Ventura Families Evacuated as Rain Threatens Steep Hillside

As yet another storm pelted Ventura County on Thursday, fears of a disastrous mudslide prompted authorities to order 10 families to evacuate their west Ventura apartment building.

The potential for a river of mud to rush down the steep hillside that looms menacingly above the Cedar Street building and push it off its foundation convinced officials to order residents to leave immediately amid torrential rain.

“The building is being red-tagged by the building officials, which means the building is not habitable for the time being,” said Mike Maher, a battalion chief with the Ventura Fire Department. “There are little clods rolling down the hill here and there--the slide appears somewhat unstable. We’re erring on the side of caution.”

Although Thursday’s storm was relatively timid by recent standards--bringing less than half an inch of rain to Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley, and about eight-tenths of an inch to Ventura--the saturated ground simply can’t take any more water, authorities said.

A wall of mud from previous slides that had crashed against a concrete retaining wall behind the Cedar Apartments, in the 600 block of Cedar, underlined the danger.

Residents grabbed their children, pets and belongings as they headed to rooms in local motels hastily arranged by the local chapter of the Red Cross. With more mild rain expected Saturday night and a potentially larger storm system due to reach the Ventura County coast Sunday night, residents were told to take enough clothes to last four days.

“I don’t want to leave,” 39-year-old Rosy Sabory said as she gathered up her two young sons. “I want to stay. This is really scary.”

Authorities are expected to reevaluate the stability of the hillside today, but voiced concern about the additional wet weather forecast for the weekend.

“At this stage of the game, anything is excessive when we’ve had so much already,” said John Sherwin, a meteorologist with the private forecasting firm WeatherData Inc. “Anything that falls will pretty well run off.”

Thursday’s storm also toppled two trees, prompting the temporary closure of Harbor Boulevard south of Ventura Harbor for a short while in the afternoon.

But officials declared that the threat of catastrophic flooding from a lake created by a mudslide on a remote Texaco oil field three miles north of Ventura had ended after crews finished draining three-quarters of the estimated 40 million gallons of water it contained before the rain started anew.

A 200-foot-long spillway cut by a bulldozer early Thursday allowed enough water to drain through Hall Canyon to lower the lake level by about 3 feet and permanently remove the threat of flooding to about 200 midtown homes, said Mark Watkins, a spokesman with Ventura’s Public Works Department.

“By constructing the channel, the danger to the downstream residents has been alleviated,” he said. “That channel should safely get us through the weekend.”

The spillway was expected to prevent water from again accumulating behind the slide, and Texaco crews planned to remove the remaining water next week, Watkins said.

Thursday’s rain largely tapered off by 9 p.m., but another system that meteorologists said could be more intense is brewing ominously to the west.

Cold air trailing Thursday’s storm will usher in temperatures ranging from the upper 50s to lower 60s today, dipping into the upper 30s to lower 40s tonight.

Rain could begin falling again Saturday night, with the heaviest amounts Sunday night into Monday.

“It looks to be a pretty big storm,” said Rob Krohn, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Oxnard.

(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 8 p.m.ThursdayT. 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 0.71 24.56 8.84 Casitas Dam 0.75 37.89 15.60 Casitas Rec. 0.71 37.23 15.67 Center Fillmore 0.59 28.38 12.62 Matilija Dam 0.67 38.10 17.82 Moorpark 0.63 24.29 9.62 Ojai 0.63 29.06 14.06 Upper Ojai 0.35 32.61 15.22 Oxnard 0.47 26.73 9.61 Piru 0.47 22.41 11.27 Port Hueneme 0.75 25.65 9.43 Santa Paula 0.59 27.19 11.79 Simi Valley 0.47 24.49 9.29 Thousand Oaks 0.47 22.86 10.04 Ventura Govt. Center 0.83 31.43 10.63

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* MAIN STORY: A3