Flooded-Out Residents Fret About Their Belongings, Recovering Losses

Nine months pregnant and due any day, Mary Perez has been sleeping restlessly lately, lying in wait for that frantic dash to the maternity ward.

But when she woke suddenly early Tuesday, it wasn’t because she had gone into labor.

Instead, Perez was startled by flood waters spilling into her Port Hueneme apartment. With the water knee-deep, she, her husband and two young children--along with three dozen neighbors--rushed outside for higher ground.

“I was scared for my child,” Perez, a gas station cashier, said Wednesday morning outside the family’s still soggy apartment. Inside, her husband, Salvador, tried to save their new couch by propping it up on end tables and letting it drip-dry.

Across Ventura County, residents spent a dry, sunny Wednesday dealing with damage from this winter’s fiercest storm. For most, that meant clearing branches off frontyards or mopping up patios.

Along with the Perez family, about 40 renters in an aging single-story, 14-unit Port Hueneme apartment building were left to tally the damage. They arranged places to stay with charities or friends, returning to salvage muddy belongings and to urge the property manager to hurry up with repairs.

Meanwhile, most residents in the hillside Valley View neighborhood north of Ventura stayed put--despite warnings from county officials that a mudslide could plow into their homes at any moment.

“I’ve been here too long. I’ve fought this mountain,” said Lupe Hernandez, standing outside his modest one-story home. “This is nothing.”

In Port Hueneme, residents huddled in an alley and cooked chicken, tortillas and corn on a barbecue grill, eating outdoors because their flood-damaged kitchen stoves didn’t work.

As the sky cleared, renters lugged couches, rugs and clothing outside, hoping the sunshine would help dry things faster. Inside, they sloshed around on soggy carpets that were beginning to smell.

The flood, which began when driving rain caused a nearby creek to overflow, carried grass clippings and garbage into apartment units. It ruined television sets and CD players. In one apartment, the water rose to 14 inches.

Building inspectors estimated it would take $25,000 to $50,000 to install new carpet and fix underlying tile, with repairs taking at least a few days.

The property manager, Charles Wade, said he planned to hire a company to air-dry the carpets. That angered residents who said at the very least, the carpets should be replaced.

“It’s ditch water, dirty water,” 16-year-old Angie Torres said. “There’s all these diseases in dirty water. We need new carpets.”

Others feared looters would hit the apartment complex while it remained vacant during repairs. Some hauled out televisions and appliances and locked them in nearby storage sheds.

Still, many residents said things are much better now, compared with the scene at the apartment building before dawn Tuesday.

The water moved in fast after rising knee-deep outside. When their cars wouldn’t start, neighbors helped each other push their vehicles through the current to an elevated parking lot. Torres said her dog, which was chained to a fence, nearly drowned before someone released it.

The American Red Cross set up an emergency shelter at Hueneme High School on Tuesday. Officials said the shelter would stay open until the apartments are repaired.

The Perez family was put up at an Oxnard hotel by the Red Cross. Salvador Perez, a waiter at Ventura’s Doubletree Hotel, said he was trying to keep his pregnant wife calm despite stress over the disaster. He said he hoped to get a refund of some of the family’s $650 in monthly rent. But he was less optimistic about their couch, bought recently for $1,000.

“It’s just destroyed,” he said. “We haven’t even finished paying for it, and I have no insurance for my furniture, because I can’t afford it. I’m not rich.”

Roberto Amezcua, who works in a metal factory, said he appreciated the temporary shelter, saying his drenched apartment was no place for his son, who suffers from asthma.

“It’s too cold for my son,” he said.

In Ventura, geologists Wednesday declared an Avenue-area hillside safe after authorities had issued a voluntary evacuation warning at a nearby apartment building during the downpour a day earlier.

But the threat that mudslides could destroy seven 1950s-era tract houses below a hillside northwest of Ventura prompted county officials to declare the neighborhood unsafe. But only two of seven occupants in threatened homes complied with the red evacuation orders that were tacked to their homes. The others vowed not to leave.

Still, some residents were taking precautions. David Davis said he and his wife would stay home Wednesday night, but their children would stay with friends nearby.

Hernandez, a 47-year-old cabinetmaker, was staying home, too, though his wife and two children would go to a friend’s house. To defend against mudslides, Hernandez built a makeshift wall of corrugated metal and planks on his patio, keeping vigil with his dachshund.

County officials were surprised that not everyone had complied with the evacuation order.

“You don’t hear landslides coming, especially mudflows,” said Jack Phillips, the county’s chief building inspector. “I think the residents are well advised in that kind of circumstance not to spend the night there.”

Chi is a Times staff writer and Green is a correspondent.