5.2 inches: Santa Paula takes persistent pounding with Friday’s storm

Santa Paula took a persistent pounding with Friday’s storm that left rainfall measuring 5 inches to 6 ? inches in some areas.

The rain started late Thursday with lighter moisture and picked up speed into Friday with the afternoon bringing the brunt of the Pineapple Express weather condition.

The Ventura County Watershed Protection District reported 5.12 inches in Santa Paula while residents of Hillview Estates measured 5 inches; further up Ojai Road in the Mupu area one rain gauge showed 6.5 inches from the storm.

One person was killed in Ventura County when swept away in a Thousand Oaks barranca; four people had already lost their lives throughout Southern California due to weather related accidents, including a male pedestrian in Studio City who was electrocuted when power lines fell into water on a main thoroughfare. 

According to Santa Paula Fire Chief Rick Araiza, firefighters at Station One on South 10th Street were kept busy helping with sandbags for citizens facing flooding emergencies.

A tree fell on Santa Barbara Street near Dean Drive but no one was injured.

Araiza said an emergency shelter was opened Friday at the city’s Cultural Arts Building — located behind the Community Center — for homeless living in encampments near the Santa Clara River, which had water flow not experienced for seven years.

Cots were set up at the shelter and the Santa Paula Police and Firefighter associations provided food and cooked for the homeless who stayed Friday through Sunday morning. A mental health clinician was also on hand at the shelter, which was staffed by volunteers with donations from the public.

Areas hit hard in the past, including burn area Camarillo Springs and La Conchita — which lost 10 residents a decade ago when a hillside collapsed — were stable although mud flows closed northbound Highway 101 at La Conchita for several hours. 

Although the one hiker was killed when he was swept away in a creek near Camino Dos Rios — his companions were on high ground in the barranca and saved — swift water rescue crews saved others countywide including one near the Ventura River, multiple people near Johnson Drive and Highway 101, and at least two people in the Santa Clara River off Ventura who were found standing on a small island above the rushing waters. Most of those subjected to peril were fleeing homeless encampments

Crews saved several other people across the county who were trapped in and near waterways during the storm. The steady flow of swift-water rescues Friday included at least one person near the Ventura River in Ventura, multiple people at Johnson Drive and Highway 101 in Ventura, and at least two people caught on an island in the Santa Clara River about 100 yards out from the 9400 block of Kennebec Street in Ventura. Authorities said a good portion of these rescues occurred in the areas of homeless encampments, often in or near riverbeds.