Search-and-Rescue Teams on the Lookout for Trouble

In western parts of Ventura County, the weather is playing havoc: A child is feared missing in a flood-control channel. Rain-swollen rivers are overrunning highways. Mud and surf threaten coastal homes.

And meanwhile, under barely a drizzle, Bryan Bowen patrols the calm streets of Simi Valley, crisscrossing the city’s fast-running Arroyo Simi, all too aware of the lure it presents to an adventure-seeking kid.

Two years ago, closer to the sea, the same stream swept 11-year-old Joel Burchfield to his death. The Moorpark boy had been trying to cross the rain-swollen channel on his way home from school.

But today, no one goes near the stream.

Ditto for Simi Valley’s many mud-soaked hiking trails, rock-climbing sites and community parks.

No matter. Bowen is where he is supposed to be, roaming the county’s wild spots like nearly two dozen other Ventura County Sheriff’s Department search-and-rescue volunteers. He drives the streets of Simi Valley, three police scanners on the floor of his four-wheel-drive utility vehicle squawking alarms about other parts of the county.

“That’s what this is all about,” said the 37-year-old medical technician with American Medical Response Ambulance Co. “Being out here. If something does happen, you’re already out, and hopefully a whole lot closer to it.”

Bowen, a Simi Valley resident, is among more than 150 volunteers who form four rescue teams in the county.

Bowen’s shift started at 10 p.m. Monday.

He watched television at the station a bit, turned in about midnight and was up three hours later when the storm and its 50 mph fury had reached shore.

He and a partner helped residents of a Camarillo Springs mobile home park who were threatened by a levy break along Conejo Creek.

By 5 a.m., Bowen and several other volunteers could have gone home when their shifts ended.

Instead, they stayed on for hours more until the storm subsided.

It wasn’t about some show of bravado. This is why they had spent 10 months training in the Sheriff’s Department’s search-and-rescue program.

If someone needed them, volunteers wanted to be there to help. Not home in bed.

“I’ve always loved the idea of being involved with this stuff,” said Bowen, who has worked as a financial planner, construction worker and retail salesman. “The last few years, I’ve had the blessing to be able to do it.

“The more I was doing it, the more I was around it, the more I’ve wanted to do it,” he said. “It’s a great program.”