Winds Topple Trees, Knock Out Power

For the second day in a row, high winds whipped across Ventura County on Sunday, knocking out power for hundreds of residents, stranding at least one boater at sea and uprooting dozens of trees.

More than a dozen fender benders and minor crashes were reported by local police.

Sheriff’s deputies received more than 120 calls of car and building alarms activated by the winds. On a normal day there are about six alarm calls, officials said.

At least one train crossing gate in Oxnard was torn off by the gusts. Tree limbs and other debris lined the center divider of the Ventura Freeway between Camarillo and Ventura.

In Oxnard, a family of five narrowly escaped serious injury when their Oldsmobile sedan was crushed by a eucalyptus tree that fell on Pleasant Valley Road.

“They were just cruising down the road and this tree ... just cut this car in half,” Oxnard Police Cmdr. Tom Chronister said.

The tree weighed at least a ton, said Leo Ovalle, an Oxnard city worker called out to remove it.

Two adults and three children were in the car, said Senior Officer Scott Swenson. All were taken to St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, where they were treated for minor cuts and released.

The adults were identified as Miguel Nuno, 40, and his wife, Braulia, 27, both of Oxnard. The names of the three children, ages 12, 10, and 3, were not released.

“They were in the wrong place at the wrong time, but they were lucky,” Swenson said.

Meanwhile, officials at the Ventura County medical examiner’s office said that a 51-year-old Simi Valley man struck by a falling tree Saturday afternoon died from blunt-force head injuries.

Funeral arrangements for Brian W. Smith, hit by the tree while playing tennis with friends in Simi Valley, were pending.

Elsewhere, the U.S. Coast Guard sent a rescue boat to Santa Cruz Island about 2 p.m. after the captain of a 23-foot vessel phoned authorities saying he needed help motoring back to Ventura through 7-foot swells.

Coast Guard crews escorted the boat back to the mainland without incident, said Danny Cooley, a Coast Guard coordinator.

Southern California Edison spokesman Ernie Villegas said strong winds snapped several power lines along Las Posas Road in Camarillo about 8 a.m., knocking out power to about 630 mostly residential customers.

Edison crews worked all day Sunday to erect new poles and restore power, which was expected to be back on by late evening, Villegas said.

A spokesman for the National Weather Service in Oxnard said wind speeds across the county reached more than 70 mph.

The strongest gusts slammed Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks, said Bill Hoffer, a federal meteorologist. “There was a real intense low-pressure area in the Gulf of Alaska that was sucking down icy cold air into a high-pressure area off our coast. It moved east and came over us, and we received the winds, big time,” Hoffer said.

The strong winds were expected to end late Sunday and be replaced by clear, sunny skies, with high temperatures in the low 70s today.