RV Park Tenants Prepare Trailers for Evacuation

Three years ago, residents of the Ventura Beach RV Resort watched haplessly as the raging Ventura River flooded its banks, pummeling their homes and whisking one trailer out to sea.

So Wednesday, with rain beating on their metal roofs, the dozen or so tenants readied their trailers to clear out--then sat, and waited on the weather.

“It’d take me about 15 minutes to get this on the freeway,” said Ray Thompson, 60, standing in the doorway of his recreational vehicle as the showers slowed momentarily to a drizzle. “If there was a flood-warning here, if I saw water creeping into the park, then I’d hook on and move out.”

Thompson remembers the storms of February, 1992, when he watched on television as tragedy unfolded at the spot now occupied by his trailer. Wednesday, he rushed home from a job in Los Angeles to make sure his trailer still stood on solid ground.

Thompson was not alone in his preparations.

Joe Palmer, the park’s manager, copied neon yellow flyers warning residents of the site’s flood potential, then delivered the sheets door-to-door at lunchtime. He will alert residents again, he said, if the river swells more than halfway up the banks. And sometime after that, if the flood danger continues to grow, he will order everyone to leave, he said.

Meanwhile, Palmer read up-to-the-minute weather reports, faxed to him periodically throughout the day by an Oxnard weather service. The situation by late afternoon did not look too bad, he said. “I’m always concerned, but now I’m not too worried,” he said.

Those are comforting words to Patti Rabideaux, 57, a park tenant who said she is relying on the front office to let her know when she needs to pick up and go. One of Rabideaux’s biggest concerns Wednesday was how soon the showers might break so she could take her antsy dog for a walk.

One of the reasons so many tenants lost their homes three years ago was that despite rules stating they could remain on the premises only 29 days, some had settled in for months and allowed the tires on their vehicles to go flat. When the river rose, they could not drag the motor homes out fast enough.

The vehicles parked on the property Wednesday appeared to be in good condition, though a couple of trailers were in the rain without a truck nearby to haul them to safety should the need arise.

The park is situated on a 19-acre section of river bottom and flood plain, near the Ventura River and only a short walk from the ocean. When rain caused the river to overflow three years ago, the water raced quickly across the adjacent RV resort.

The swollen river destroyed or damaged 40 of the 57 motor homes parked at the site and washed one vehicle under the Ventura Freeway and out to sea.

Environmentalists cited the destruction as a reason a trailer park should not be placed so near the mouth of the river.

The Ventura City Council debated suspending the park’s permit after the flood, but ultimately agreed to let the owners continue operating the business. At the county’s demand, the owners later put a warning system into place.

Last July, owner Nancy Hubbard announced that her family’s company was declaring bankruptcy and that Sumitomo Bank would foreclose on the park. But the bank sued Hubbard later that month for back payments, bank officials said recently. The case is now pending in county courts, and a receiver has been appointed to oversee the park’s operations, bank officials said.