Rain Damage to Civic Arts Plaza Assessed : Weather: Contractors track leaks amid forecasts for a weekend storm. Piers’ condition a concern in Ventura, Port Hueneme.

Thousand Oaks city leaders on Thursday began assessing water damage to the new $64-million Civic Arts Plaza while workers in Port Hueneme and Ventura were struggling to save the city piers from further storm damage.

Even as forecasters were calling for another storm to hit the county by Saturday, contractors were back at the arts center searching for the cause of leaks that appeared throughout the building during Wednesday’s torrential rains.

In Port Hueneme, city workers struggled to shore up the 1,300-foot municipal pier one day after high surf ripped away a 200-foot section and 32 pilings.

Thursday dawned to clearing skies and sweeping vistas of snow-capped mountains, but signs of the two-day deluge that forecasters dubbed “the storm of the season” were visible throughout the county. In Port Hueneme, officials estimated the damage to the pier at $200,000 and said the destruction was devastating.

“This is a very sad moment because the city is financially strapped,” said City Manager Richard Velthoen. “We have no funds reserved to deal with such unexpected events.”

Unusually strong southerly winds Wednesday afternoon probably contributed to the problems at Port Hueneme Pier, said Rea Strange, a meteorologist at Pacific Weather Analysis in Montecito. Offshore winds normally approach Ventura County’s beaches from the west, he said.

“But Port Hueneme’s a south-facing beach and it got hit with some exceptionally strong southerly winds,” Strange said.

At Point Mugu naval base, workers discovered early Thursday that the churning surf had broken through an 18-foot-high rock seawall and was beginning to wash away a training building. By noon, about a third of the 8,000-square-foot training center had lurched off its cement foundation and was inching its way toward the surf. A nearby 150-foot-fishing pier was almost destroyed.

Base officials said there is little they can do to save the training center and the pier, both built in the 1940s. Navy and county fire workers scrambled Thursday morning to salvage thousands of dollars worth of computers, office equipment and furniture from the center before it washes out to sea.

The center had been slated for demolition later this year because of its age and because of the encroaching surf, said Alan Alpers, a spokesman for the base.

“We thought this might happen, but we didn’t think it would happen so quickly,” said Alpers, as knots of Navy employees gathered to watch huge waves crash into the building’s south end, then spray up in a frothy white fan.

No damage estimate was made, Alpers said, because the training center was scheduled to be scrapped and the pier was built before the Navy took over the base facility during World War II.

Farmers on the Oxnard Plain began adding up crop losses from the drenching rain that dumped five inches of water on their fields before letting up early Thursday. At least one grower was reporting losses of $1.5 million and others are expected to follow, agricultural officials said.

Crops particularly vulnerable to flooding this time of year--strawberries, celery and lettuce--need a respite before the next rain begins, said Earl McPhail, Ventura County’s agricultural commissioner.

“If we don’t get some drying by the weekend, we could have some significant problems,” he said.

Thursday was a mop-up day for residents whose homes and businesses were damaged by shallow flooding from the weather system that first moved into the county early Tuesday.

In Thousand Oaks, several employees at the Civic Arts Plaza were displaced from their offices by water that seeped through cracks and soaked carpets. Others raced to put garbage cans under drips in the main lobby and in the building’s plush theater, officials said.

About 100 square feet of carpet was damaged by the rain, but it will not need to be replaced, said Ed Johnduff, the city staffer who supervised the building’s construction and planning.

The leaks will be fixed at no cost to the city because the building’s construction came with a one-year warranty, Johnduff said.

“During the rainy season we may have some more problems,” he said. “But this is a shakedown period. You can do water tests, but you can’t find everything.”

A few miles away in Simi Valley, Chris Medina spent the day cleaning up flood damage to her home and business.

“It’s been one mess after another for me,” said Medina, owner of the Soccer Connection in Simi Valley.

The store’s carpets were damaged by water that seeped under the back door and wall during Wednesday’s deluge. Large fans were placed in the store to speed up the drying process as Medina made arrangements to repair water damage in her Simi Valley home, too.

The chimney was shaken loose from her home during last January’s earthquake, she said. And on Wednesday, water poured through the cracks and soaked the carpets in her home, she said.

For her, Medina said, “January is the epitome of disaster.”

Across Southern California, the two-day downpour was blamed for two deaths and several injuries.

Long Beach resident Robert Martinez died in his stalled car late Wednesday night, apparently overcome by carbon monoxide fumes after water blocked his vehicle’s tailpipe. And in Chatsworth, Maria Isabel Ramires, 17, of Panorama City was struck by two cars as she crossed DeSoto Avenue on Wednesday evening.

Despite the mess, Ventura County residents were grateful for a break before the next storm. Clouds and winds up to 40 m.p.h. will begin arriving Friday night, becoming showers on Saturday, said Michael Most, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.

Rainfall will range between one and two inches over the weekend, Most said. Surf will remain heavy throughout the period, with swells reaching from eight to 10 feet, he said.

Most advised surfers to stay away from the choppy water for the next few days.

“In these kinds of waves, surfing can be lethal,” he said. “Waves this strong will snap a surfboard in half and they will snap a body in half if a surfer lands the wrong way.”

Although the soil is reaching saturation in several areas, the county should be able to easily absorb two more inches of rain, said Dolores Taylor, of the county’s flood control district.

And the good news is that the county’s rainfall average is 125% of normal for this time of year, Taylor. Before the two-day storm, it was 80% of normal, she said.

“It’s good for the water supply, it’s good for the farmers, it’s good for the trees,” she said. “But not so good for those poor people in low-lying areas.”

Staff writer Constance Sommer and Mary Pols and correspondent Paul Elias contributed to this story.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

County Rainfall Here are rainfall figures from the Ventura County Flood Control Department for the two-day period ending 8 a.m. Thursday. Oct. 1 is the beginning of the official rain year.

Rainfall Storm Normal rainfall Location total since Oct. 1 to date Camarillo 3.66 6.34 4.80 Casitas Dam 3.95 7.73 7.95 El Rio 4.81 8.11 5.01 Fillmore 4.12 7.61 6.78 Moorpark 2.98 5.82 5.02 Ojai 3.92 6.59 6.98 Upper Ojai 3.67 8.22 7.42 Oxnard 5.11 8.03 4.79 Piru 3.89 7.01 5.68 Santa Paula 4.18 7.39 6.12 Simi Valley 4.03 6.14 4.77 Thousand Oaks 3.97 6.38 5.09 Ventura Govt. Center 4.28 7.21 5.32