The California Deluge : Key Roads in East County Closed Due to Flooding : Downpour: Lakes and channels overflow. Two homes in Thousand Oaks are threatened. But no injuries are reported.

With major thoroughfares closed due to flooding, fire-scarred hillsides growing increasingly unstable, and a man-made lake lapping at back yards, east Ventura County residents barely managed to stay one step ahead of Tuesday’s storm.

Thousand Oaks bore the brunt of the storm, as rushing floodwaters spilled over the Lake Sherwood Dam, breaking apart a cement flood channel and threatening two homes. Fire officials closed the Triunfo Canyon Bridge over the channel, concerned that crumbling cement could threaten the integrity of the bridge.

Eastern Ventura County sheriff’s deputies reported no injuries or serious accidents from Tuesday’s storm, but said there were a few incidents of minor flooding at homes.

The severe weather conditions caused city officials to cancel the regularly scheduled Thousand Oaks City Council meeting.

City Public Works Director Don Nelson said 80 department workers had been out since before dawn Tuesday, erecting flood warning signs at intersections, unplugging flood basins and using bulldozers to clear flooded streets in Newbury Park.

Hill Canyon Treatment Plant, which treats sewage for Thousand Oaks, was nearly overwhelmed by the storm and had to release partially untreated sewage water into the Arroyo Conejo. The plant--which usually has about 8 million gallons of water in its tanks--was over capacity with 20 million gallons.

Gutters along nearly the entire length of Wendy Drive in Newbury Park were flooded, causing two-foot-deep puddles at many intersections and terrifying driving conditions for residents on their way to the Ventura Freeway for the morning commute.

But many residents chose to spend the day at home instead, venturing no farther than local hardware stores and fire departments to pick up sandbags to protect their homes.

At Home Depot in Newbury Park, Manager Doug Harmon said the store was cleaned out of sandbags by 11 a.m., with a line of residents anxiously waiting for the promised arrival of two more truckloads of sand.

Around the city, residents checked on each other, just to make sure that once again, everyone was hanging in there through dangerous times.

In the Deer Ridge neighborhood of Newbury Park, just a few feet away from where the Green Meadow fire scorched hillsides in 1993, resident Kenrick Koo woke at 6 a.m. to an unfamiliar sound, water thundering down the flood control channel that dead-ends in his back yard.

He climbed out of bed and rushed out to inspect the damage. The force of water into the drain--which dives underground just short of his Felton Street home--was so strong that white water was being thrown back up the channel.

Water was flowing over the cement sides of the channel, pushing a mini-mudslide across his patio and through the French doors of his home.

By 8:30 a.m. Koo and his neighbors had successfully sandbagged his house, cleared out some of the blocked drain, and were watching the hillsides warily.

“Usually it’s just a dribble,” Koo said, staring down at the rushing torrent. “I’ve never seen it like this before. I’m just glad it happened in daylight so I could do something about it. I’ve got good neighbors.”

Across the street, Virginia Whitton watched from her window as city workers cleared debris and mud from a second flood control basin that clogged during the night, creating a waterfall that flowed down Felton to Lynn Road.

“It was gushing like a river,” Whitton said, pointing out a makeshift dam of sandbags that the water had easily breached.

By dawn the Lynn Road intersection at Felton was under three feet of water because of the plugged drain, public works officials said. One woman whose car stalled in the murky water had to be pushed out by bulldozer.

Most of the mud at the intersection had been cleared by midmorning, but problem areas cropped up practically the entire length of Lynn Road and Wendy Drive, as hillside runoff filled gutters and caused sidewalks to disappear underwater.

Thousand Oaks city officials said the burned hillsides were holding up surprisingly well, despite the loss of vegetation that would have absorbed much of the rainwater.

“I’m pleased that they are holding up,” said Conejo Recreation and Park District General Manager Tex Ward. “Fortunately we had enough time to get some root structure in there.”

But debris and runoff from the burn area were a factor in some blocked drains, including the problem at Felton, Public Works Director Nelson said.

On Asta Avenue, park district employee Mike Mauna, who had taken the day off, worried that a flood control channel directly behind his house would jump its banks and flood his home.

“This has got to be the once-in-a-century storm,” he said, watching from his patio as water poured down the hillside, sweeping through sandbags lined up on Crystal View Drive and flooding down onto Lynn Road.

Looking up at the hillside behind his house he shook his head.

“That mountain is going to move,” he said. “It’s going to happen. And when it does, I’m going to be ready.”

At Westlake Lake, where their back yard was rapidly disappearing, Bill and Barbara Krauss marveled at their misfortune, explaining that they had rented the house while crews repaired massive earthquake damage to their Woodland Hills home.

“We left the earthquake just to find the flood,” Bill Krauss said. “I guess we’re prone to catastrophe.”

A fast-moving current from the channel’s outlet into Westlake Lake ripped docks and small boats from the lake shore. Patrol officers used ropes to lasso the wayward craft before any slipped over the Westlake Lake dam.

Water from the same flood channel overcame nearby Potrero Road, stranding one motorist and entirely blocking off the exclusive Lake Sherwood and Hidden Valley communities. Residents in Carlisle Canyon were also cut off.

City officials in Simi Valley tried to keep traffic away from mild flooding in a smattering of intersections, but the city escaped any serious problems.