2,000 Are Evacuated in Santa Paula

As evacuations go, this one was relatively painless.

For three hours Monday, as Santa Paula Creek threatened to punch through a levee guarding the southeast corner of the city, some 2,000 residents were ordered to leave their homes.

They packed up what they could and scrambled for higher ground, waiting for word that the embankment would hold. But when word finally came, many people said they thought it was too soon to go back home.

Just hours earlier, they had seen the rain-swollen waterway threaten to spill over into their working-class neighborhood. And now that they were free to return, they weren’t sure whether home was the safest place to be.

“I kind of would rather spend the night than go home,” said Carey Craig, one of dozens of evacuees who streamed into a makeshift shelter set up at the Santa Paula Community Center.

“There’s no way I’m going to be able to sleep tonight,” added Craig, who gathered blankets, clothing and videotapes to entertain her three children when she evacuated her Harvard Boulevard home. “I have a feeling we’re going to be doing this again.”

With flood waters flushing through Santa Paula Creek--the most water to rush down the channel in two decades--authorities embarked on a door-to-door campaign Monday afternoon to evacuate the neighborhood.

Officials said it had been almost 30 years since a mandatory evacuation was ordered in this city of 27,000. And although it only lasted three hours, they said they were glad to have taken the precautionary measure.

“The levee was being pounded pretty badly, and if it had given way, we would have had 2 to 3 feet of water flooding that neighborhood,” said Julie Hernandez, assistant to the city manager in Santa Paula. “We didn’t want people in there if that occurred.”

So, shortly after 2 p.m., police officers and members of the affiliated citizens’ patrol scoured the neighborhood, asking residents to leave. The neighborhood is bounded by the creek on the east, Main Street on the north, 10th Street on the west and the Santa Clara River on the south.

Jose and Virginia Carmone packed medicine and frozen meat into their Chevy pickup as they prepared to leave their Ventura Street home. They tucked their two chow dogs into the garage and hoped that sandbags would be enough to keep flood waters away.

“I’ve been here 27 years and I’ve never seen anything like this happen,” said Virginia Carmone, 66. “This is just a nightmare.”

Down the street, the Ceja family was packing in a hurry. They had just received word that an evacuation had been ordered, and they were heading to a relative’s house in another part of the city.

But Emma Ceja, the matriarch of the family, wondered whether it would do any good to leave if the levee gave way.

“If the river goes, all of Santa Paula will flood, right?” she said. “I don’t feel too comfortable right now.”

City leaders had planned to keep the evacuation center open all night if necessary. But shortly after 5 p.m., flood control officials said the creek had crested and that there was no longer any danger of the water overflowing its banks.

With that, residents were allowed to return to their homes. But with all that had happened during the day, it was not an easy thing to do.

“After seeing that river, I don’t want to go home,” said 25-year-old Donovan Bustillos, who went to the evacuation center searching for his wife and four children after not finding them at home.

Added 38-year-old Victor Narago, “We live right next to the creek, and at times like this, the house shakes. The police are saying it’s safe to go back, but I’m not so sure.”

In fact, more than an hour after the evacuation order was lifted, the streets in the neighborhood were still dark and deserted. It was like a ghost town, with only a trickle of residents flowing back into the area.

Returning from the temporary shelter, Sonia Mata said she wouldn’t be quick to unpack. “We’re ready to leave again if we have to,” said Mata, 26. “We think it was a good idea to evacuate. It’s always good to take precautions.”