Strong Winds Sink 1 Parade and Mar Another

Santa’s sleigh was knocked off its regular route Saturday, as intense offshore winds forced the cancellation of the Channel Islands Harbor Parade of Lights and wreaked a bit of holiday havoc during the 35th annual Camarillo Family Christmas Parade.

Winds gusting up to 50 mph knocked down four pine trees that blocked the Camarillo parade route and startled a horse that threw its 10-year-old rider. Another fallen tree also blocked Charter Oak Drive before the parade, causing traffic tie-ups.

Jennifer Bonds, a rider from with the Santa Rosa Valley 4-H Club, was treated and released from St. John’s Pleasant Valley Hospital after her fall. An appaloosa threw her near the end of the parade route at Carmen Drive and Las Posas Road.

“She has a bruised shoulder and a bruised ego but otherwise she’s fine,” said Nancy Coats, leader of the 4-H horse club. “A piece of paper blew up into the horse’s face and when it reared up she wasn’t prepared. . . . The wind was quite a challenge for everyone.”

It was certainly a challenge for parade organizers and public safety officials.

For the first time in its 31-year history, the Channel Islands holiday boat parade was called off because of wind conditions.

Harbor Capt. Jack Peveler reluctantly made the decision at 7:15 p.m., disappointing a crowd of about 7,000 people who had gathered for the 7 p.m. event.

“People realized it would have been a dangerous thing to try to move forward with it,” he said. “People were having stuff blow down. A lot of people didn’t even decorate their boats because of the wind.”

With the winds forecast to continue today, the parade was not rescheduled. It could be held next weekend, but that’s unlikely because of the date’s proximity to Christmas.

“I’ve been thinking about it all day,” a downcast Peveler said. “I don’t feel good about it, but I think I did the right thing.”

In Camarillo, three downed trees blocked two lanes of Carmen Drive before the parade began about noon. Another 35-foot pine crashed to the ground a few hundred yards away during the parade, blocking the other side of the divided roadway.

“So what’s next?” groused Sheriff’s Deputy Rick Harwood to a fellow motorcycle patrolman in the wake of the horse accident and crashing timber. “Is a house going to fall over?”

Municipal street crews had already halted the parade and moved spectators away from the listing tree before it fell, so no one was hurt. But the parade’s final 25 entries were forced to detour through nearby residential streets, leaving spectators hunting for Santa’s float, which was bringing up the rear.

“Mother Nature played some games with us,” parade coordinator Kathy Matejka said.

Float riders were forced to clutch onto wind-whipped decorations or conduct a little impromptu repair work as the parade trundled along the 1.2-mile route.

“We had a lot of help and a lot of duct tape,” said Oxnard College student body President Mary Anne Rooney, one of 33 walking cardboard “light bulbs” in the college’s entry. “At least we didn’t start flying.”

Spectators bundled up and held on to their Santa caps.

“I already lost it twice,” said Rosemary Aceves, 48, whose seasonal ensemble of red boots, bell earrings and red-and-green sweater was capped by a red hat adorned with the slogan “Naughty but nice.”

The cool and blustery weather kept attendance below that of previous years, with police estimating that about 7,500 people turned out to watch the 99 parade entries, which included 15 marching bands and 13 floats.

The largest cheer was reserved for the victorious Camarillo High School football team, which beat Sherman Oaks’ Notre Dame 20-14 to win the Southern Section Division III final on Friday night.

“They were saying ‘congratulations, Merry Christmas,’ ” said the team’s center, Mike McGrath, 17, who despite the wind managed to travel the route brandishing a newspaper proclaiming the Scorpions’ victory.

Wind was not a factor at Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks where an indoor Kwanzaa celebration, staged by the Ventura County NAACP’s Saturday School, attracted dozens of people for the ethnic ceremony and midmorning feast.

Created by a Los Angeles university professor in 1966, Kwanzaa is a seven-day holiday for the black community that is intended to promote unity, family and an appreciation of African American culture.

“This is not a black Christmas, it’s not an alternative to Christmas,” stressed Saturday School co-director Greg Owens. “It’s a cultural event and the African American culture has hardly been talked about enough so this is a good way for us to come together.”

And thousands of people gathered in downtown Ventura Saturday evening for the third and final ArtWalk of 1996.

Santa Claus arrived at the ArtWalk aboard a fire engine, and after letting out a hearty “Ho, ho, ho!” sat down in the park at California and Santa Clara streets to pass out goodies to children.

The Ventura Parks and Recreation Department was sponsoring a Christmas ornament booth at the park. Self-described kid Betsy Milligan, 45, of Los Angeles, was on hand with her daughters, 7-year-old Lou Lou and 9-year-old Mercedes, each making an ornament for the tree.

“We’re artists from L.A. and decided to come up to enjoy some of this hometown atmosphere,” Milligan said. She and her husband Lee treated themselves to an early Christmas present: a watercolor from Ventura artist Kathy McGuire.

The ArtWalk was also a great place to grab a bite, and caterer Jimmy Doctolero and his partner Jim Colliflower were roasting chestnuts on Chestnut Street.

“We put them over mesquite to give them that extra special taste,” Doctolero said.

While the underlying mood downtown was to sell, Sheriff’s Department employees were in the giving mood at the Ventura County Government Center, where off-duty personnel were busy picking up donations for the 17th annual Share-iff Christmas Food and Toy Drive.

This year’s drive helped raise toys for 400 children and food boxes for 120 families, according to Sheriff’s Department dispatcher Jessica Prince.

“This started out with 10 families in the east county, and we’re helping 120 families this year,” she said.

Times correspondent Scott Steepleton contributed to this story.