Rain, cold, wind: Three of Mother Nature’s basic food groups experienced

Santa Paula as well as Southern California has been experiencing three of Mother Nature’s basic food groups, rain, cold and wind all within a matter of days.

The projected storm came through Thursday evening into early Friday morning bringing plenty of rain to Ventura County, but at a slower pace than expected.

Santa Paula and Ventura County overall had braced itself for the storm that was expected to bring an onslaught of rain that was feared could trigger flooding and mudslides. 

Ventura County Fire staged a countywide meeting days ahead of the storm and the availability of sandbags was expanded to include the Todd Road Jail. Santa Paula representatives attended the meeting and were ready to activate the Emergency Operations Center at City Hall if needed.

Santa Paula is no stranger to flood damage: in 2005 a downpour flooded the Santa Paula Creek outlet — not cleared completely by the Army Corps of Engineers — where it entered the Santa Clara River, bouncing waters back and forth across the river and into the Santa Paula Airport. One-third of the airport’s runway was destroyed in the incident that was only stemmed by an emergency response of trucks dumping rock over the side where raging waters were eroding the runway.

Santa Paula received 1.6 inches — some mountain areas north of the city more than 2.3 inches — a healthy downpour but not at the rate that was expected.