Heavy Rains Cause Numerous Car Crashes, Including 1 Fatality

A big winter storm front that dumped 1 1/2 feet of snow onto the Sierra Nevada also drenched Ventura County on Thursday and Friday, pouring more than 2 1/2 inches of rain onto some parts ofthe county and causing numerous car wrecks, one of them fatal.

The National Weather Service predicted that rainy skies would give way to dry, cool and windy conditions for Halloween.

The California Highway Patrol reported 17 accidents since 6 a.m., mostly minor except for the death of an 18-year-old Valencia woman whose car slammed head-on into a trash truck on California 126 east of Fillmore in heavy rain.

It rained heaviest in the hills northwest of Ventura, where 2.64 inches of precipitation fell since Thursday morning in Matilija Canyon, according to computerized rain sensors run by the Ventura County Flood Control District.

Around the county, tree branches fell, roofs leaked and Halloween pumpkin patches turned to mud so deep that operators of one patch simply gave up.

“We are closed due to rain. It’s too muddy for anything to go on here,� said a woman’s voice Friday on an answering machine at the Faulkner Farm Pumpkin Patch in Santa Paula, promising to reopen today with pumpkin sales and hayrides.

“This is an unusual situation,� the voice added.

While the bulk of the storm passed through the Sierra, the fringes of it carried “quite a bit of moisture� into Ventura County, said Ron Hamilton, agricultural forecaster for the National Weather Service.

Ventura County growers couldn’t be happier with the rainfall, said David Buettner, the county’s chief deputy agricultural commissioner.

“It’s just wonderful, wonderful right now,� Buettner said. “We had a little over 2 inches in Santa Paula, so it’s sufficient to help the growers out substantially.�

Rex Laird, head of the Ventura County Farm Bureau, agreed.

“I haven’t heard anybody complaining about it yet,� Laird said. “It might be a little bit of a nuisance to people that have work to do on vegetable crops . . . concern is what’s going to follow. If we get an east wind that blows fairly strongly, my concern is the benefit of the rain will be wiped out in a day or two� because such Santa Ana conditions would dry out the ground.

The rain caused more immediate headaches in Ventura, where it brought a massive tree branch crashing down onto Jack Olivera’s driveway on Emma Avenue.

“At just about 6:30 or 20 minutes to 7, I heard a loud boom,� Olivera said. “My daughter was going to work--she just bought a brand-new Nissan--and that sucker missed it by just 2 feet.�

The tree clipped a gutter on the house and bent a fence, but did no other damage, he said.

A few blocks away, rain dripped through the roof of The Buenaventura Mall into about 20 buckets laid out near the food court.

“We have a couple minor leaks,� said mall manager Cayse Osterlund. “We . . . have crews up on the roof trying to fix the leaks that have been reported, but we don’t have any major leaks at this time. It’s to be expected in a building of this size.�

The rain has greatly reduced the risk of brush fires, but the Ventura County Fire Department remains on high alert by day and medium alert at night, said dispatcher Denis Miller.

“We’re still in the same mode, fire-wise,� but the amount of rainfall over the next few months will determine exactly when the department declares the fire season over, Miller said.

Police reported numerous fender-benders, but the most serious rain-related wreck came midmorning Friday in Fillmore.

A Nissan Sentra driven eastbound on California 126 by 18-year-old Stacy Kathleen Van Scoyk had just passed a truck on the two-lane road when the passing zone ended and she lost control, said California Highway Patrol Officer Staci Morse.

The car collided head-on with a westbound trash truck, which struck the truck Van Scoyk had just passed, then ran off the south side of the road and overturned, Morse said.

The second truck ran off the road and came to rest against an orange tree. The car’s front end, torn off in the collision, smashed into a third truck, which stopped in the road, Morse said.

The trash truck’s driver, Jose Ricardo Felix Munoz, 35, of Oxnard, was taken to Santa Paula Hospital to be treated for a possible broken left knee and a scraped face, she said.

Van Scoyk, a Santa Barbara City College student who was headed home for the weekend, apparently was killed instantly, said Ventura County Coroner’s Investigator Craig Stevens.

The other two drivers were unhurt, police said.

Times correspondents James Maiella Jr. and Kay Saillant contributed to this story.

County Rainfall

Here are rain statistics from 8 a.m. Thursday until 5 p.m. Friday from the Ventura County Flood Control District. Rainfall since Oct. 1, the start of the official rain year, is an estimate based on computer updates.

Rainfall Rainfall Normal rainfall Location since Thursday since Oct. 1 to date Camarillo 0.55 0.85 0.34 Casitas Dam 1.23 1.23 0.45 El Rio 0.78 0.95 0.29 Fillmore 1.81 1.91 0.39 Moorpark 0.49 0.64 0.32 Ojai 1.70 1.70 0.40 Upper Ojai 1.15 1.15 0.42 Oxnard 0.44 0.59 0.23 Piru 1.34 1.48 0.36 Santa Paula 1.54 1.57 0.35 Simi Valley 0.74 1.16 0.28 Thousand Oaks 0.50 0.76 0.26 Ventura Govt. Center 1.44 1.68 0.29