Deluge Shows Vulnerability of Ojai Valley

Ojai Valley residents are no strangers to natural disasters--particularly floods.

But Tuesday’s deluge caught even the most seasoned storm veterans by surprise as it exposed the vulnerability--and danger--of living in an isolated, mountainous area carved by a network of potentially dangerous streams.

More than a dozen homes were damaged as water burst through a 7-foot-high retaining wall in one neighborhood, forcing homeowners to flee to higher ground in the predawn hours.

And with the rain accumulating faster than storm drains could carry it away, the roads in and out of the bucolic valley quickly became littered with rocks, debris and citrus knocked loose from battered trees.

“There is no way I ever would have thought this would happen,” resident Kelly White said as she watched emergency workers heave sandbags to divert a torrent of muddy water surging through her home.

Standing in a yellow raincoat, her hair wet and hands caked with mud, White, 39, said the water had risen 3 feet inside her garage in a matter of hours and then spilled into her house.

“I can’t believe it,” she said. “I am ready to give my house away.”

White’s small neighborhood along Avenida de la Vereda has always been susceptible to flooding, but residents said the storm that hit Tuesday left a path of destruction in their neighborhood worse than they had ever seen.

“It has taken both of our houses,” said Chris Roe, referring to her two-bedroom home and her daughter’s home directly behind it. It was their property that took the brunt of the damage on Avenida de la Vereda.

About 6 a.m., the cinder-block retaining wall that Roe and her husband, Ted, built in 1978 to ward off flood waters collapsed under the pressure of a flood channel that she says was diverted by a neighbor.

The torrent sent four vehicles, including a five-wheel camper trailer, spinning like toys. One crashed into the back of her house, crushing her patio and spitting its contents--a barbecue, picnic table, clothes dryer and rooster coop--onto the street. Rocky, the rooster, had to be plucked from the flood waters by friends.

“We lost our patio, the washer and dryer,” said Roe as she sloshed through knee-deep water and pointed to the location where it had rushed through her house.

“The muddy water shot through the sides of the doors,” she said. “We were afraid the whole door was going to come.”

For many residents of the Ojai Valley, the torrential rains that began early Tuesday and dropped more than 5 inches of water in the mountains by late afternoon were a frightening reminder of past floods.

In February 1992, heavy rains sent flood waters surging down Ventura County creek beds, washing more than 30 motor homes out to sea at the submerged Ventura Beach RV Resort, situated at the mouth of the Ventura River. A pregnant woman and her fiance were killed during that storm, both suffocated when a mudslide engulfed their home near Foster Park.

In January 1995, a powerful Pacific storm claimed the life of a 31-year-old homeless man, threatened homes, forced evacuations in communities along the Ventura River and resulted in $23 million in crop damage.

Dave and Robyn Ross almost lost their Creek Road home that year. The small brown house is situated about 25 feet from the usually dry San Antonio Creek, which snakes through the valley floor.

Not taking any chances this year, the couple spent Monday night at a local motel and returned Tuesday to find the creek had crested to just below their ground-floor window sills.

It left several inches of silt on their driveway, but a sturdy log fence the couple erected between the creek and their house last fall in anticipation of El Nino kept the flood waters at bay and averted any serious damage.

“At the time, I felt like Noah in the ark, but it paid off,” Dave Ross said, as he watched the fast-moving creek roar past his home.

Tuesday’s storm may have wrecked havoc, but longtime Ojai residents said past floods have caused more extensive overall damage--not just the two earlier floods this decade, but also a major flood in 1969.

“The ’69 flood definitely got everybody’s attention,” said Dwayne Bower, an Ojai resident since 1943 and a volunteer at the Ojai Museum. “We worked hours and hours and days and days moving the people out of the mud.”

Tuesday’s heavy rainfall began about 3 a.m. and grew in intensity until dawn, when drainage ditches and storm drains overflowed to create vast lakes in the city’s streets.

Power failures kept some residents in the dark for more than four hours. And fallen trees closed streets from one end of the valley to the other.

Bower, a 55-year-old rancher, was impressed by nature’s showing, but took the storm’s fury in stride: “It goes with the territory, I guess.”

Correspondent Nick Green contributed to this story.