Clear Skies Forecast, but Mudslide Threat Still Looms for Some : Weather: Sunny days are expected through week’s end. But worst may be ahead for La Conchita as rain settles deeper into hillside.

Although forecasters are predicting sunny skies for today and the rest of the week, residents of tiny La Conchita remained on guard Tuesday after authorities warned that the rain-soaked hillsides above their homes could come tumbling down at any moment.

Although the quick-moving rainstorm that hit the county Monday was blown away by a high-pressure ridge, authorities said the damage may already have been done to hillsides above the community near the Ventura-Santa Barbara county border.

“It looks like we dodged the bullet for now,” Chuck Buttell, a Ventura County senior sheriff’s deputy, said Tuesday of the rain-sodden hillsides.

“We made it through Monday night without the whole place coming down. But the worst may still be ahead of us as the rain water settles deeper into the hillside.”

Residents were given two voluntary evacuation notices Monday, according to Sandi Wells, a spokeswoman for the Ventura County Fire Department. But she said that so far, only about half a dozen residents have heeded the warning.

“I think people are now prepared to leave, but I think it’s hard for them to give up their homes,” Wells said. “There may soon come a point where they don’t have a choice, but at this time it’s up to them.”

According to Wells, geologists studying the hillside say the moving earth has all but inundated Ranch Road--a narrow dirt road atop the ridgeline.

Officials say the hillsides have been moving since late last week. But why the hillsides, where deep brown gashes of raw earth now protrude from a thick green covering of coastal grasses, were so badly damaged by the water is still not known.

“They (county geologists) are trying to figure that out as we speak,” Wells said.

For 30-year La Conchita resident Jackie Cornwell, the idea of abandoning her home on Vista Del Rincon Drive is a difficult concept.

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“It feels like I’ve been up for the last two days straight,” the 59-year-old Cornwell said. “The hillside began to rumble around midnight last night--it sounded just like the freight trains that go by, except this one wasn’t blowing a horn. It was pretty scary.”

While the storm dumped 2.2 inches of rain in the upper Ojai Valley and nearly three inches in Matilija Canyon, significantly less precipitation was reported in such places as Ventura and Simi Valley, where half to three-quarters of an inch was measured.

The county will see cool, clear days through the weekend, with daytime highs reaching the middle 60s and overnight temperatures dipping to the low 40s, forecasters said.

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In Fillmore, residents were told Tuesday that nearly $70,000 in federal emergency funding would be earmarked to build plywood and cement barriers to save mud-threatened homes along East 4th Street.

The money, made available under the federal Emergency Watershed Protection Program, provides 75% of the funding, with the city or residents responsible for the balance.

The announcement came as Fillmore residents moved to sandbag their properties and dig diversion ditches for the steady stream of mud and water flowing out of nearby Pole Creek Canyon.

“Our goal is to prevent further property damage and possible injury or death to residents,” said Kelly Polk, a Fillmore city engineer. “If we don’t put up any barriers, there is a strong potential that several homes could be destroyed.”

Fillmore authorities said that approximately 500 feet of concrete and about 1,000 feet of plywood will be installed to stem the mud and water flows, with construction expected to begin by the end of this week. All told, officials say the town suffered about $700,000 damage from recent storms.

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Also on Tuesday, about a dozen Ojai-area residents asked the County Board of Supervisors to provide crews to clean out San Antonio Creek, a tiny waterway that has become so full of silt, vegetation and other debris that it now regularly overflows its banks and floods nearby homes during rainstorms.

Because it lies on private property, county officials said they could not provide work crews to clean up the waterway. They did, however, authorize staff to seek help from U. S. Navy Seabees based at the Naval Construction Battalion Center at Port Hueneme.

Resident Joe Hungate, who suffered an estimated $20,000 damage to his creek-side home during the Jan. 10 storm, said that by keeping the stream clean, the county will ultimately save money, and residents would not fear that their homes will be damaged every time it rains.

“If we could get a regular schedule of preventive maintenance here, we could avoid the crisis that we have every time we have a storm,” Hungate said. “In the shape it’s in now, it won’t take a 50- or a 100-year storm to cause a problem.”

Times staff writers Christina Lima and Carlos V. Lozano contributed to this report.

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County Rainfall Here are rainfall figures from the Ventura County Flood Control Department for the 48-hour period ending at 5 p.m. Tuesday. Oct. 1 is the beginning of the official rain year.

Rainfall Rainfall Normal rainfall Location last 48 hours since Oct. 1 to date Camarillo 0.61 16.39 8.35 Casitas Dam 1.38 34.90 14.62 El Rio 0.48 20.36 9.34 Fillmore 1.60 22.89 11.83 Moorpark 0.87 17.91 9.07 Ojai 1.33 29.08 13.13 Upper Ojai 2.22 34.01 13.17 Oxnard 0.52 19.06 9.00 Piru 1.20 22.53 10.60 Santa Paula 1.08 24.41 11.01 Simi Valley 0.76 18.49 8.74 Thousand Oaks 0.73 18.96 9.43 Ventura Govt. Center 0.57 21.27 8.70