County Braces for Brunt of Storm

The heart of a strong Pacific storm that forecasters say could dump up to 10 inches of rain on sodden Ventura County was expected to arrive early today after closing schools and flooding streets Monday, prompting emergency officials to prepare for the worst.

Pounding surf and gale-force winds were also expected to lash coastal communities and threaten the wooden piers of Ventura and Port Hueneme, forecasters said. The Ventura Pier--already battered by mammoth waves last week--has now lost seven of 400 pilings since Friday.

“It’s a big storm--one of the biggest we’ve seen in a long time,” said meteorologist Gary Ryan of the National Weather Service. “And there may finally be a connection with El Nino, because there is a subtropical feed in this storm. You could call it the Pineapple Express. It extends all the way to Hawaii.”

The weather service issued a flood watch Monday. But local officials said they do not think flooding is likely from the county’s swollen creeks and rivers.

After a 3-inch downpour early Monday in Ventura and a 5 1/2-inch rain at Lake Casitas, Ryan said he expects most of the county to get 3 to 5 inches more before skies clear Wednesday--a prospect that forced evacuation of an RV park at the mouth of the Ventura River.

In preparation, law enforcement crews swept the Ventura and the Santa Clara river bottoms for homeless people threatened by the rising waterways, displacing only a few because of earlier efforts to relocate transients.

Emergency officials also distributed thousands of sandbags, put search-and-rescue teams on overnight standby and opened 24-hour centers to monitor high waves and rushing rivers through the night.

When the three-day storm is finally over it may have dropped 5 to 10 inches along the coast and in the inland valleys, and even more in the mountains above Ojai, analysts said. By comparison, the average in Ventura at the County Government Center for the season that began Oct. 1 is 14 inches.

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“You’re getting half your seasonal average in three days,” said Rea Strange of Pacific Weather Analysis in Montecito. “And another storm is expected on Friday.”

The spectacular 15- to 20-foot ocean swells that pounded the coast Friday and damaged 11 houses will be back this morning, Strange said.

“It will be ‘Victory at Sea,’ a wild ocean,” he said. “It’s going to be a lot of wind and a lot of sea.”

Ventura city officials feared the worst for their historic pier. With seven pilings down and six steel braces missing out of 200, spokeswoman Debbie Solomon said the strong waves could produce enormous damage. “We’re concerned about the end of the pier,” she said.

Local farmers, meanwhile, dispatched workers to harvest celery, broccoli, cauliflower and strawberries, trying to avoid multimillion-dollar losses that a big overnight rain could produce, said county Agricultural Commissioner W. Earl McPhail.

“We had rains Wednesday night and Saturday, and now this storm,” McPhail said. “So the soil is just supersaturated and the fields are starting to fill up. In the worst-case scenario we could have $1 million to $5 million worth of damage, depending on how far south the worst weather cells come.”

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In Camarillo, mud-caked strawberry pickers waded through standing water, trying to pick the valuable fruit before the rains expected Monday night.

“The ditches are working pretty good right now,” field supervisor Jesus Orozco said. “But I don’t know how it will be in a couple of days.”

In Santa Paula, the 3,600-student elementary district closed seven schools because they feared youngsters would have to wade rushing waters to get to class--a worry that proved unfounded.

“It rained here for I don’t know how many hours [Sunday] night,” Assistant Supt. Randy Chase said. “All our students walk to school, and our big concern was that streets could turn into small rivers and be a real hazard.”

Santa Paula schools will be open today, barring major flooding, Chase said. He said officials are not second-guessing themselves for closing Monday.

“I’ve only got one complaint from parents,” Chase said. “And they’re the final judges as far as I’m concerned.”

Despite some problems in flood-prone El Rio, county flood-control officials said they do not think this storm is as potentially hazardous as the two-week series of rains that swamped the county in January 1995--claiming the life of a homeless man, causing $23 million in crop losses and earning a disaster declaration from President Clinton.

Flows in the Ventura and Santa Clara rivers remained well below flood stages Monday and probably will not go much higher at peak flow Tuesday afternoon, said county flood official Alex Sheydayi.

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Officials had expected heavy rains Monday afternoon but got lucky when the storm moved more slowly than anticipated, Sheydayi said.

“Overnight our numbers look pretty favorable,” he said. “We don’t expect our streams to max out again until [this] afternoon.”

Even then flows should be safe--close to the 10,700 cubic feet per second on the Ventura River on Monday, as compared with a flood stage of 50,000 to 60,000, he said.

On the Santa Clara River, Monday’s peak was 40,000 cubic feet per second, compared with at least 160,000 at flood stage, he said.

On flood-prone San Antonio Creek in the Ojai Valley, the peak was 3,200 cubic feet per second Monday, about one-fourth the volume necessary to flood creek-side homes, he said. And in Calleguas Creek volumes were 4,100 cubic feet, compared with the 12,000 it takes to flood.

There would have to be a downpour of several inches in a very short period to create a flood situation, Sheydayi said.

“On the Ventura River it would have to be several inches in one hour to generate that kind of a runoff,” he said.

That was good news for homeowners along San Antonio Creek, who began Monday warily eyeing the rising stream but ended the day watching the level recede.

Sharon Rice, who lives in the historic Rancho Arnaz adobe that was built in 1863, evacuated nine of her horses to a pasture on higher ground more for peace of mind than out of real concern.

“I did take them just because I don’t want to think about it in the middle of the night,” she said. “This is a 130-year-old house, and it hasn’t washed away yet.”

Residents of the beach-side hamlet of La Conchita were similarly blase about the weather, despite the unstable mountain of earth looming above their community that has long threatened to crush their homes.

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“The hill has been there a long time,” said one woman who declined to give her name.

Indeed, Sandi Wells, spokeswoman with the Ventura County Fire Department, said that officials Monday received only 10 reports of minor flooding--far fewer than expected. Street and minor home flooding occurred primarily in El Rio and the Ojai Valley, she said.

Still, at the Ventura Beach RV Park at the mouth of the Ventura River, owners told about two dozen campers that it was time to pack up and move out.

In 1992, dozens of RVs were swamped when 6 inches of rain in the Ojai mountains washed down the river and submerged the camp. One RV was even washed onto the beach.

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By 11:30 a.m. Monday about 15 campers had left with rain checks in hand, headed toward safer ground, and the remaining 11 were busy packing.

Manager Rebecca Kelly said she favored their leaving with plenty of notice before the storm hit in earnest.

“We’ve given them plenty of time so they can get out in a safe manner,” Kelly said. “It’s better to have a calm person on the road than a panicked one.”

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Correspondents Dawn Hobbs and Nick Green contributed to this story.

(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. Monday. Oct. 1 is the beginning of the official rain year.

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Rainfall Rainfall Normal rainfall Location last 24 hours since Oct. 1 to date Camarillo 1.93 13.22 7.46 Casitas Dam 5.35 20.06 12.81 Casitas Rec. Center 5.28 19.25 12.69 Fillmore 2.13 15.63 10.38 Matilija Dam 5.67 20.02 14.32 Moorpark 1.10 NA NA Ojai 3.70 16.33 11.42 Upper Ojai 5.35 17.59 12.25 Oxnard 1.50 15.5 7.87 Piru 1.38 12.95 9.37 Port Hueneme 3.23 14.86 7.75 Santa Paula 2.48 13.99 9.58 Simi Valley 0.87 13.19 7.72 Thousand Oaks 1.22 12.80 8.31 Ventura Govt. Center 3.35 16.70 8.72

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