Waterlogged County Takes Another Blow

Another hard-charging winter storm slammed into Ventura County late Saturday, unleashing a new round of problems for waterlogged communities already reeling from a week of torrential rains.

The downpour snarled traffic, flooded roadways and cut off access on major thoroughfares across the county. California 126 was shut in both directions east of Santa Paula, while a series of mud- and rockslides along California 33 temporarily cut access to the Ojai Valley.

The storm dumped about 3 inches of rain in Santa Paula and in the Upper Ojai, sending so much water into the Ventura River that it was threatening to breach its banks late Saturday.

Meanwhile, storm-drenched Northern California took another battering Saturday, with cloudbursts and gusting winds sending five homes skidding down a soggy hillside near the Russian River and closing highways, knocking out power to 87,000 customers and shutting down part of the Bay Area’s commuter rail system.

In Ventura County, sheets of rain were accompanied by high winds most of the afternoon. And the rain caused its usual array of problems.

In Casitas Springs, one of the hardest-hit areas in the county, an 8-foot tall boulder rolled down a hill, smashed through a retaining wall and cracked the corner of a house on Old Creek Road.

“It’s huge,” said Cathy Kamhi, the home’s owner. “One foot more to the right and it would have gone right through the sliding glass door, right through the house and into the frontyard.”

Earlier in the evening, authorities responded to reports of people near a storm channel in Moorpark on Mountain Trail Street and Tierra Rejada Road. The Sheriff’s Department helicopter was called to the scene along with rescue workers.

Emergency crews searched for several hours but found no one and called off the search, Senior Deputy Ed Tumbleson said.

Southern California Edison reported outages throughout the west county. As of 8 p.m., at least 300 customers in Camarillo were without power, along with 50 in Oxnard and 100 in Santa Paula.

“We expect the worst of the storm to continue through midnight,” said Laura Hernandez, assistant director for the Office of Emergency Services. “We’ll be here all night if we need to be.”

The rain also played havoc with county roads.

Authorities said California 150 was closed between Santa Ana Road and the Santa Barbara County line because of a mud- and rockslide. Another slide closed the southbound lanes of Pacific Coast Highway at Mugu Rock.

California 33 incurred the biggest problems, including a series of mud- and rockslides. The largest, about five miles north of Ojai, piled an estimated half-million cubic yards of dirt on the road, possibly closing it for several days.

In Oak View, the Ventura River was within a few feet of breaching its banks.

Oak View residents Alan and Cathy Drettler stood near the river, watching it rise. The couple live near Coyote Creek and said the waterway is swollen to the point it could spill over its banks soon.

Over the years, the Drettlers said, they have been evacuated three times because of flash floods. And they were worried it might happen again Saturday night.

If the creek were to overflow its bank, they said, it could flood 30 to 40 homes in the area where they live.

“It’s getting higher all the time,” said Alan Drettler, wearing a yellow rain slicker and watching the river. “About three hours ago you could see the rocks out there. Now they’re gone.”

Moderate to intense showers were predicted for today, squeezed from the latest in a series of storms expected to sweep across the county through Thursday.

“We have these storms strung out all the way to Japan,” said Bill Hoffer, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. “We have finally connected with this El Nino thing, and we now have what I like to call an open-door policy when it comes to these storms.”

Earlier in the day across Ventura County, residents used a brief lull between storms to dry out from last week’s deluge.

Racing against the latest onslaught, residents began the job of mopping up after Friday’s rainstorm, which unleashed flood waters and thick blankets of mud on neighborhoods from Ventura to Thousand Oaks.

Camarillo had been hit hardest as flash floods swamped low-lying areas, inundating scores of homes and businesses. Storm water flushed through a drainage channel along Ponderosa Drive, jumping the curb at Carmen Drive and flooding Camarillo City Hall.

Keeping watch on an ever-darkening sky, work crews scrambled early Saturday to shore up a 200-foot stretch of the drainage canal undermined by the force of the water.

Down the road at City Hall, workers sopped up water from offices and entryways flooded Friday. At one point, water flowed through the front door and out the back, prompting employees to lift computers and important files onto tables and bookshelves.

In some areas there was as much as 12 inches of standing water.

“This happened so fast, I’m amazed we saved what we saved,” said management assistant Steve Miller, overseeing a cleanup effort aimed at reopening City Hall by Monday morning.

“We knew we were going to get hit by rain, but we had no idea we would get hit so hard,” he said. “It was coming at us like a waterfall. It was on us before we knew it.”

The same was true for the rest of the city. With more than 2 inches of rainfall in an hour, the area was turned into a swamp as intersections became muddy ponds and hundreds of streets were temporarily shut down.

More than 1,000 flood-related calls were logged with local police and fire stations.

“I’ve lived here all my life, and I had never seen anything like this,” said 62-year-old Councilman Stanley J. Daily. “Everyone has been talking about El Nino, and I don’t really know what that means. But I’m sure now that it means something.”

In Thousand Oaks, crews were busy patching a 20-foot sinkhole that shut down a stretch of Moorpark Road near Thousand Oaks High School. They hoped to have the work done by today.

Meantime, officials hurried to get all the parts they will need to complete repairs on a main that has leaked millions of gallons of raw sewage into the Conejo Creek since Tuesday.

In Port Hueneme, many of the 70 tenants of a flooded apartment complex huddled Saturday at Hueneme High School for warmth, while Red Cross disaster-relief volunteers served them hot chocolate and figured out how many families would need refuge for another night.

About 2 to 3 feet of water flooded 14 units at the apartment house on Surfside Drive in last week’s rains.

Yolanda Anguiano woke up one day to find that rainwater had seeped into her room and reached her bed. Her clothes and shoes floated away, and she’s now living on Red Cross vouchers and sleeping on newspapers.

“I just can’t find a place where I belong,” said Anguiano, who shares a room with a family of six. “I’m cold. I’m wet. You know how your mind doesn’t work when you’re worried.”

The same apprehensions were echoed by residents throughout the county, especially in La Conchita, where a massive 3-year-old mudslide threatens to swallow more homes.

“It’s very scary,” said Sheila Fry, whose single-story residence sits right against the ominous hill. “In the day, it’s not so bad, but at night you just don’t know.”

The thought of a wall of mud slamming into her house while she’s asleep has persuaded Fry to check into a Ventura motel every night, even though the county surrounded her property with 3-foot tall concrete barricades.

That move was made after the huge slide that destroyed nearby houses in March 1995. Since then, Fry’s home, along with most others in La Conchita, were tagged as geologic hazards.

Saturday’s storm dropped only about an inch in some parts of Northern California. Nonetheless, the weather wreaked plenty of havoc in areas already saturated from the rain series that began early in the week.

Ski resort and highway crews in the Sierra stepped up avalanche control efforts as the storm dumped another 2 feet of snow in the Lake Tahoe area, capping what authorities said was the snowiest week of the season.

In Rio Nido, about five miles east of the Russian River in Sonoma County, five homes slid from hillsides early Saturday. No one was injured, but authorities evacuated residents of about 300 other homes as a precaution.

Meteorologists clocked wind gusts at up to 125 mph atop the East Bay Area’s Mt. Diablo. And flooding again closed major roadways, including California 101 at the Marin-Sonoma County line.

But officials said Northern California’s major rivers were expected to stay within their banks over the next few days, and the respite from heavy rains was giving workers time to shore up levees.

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Times staff writers Jean Merl and Robert Lopez, correspondents Robert Gammon and Lisa Fernandez and Times wire services contributed to this report.