarily sunny skies in downtown Ventura on Friday.

Thousand Oaks resident John Ellis also was grateful for the break in the rain Friday, as he took advantage of a noontime clearing to take his 3-year-old son to the park.

“He’s got to burn some energy,” Ellis said, marveling as his toddler ran around the playground toys. “I like the rain, but now that I have a kid, it’s harder because he always wants to wrestle and jump up and down all day.”

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Times staff writers Sara Catania and Stephanie Simon contributed to this story.

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County Rainfall

Here are rainfall figures from 8 a.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 0.44 19.73 9.41 Casitas Dam 0.92 33.69 16.75 El Rio 1.28 22.84 10.70 Fillmore 0.38 28.60 13.55 Moorpark 0.17 27.46 10.27 Ojai 0.64 34.85 15.15 Upper Ojai 0.87 40.35 16.44 Oxnard 1.42 20.66 10.33 Piru 0.34 28.15 12.06 Santa Paula 0.65 27.79 12.70 Simi Valley 0.33 24.65 9.94 Thousand Oaks 0.44 25.83 10.76 Ventura Govt. Center 1.02 23.28 11.41