Many Dramatic Scenes Mark the Day After : Storm: Harrowing stories of rescues and escapes are heard as residents venture outdoors to see rain’s destructive results.

Wading through thigh-high deep mud Saturday, newlyweds Tom and Cara Hill tried to salvage food and clothing from their La Conchita home, one of a dozen structures swamped by an oozing mudflow.

“We can’t close the front door,” said Cara Hill. “Some of our wedding presents were stacked on the living room floor.”

The mud, which descended into a new area of La Conchita on Friday night less than a mile from the original slide, had flowed into the couple’s living room and stacked up against the side of their house.

In Oak View, Randy and Kelly Lewis stared in disbelief at their crushed three-bedroom home, wiped out by a quick-moving mudslide that slammed into their son’s bedroom shortly after 10 p.m.

“We’ve lived here for 16 years, and we’ve never seen destruction like this,” Kelly Lewis said. “It was unbelievable.”

Stunned by the path of destruction, residents in western Ventura County began cleaning up the muddy mess left by the second devastating storm to strike Ventura County in as many months.

As periodic rain showers fell on La Conchita on Saturday, residents returned to their mud-clogged homes to retrieve what valuables they could from the gooey mess.

Wearing surfing booties and khaki shorts, Cara Hill, 26, waded through the thick mud with her husband to gather food and clothing from her Carpinteria Avenue house.

“Everybody was telling us that we were safe,” she said. The couple had rented two videos, in preparation for a long night hunkered down during the storm. They were confident the northernmost end of the coastal town was safe from slides.

But shortly after 10 p.m., fire officials ordered the couple and their two dogs to leave the three-bedroom home they rented last October.

An increasingly deep and steady torrent of mud--strong enough to carry a 12-foot trailer several hundred feet down the street--posed a safety threat, fire officials said.

Mud flowed onto patios and stacked up to six feet high against houses on Carpinteria Avenue. Four mobile homes Saturday were declared unsafe after being knocked from their foundations. One of them was swamped with mud and debris.

“This is totally unrelated to the slide that devastated the homes on Vista del Rincon,” Ventura County Fire Capt. Mark Taillon said. “It was basically a mud wave--it was very strong and there was nothing you could do to stop it.”

Roger Hart, 48, and his 23-year-old daughter, Shannon, spent the morning dodging police, sliding down slopes and sloshing through the adjacent Seaside Banana Garden as they made their way from Carpinteria to their mud-battered mobile home.

They spent Friday night in Santa Barbara, cut off from their community by a California Highway Patrol blockade that closed the Ventura Freeway in both directions. Saturday morning, the Harts parked their car and spent 90 minutes hiking three miles to reach the town cut off from surrounding communities.

“La Conchita is my home--this is hard to watch,” Shannon Hart said, as she helped her father carry his belongings though the knee-deep muck.

Fire officials believe the Harts’ mobile home was knocked off its foundation and will have to be condemned.

Five blocks south on Fillmore Avenue, Mike Bell was working to clear mud and debris from his next-door neighbor’s home. “If I can keep the mud out of his house, I can keep it out of mine,” he said. Bell, who lives in Sylmar, said he bought his two-bedroom home for $125,000 in 1983.

“It is probably not worth much right now,” he said of the house he and his wife use as a weekend getaway.

Ventura County Fire Capt. Norm Plott said road crews struggled Saturday to scoop the mud that slid onto both northbound lanes of the freeway about a quarter mile north of La Conchita.

“It’s like soup,” he said. “It’s liquid. Every time you take a scoop out, more comes in behind it.”

In Oak View, Randy and Kelly Lewis shoveled mud away from their Ventura Avenue home, which was struck by a swift-moving mudslide Friday night.

“I’m devastated, but I’m thankful,” Randy Lewis said. His 50-year-old three-bedroom house was destroyed and partially buried in mud, but his wife and three children were uninjured.

Lewis’ 13-year-old son, Justin, was watching television in his bedroom, which used to face the steep hillside, when a deep rumbling noise outside caught his attention.

“I just saw the mud coming down,” he said. “It hit the fence and I ran.”

The family dashed out the front door only moments before the mud crushed the building. Lewis blamed the slide on torrential rain and a neighbor’s construction project that exposed the hillside to erosion.

The family plans to stay with friends in Camarillo until the house can be repaired or rebuilt.

For many residents in the rain-soaked Ojai Valley, Saturday’s cleanup recalled the time spent digging out from a storm in January.

“I have seen essentially a repeat of all the flooding that took place in January,” said Peter Justin, a damage assessment volunteer for the American Red Cross who canvassed the Ojai Valley to check residences hit hard by the storm.

“It’s the same story,” said Dave Ross, one of several residents warned to evacuate Friday night due to rising floodwaters.

Climbing over tree trunks that washed into his back yard, Ross said his Creek Road house was at risk of washing down San Antonio Creek for a second time this season. “It’s easy to get cynical in this situation,” he said.

Concerned about the ominous waters rising in the Ventura River, the Ventura Police Department decided around 9 p.m. Friday to close off the Main Street Bridge.

The precaution paid off. About two hours later, the center of the bridge collapsed into a gaping V-shape, Lt. Steve Bowman said. No pedestrians or motorists were on the bridge when it gave way, he said.

The buckling, centered in the southbound lane, was apparently caused by the rushing force of the Ventura River undermining a central concrete support. The gap stretched for about 75 yards and dipped more than four feet.

“It appears the cement pilings split and became dislodged,” Bowman said.

On Barnett Street in Ventura, an oozing stream of mud slid off a steep nearby hillside, creating a gooey mess for residents in the area. No houses on the street received damage.

“This stuff is packed like cement,” said Gene Cox, 45, a longtime resident who jumped on a rented tractor to scoop up mud on the small street.

With shovel in hand, Frank Cleveland, 44, attempted to clear his driveway, but to no avail. Soon he summoned Cox and the tractor. “You can’t budge this stuff, not with a shovel anyway. Not even Hercules could do it,” he said.

“I’ve never seen it this bad,” Cleveland said. “We’ll clean it up though. This is something we know we have to live with.”

Times staff writers Rodney Bosch, Julie Fields and Duncan Martell contributed to this story.

FYI

For current information about conditions on the Ventura Freeway and state highways, call Caltrans at (800) 427-7623. For information about county road closures, call 388-4515. For information about street closures in La Conchita, call 388-4516.

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