Coastline a Draw Rain or Shine

Despite sultry humidity and afternoon thunderstorms predicted throughout the Labor Day weekend, surfers, romantics and camper-loads of families flocked to the Ventura County coastline for the summer’s last hurrah.

But those already sweating in the hot, heavy air can expect more of the same through Monday.

Low clouds and fog are expected to hug the Ventura coast into Sunday, said Bill Hoffer, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service. There is a 60% chance of rain today, with patchy clouds and high humidity expected to continue through Monday, he said.

Temperatures will hover around 70 along the coast, and climb to the 80s and low 90s in such inland spots as Ojai, Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley.

Despite a late-morning downpour Friday, local campgrounds and hotels in Ventura were already packed to the gills, many of them booked weeks in advance.

At the Ojai Valley Inn, rooms for the Labor Day weekend were sold out two months ago and the establishment had a waiting list of 40. The Holiday Inn in Ventura was full too--mostly with surfers eager to catch a wave at California Street or romantics eager to impress their beloved with a seaside getaway, a reservation clerk said.

Carrie Stein of Los Angeles was heading up the coast for the weekend with her love and expected to frolic rain or shine.

“This is the last weekend of summer,” she said. “I want to have fun because I have to go back to work. We’re going to go hiking, go wine tasting and have some great dinners.”

Kathy St. Amant of Moorpark spent all week finagling to get three adjacent campsites at Emma Wood Campground for her family and two others.

“We just had to get down here and fight to get the spots we wanted,” she said, explaining that she drove from Moorpark on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, finally persuading a tenant of an adjacent campsite to grab a ticket when another camper left.

By midday Friday, the families had set up three tents and parked two RVs. As soft rain fell, they scurried to cover firewood and bicycles under tarps and set up an awning.

“Now I just pray for the sun gods to come and save us,” St. Amant said, proudly surveying her hard-won territory.

Park aide Joe Windrem said the campground is so crowded that rangers have opened all the overflow sites. Some campers came last week and paid for seven days, even though they intended to stay only two, he said, just to ensure that they would get a spot for the holiday weekend.

Vicky Fellows of Castaic was one camper who actually stayed the whole week.

“That storm was interesting,” she said, referring to a midweek lightning show. “I told my girls to go out and swim in the rain, it was so humid. They’d never done that before.”

Indeed, children seemed happier in the rain than the sun. Seven-year-old Nick Reuben of Topanga Canyon rode his bike through the drizzle, sticking out his tongue to catch raindrops.

“It tastes like Arrow Mountain spring water,” he shouted with delight.

Meanwhile, the California Highway Patrol began beefing up its enforcement in anticipation of heavy weekend traffic Friday afternoon and planned to remain at maximum enforcement until midnight Monday.

Public Information Officer Dave Cockrill said officers would be on the lookout for intoxicated drivers, aggressive drivers, crazy lane-changers and obnoxious tailgaters.

He said Labor Day traffic tends to be less frantic that Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, but the rain could be a wild card.

“The fact that Californians don’t know how to drive in the rain increases the risk of accidents,” he said. “But if the weather continues as it is, it will get congested and you can’t go too fast anyway. So that may backhandedly work to our advantage.”

And even as Ventura braced for another possible round of thunderstorms, Southern California Edison scrambled Friday morning to restore power to more than 450 Ventura residents who had been stranded without electricity since their transformers were zapped by lightning earlier this week.

That number had dropped to 275 by the end of the day, said Mike Montoya, regional spokesman for Edison.

“This is the worst we’ve seen in a long time,” he said, “probably since the Northridge earthquake.”

With more thunderstorms predicted, he had some advice:

“Less than 50% of the people on a circuit call in if there is a problem,” he said. “The rest assume someone else called in or we know. But we rely on our customers to tell us there is a problem. If the power is out, continue to call us.”