DIGGING OUT A REGION STORM REPAIRS TO CONTINUE UNTIL SUMMER.

Byline: Andrea Cavanaugh Staff Writer

Storm damage estimates in Ventura County have topped $114 million and are expected to climb even higher, and crews will likely be working until summer to clean up some of the damage, officials said Tuesday.

Although the worst of the damage was concentrated along the coast and the Ventura and Santa Clara river corridors, the entire county was affected by the punishing storm, which dumped more than 15 inches of rain in some areas over a four-day period.

``It's stem to stern,'' said Jeff Pratt, director of the Ventura County Watershed Protection District. ``There's damage everywhere.''

The figures include nearly $39 million in crop damage - especially bad news in an area where agriculture is the No. 1 private industry. Nearly $50 million in damage was incurred by public facilities.

It will cost an additional $7.3 million to repair county roads and $2.1 million to remove debris from roadways, said Laura Hernandez, manager of the county's Office of Emergency Services. More than $6 million in damage to federal highways was found.

There was nearly $20 million in damage to 475 homes, including 15 homes buried by a massive mudslide that killed 10 people, including three children, at La Conchita.

Funeral services were being planned this week for the victims. Plans were under way for a memorial service for Mechelle Wallet and her daughters Hannah, 10, Raven, 6, and Paloma, 2, but the family wants the details to remain private, a mortuary employee said.

Federal and state officials were touring the county, gathering information that will be submitted by Friday to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Hernandez said.

The information will be used to urge President George W. Bush to declare the region a disaster area, which would make county residents eligible for federal aid. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has already made the declaration at the state level.

In La Conchita, workers were still trying to restore utilities for residents who were allowed to move back into their homes.

Over the objections of La Conchita residents, officials likely will leave the 30-foot mountain of earth from the Jan. 10 landslide in place to help buttress the unstable bluff behind it.

``I'm afraid if it's touched, it will set off another slide,'' county Supervisor John Flynn said. ``I think it ought to stay put.''

During an aerial tour of the region last Friday, many officials saw for the first time just how devastating the storm was throughout the county, Pratt said.

Riverbanks were severely eroded, beaches were smothered in debris, and a county-owned golf course in the Moorpark area was buried in mud, he said. A mobile home along Santa Paula Creek was torn to pieces by floodwaters.

``It was pounded with boulders,'' he said. ``You won't find any trace of it, unless it's on the beach. That's where everything else ended up.''

Although crews cleared every creek and flood-control channel in the county before the rains hit, nearly all of them were clogged again after the storm, Pratt said.

Area growers suffered extremely high dollar losses in the storm, probably because many have turned to high-price crops such as strawberries, avocados and nursery stock, Agricultural Commissioner Earl McPhail said.

Near Fillmore, floodwaters on Sespe Creek were so powerful that equipment being used by a team from the U.S. Geological Survey to measure the flow was swept away, Pratt said. The flow may have set records on the Sespe.

Although the waters of the Sespe and the Santa Clara have receded, leaving broad swaths of mud in their wake, Fillmore residents are still contending with the sticky debris from the storm.

One home near Sespe Creek was heavily damaged, and city government incurred more than $300,000 in cleanup costs, spokesman Steve McClary said.

The Fillmore & Western Railway, which runs antique trains for rides in the Santa Clara Valley, halted service after an estimated $1.5 million in damage to its tracks and trestles, owner Dave Wilkinson said.

The storm hit just as the company was set to run the first passenger trains from Fillmore to Piru in nearly 50 years.

``We've got some fixing to do,'' Wilkinson said. ``I guess the only thing to do is pick up and fix it and move on.''

Andrea Cavanaugh, [phone]

andrea.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) Tons of Arundo donax or giant reeds are among debris from the Ventura and Santa Clara river corridors piled on a Ventura beach in the wake of recent storms, above. Damage estimates in Ventura County have reached $114 million and are still climbing.

(2) A work crew with heavy equipment clears debris from a drainage ditch in the Bardsdale area near Fillmore on Tuesday. Ventura County officials said crews cleared every creek and flood-control channel in the county before the rains hit, but nearly all were clogged again.

David Sprague/Staff Photographer