Mudslide Briefly Closes 101 Freeway

A steady rain saturated coastal Ventura County and covered the mountains with snow early Friday, loosening mud that briefly closed the Ventura Freeway, triggering a power outage, but causing little flooding and no serious accidents.

Thursday night’s storm, the second of three expected this week, dropped nearly 2 inches of rain at the county Government Center in Ventura and in the mountains above Santa Paula and Ojai. About an inch fell in Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks.

“Our rainy season is definitely here,” said Mark Lenz, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Oxnard.

A final moderate rain system is expected to roll through this afternoon with at least an inch of precipitation. Since Monday, the county has received up to 4 inches along the coast and more than 5 inches in the mountains, according to the county’s flood control district.

Rain totals this season have already passed those for all of last winter in many county locations.

While this evening’s rain is expected to be milder than Thursday night’s, temperatures in the mountains will remain in the 20s and 30s, cold enough to keep snow on the ground.

“It snowed all night, and from what I can see on top of the cars outside, it looks like more than a foot,” said Sheriff’s Deputy Robert Berger, who is stationed in Lockwood Valley at an elevation of about 5,000 feet.

Berger said snow started falling about 7 p.m. Thursday and continued through the night, causing white-out conditions for drivers and stranding cars.

Berger and his partner spent most of Friday helping area residents dig out their driveways. Between 5 and 8 inches of snow could fall today and Sunday, he said, adding that the temperature Friday afternoon was 28 degrees.

Snow chains are required on Lockwood Valley Road and on most roads between Lockwood Valley and Frazier Park in northern Los Angeles County. County crews were scheduled to work through the night to clear snow from roads in the area, Berger said.

The snow level could dip to 3,500 feet by this afternoon, said Dessa Garton, a Weather Service manager in Oxnard.

“It’s going to be a weaker system so we probably won’t have all the warnings and watches we had on Thursday,” she added. A high surf advisory warning of 6- to 10-foot breakers remained in effect Friday.

On Thursday, rain started about mid-evening and continued until shortly before sunrise Friday. The system brought strong winds and downpours along the coast and provided a steady rain in Ojai.

The storm left the county far ahead of normal rainfall for late December. County officials said that local reservoirs could fill completely if rain continues at the current pace.

A two-mile section of the Ventura Freeway south of Carpinteria was closed from 2:30 to 5:30 a.m. Friday, after mud on the road caused several spinouts, said California Highway Patrol spokesman Steve Reid.

Traffic was rerouted onto Old Rincon Highway as California Department of Transportation workers cleaned up the mess and secured the adjacent hillside.

The storm knocked out power for some Thousand Oaks residents for about six minutes at 2:30 a.m. Friday, but no other incidents in Ventura County were reported, said Nancy Williams, a regional manager for Southern California Edison.

“We were pretty fortunate last night in Ventura County,” she said.