Cars, Not Hillsides, Slide in Soft Rain

Friday’s gentle rain left Ventura’s bare hillsides intact, but had drivers careening out of control on slippery roads across the county, resulting in several multiple-car pileups.

The worse is yet to come, said meteorologist Jon Erdman of WeatherData Inc., because an even larger storm is waiting in the wings--hundreds of nautical miles off the coast--blowing in from Hawaii. That storm, cutting its way toward California, is expected to unleash still more rain on the region from Sunday through Tuesday, with patchy fog and clouds expected today. And that is only the first of an onslaught of winter storms brewing out over the ocean, meteorologists said. Next week should see persistently rainy forecasts.

“There is a series of storms lining up out in the Pacific,” Erdman said. “Wave after wave of them--we just picked up another one today--that will all eventually track toward the coast.”

The heart of Monday’s storm will hit central and northern California, but Ventura County can expect steady, heavy rain through Monday, turning into intermittent showers by Monday evening. That storm will pour an additional one-half to three-quarters of an inch of rain along Ventura County’s already drenched coastal regions.

On Friday, rainfall varied across the county, with Moorpark receiving a full inch and nearby Thousand Oaks just half an inch. About 1 1/2 inches fell at the Casitas and Matilija dams, while only about one-third of inch hit La Conchita.

Rain was blamed for numerous traffic accidents throughout the day, including one five-car pileup on the Ventura Freeway and another involving seven cars, authorities said.

Elsewhere, the state’s busiest north-south thoroughfare, Interstate 5, was shut down Friday afternoon at the Grapevine after 28 vehicles were involved in collisions set off by the thick fog.

The northbound Ventura Freeway at the top of the Conejo Grade was the scene of a seven-car collision about 1 p.m. Just as that crash was being cleared, another crash on the northbound freeway near Wendy Drive in Thousand Oaks snarled the afternoon drive for a short time, according to a California Highway Patrol spokesman.

Neither crash resulted in injuries.

Two women were injured on the 10th Street offramp from California 126 when their Ford Thunderbird veered out of control and careened 45 feet over an embankment. The names of the victims, the 45-year-old driver and her 15-year-old female passenger, both of Bakersfield, were not released.

Both sustained minor injuries, and were treated at Santa Paula Memorial Hospital and released.

With many parts of the county approaching their 14-inch saturation point, residents, hydrologists and city officials are keeping a watchful eye on slide-prone slopes around the county, carefully monitoring rainfall in La Conchita, the hills behind Santa Paula where the Grand fire raged last spring and Ventura’s still-bald hillsides.

Senior county hydrologist Dolores Taylor said La Conchita really lucked out this time around, receiving only a third of an inch. “The old fairy godmother is really looking out for them,” she said.

A muddy landslide engulfed that small beach-side community in March 1995. Mud still clogs roads, and dirt ravines cut into the hills.

Residents living in Ventura’s Aliso Canyon, where the Poli fire burned down to their backyards, waited at the base of the steep slopes Friday and held their breath, hoping the hills would hold firm. Sandbags lay ready on one resident’s front lawn.

On one side of Aliso Drive, city workers sprayed a mixture of glue and seeds onto the burnt hills in the past few days to keep the ground from sliding. Now the sticky substance coats the dirt with an unnatural green that looks like AstroTurf. Still, it eased residents’ minds.

“They hydro-seeded yesterday,” said Thang Luu of Aliso Drive. “I hope that will help and I will see green again.”

On the right side of the street, residents watch and wait to see if the dirt will loosen.

“It’s too soon to tell,” said Kim Chieng, whose house nestles below snakes of sandbags and posts holding up the precipitous canyon side.

But Taylor emphasized that it is driving, torrential rains that loosen the hillsides. The soft rains, like Friday’s, help the hills to recover, because they allow new seeds to germinate and take root, preventing serious erosion.

“All in all, even though I got up at the crack of dawn, there has been no excitement,” Taylor said. “It’s not that I want anything bad to happen, but the big storms are where the fun is, because then we can see if our channels are working.”

County flood control maintains a huge system of flood channels to help divert heavy water flow during storms.

On Interstate 5, nine people were injured in a rash of accidents that involved big rigs and cars and stretched about two miles near the northern Los Angeles County boundary.

Visibility was reduced to 75 feet because of the dense fog at the time of the first accident, which occurred about 2:30 p.m. Both sides of the freeway were closed for about three hours.

In South Los Angeles, one person was killed and another injured in a crash near West 59th Street and Broadway.

In Pico Rivera, another motorist was killed when he struck a parked vehicle near Rosemead Boulevard and Dunlap crossing in what a sheriff’s sergeant said may have been a rain-related accident.

Correspondent Scott Steepleton contributed to this report.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

County Rainfall

Here are rainfall figures from the Ventura County Flood Control Department for the 24-hour period ending at 6 p.m. Friday . Oct. 1 is the beginning of the official rain year.

*--*

Rainfall Rainfall Normal rainfall Location last 24 hours since Oct. 1 to date Camarillo 0.47 7.81 4.06 Casitas Dam 1.46 16.06 6.61 Casitas Rec. Center 1.34 14.47 6.86 Fillmore 1.06 12.42 05.77 Matilija Dam 1.34 18.50 7.13 Moorpark 1.02 9.29 4.21 Upper Ojai 1.06 5.63 6.10 Oxnard 0.91 8.77 3.96 Piru 0.71 8.84 4.70 Port Hueneme 1.57 8.43 3.99 Santa Paula 1.10 11.07 5.17 Simi Valley 0.67 8.79 3.98 Thousand Oaks 0.47 9.11 4.24 Ventura Govt. Center 0.31 9.17 4.41

*--*