The California Deluge : Ojai Valley Residents Battle Deluge of Rain, Mud : Disasters: The storm exposes the danger of living in an isolated, mountainous area carved by a network of streams.

Ojai Valley residents are no strangers to natural disasters--especially floods.

But Tuesday’s deluge caught even the most seasoned storm veterans by surprise as it exposed the vulnerability--and danger--of living in an isolated, mountainous area carved by a network of fierce-running streams.

Residents in the small communities of Casitas Springs and Live Oak Acres, which border the usually dry Ventura River, awoke not only to flooded streets and residences Tuesday, but to warnings of evacuations.

With major arteries in and out of the valley blocked by mudslides, however, some people who tried to leave their homes or rescue horses from rising waters became stranded.

Consequently, residents hunkered down in their drenched communities to help neighbors sandbag homes, haul debris from yards and watch fearfully as rain-swollen rivers crept up their banks.

“This water is too much, it’s too hard,” said Ojai resident Tony Sanchez, standing knee-deep in muddy water while helping a family of five evacuate their home on Avenida de la Vereda in Ojai’s east end.

Next door, longtime residents Greg and Betsy Williams watched a river of rainwater rush down their street. “It hasn’t hit the ’69 level yet,” Betsy Williams said, referring to a devastating flood that tore through the valley 26 years ago, “but it is getting close.”

Mudslides clogged with tree trunks and debris blocked Creek Road in Ojai in several places, while San Antonio Creek spilled its banks and into nearby driveways.

One mobile home was destroyed and left twisted and bent by the powerful water. And the last piece of an abandoned three-bedroom home largely destroyed during the 1969 flood washed downstream Tuesday, neighbors said.

Longtime Ojai resident Ann Locey said the creek crested about 9 a.m., sending the water directly toward her house. “It was coming right at us and I thought, ‘Oh God, here we go,’ ” Locey said.

At Rancho de Granville, a horse ranch, caretaker Lotte Nielsen decided not to try to evacuate, but relocated the 11 horses in her charge to a single paddock on slightly higher ground.

For many residents, the torrential rains that started Monday night and dropped more than eight inches of water in the mountains above Ojai by Tuesday afternoon were a haunting reminder of past floods.

A 30-year resident of Casitas Springs, Cecil Wall remembers the 1969 flood all too well--and he is not eager to watch history repeat.

“I was here in ‘69,” he said. “It started out just like this.”

Wall was one of several Arroyo Mobile Home Park residents advised to evacuate riverside trailers Tuesday morning when authorities feared the Ventura River would crest its banks.

Reluctant to leave until that happened, however, Wall stood alongside his pickup truck--loaded with a life’s worth of possessions--and gazed at the swift-moving river. “When it crests,” he said, “I’m out of here.”

Farther north, up the winding Maricopa Highway, Michele Cromer and her grandmother, Anne Cromer, 80, fought to save their family’s flooded bar. The bar, Bodee’s, was named after Anne Cromer’s husband, who died in a fire in Matilija Canyon in 1950.

Bodee’s--a little green shack of a house on California 33 above Ojai--was nearly destroyed by flooding in 1969. Tuesday morning, the Cromers feared the old bar would again be lost.

“It started really roaring at 6 a.m. and it just got worse,” Michele Cromer said of the rain, which created a six-inch deep lake inside the bar. “There’s mud in there, we’ll clean it out and keep on running it. I just have faith it’s going to survive.”

Ojai resident John Haag also saw his business ruined by the rains. When he opened the door to his Bryant Street music publishing office Tuesday, Haag found the interior flooded knee-deep in water and music sheets floating on top like paper boats.

“We have lost all of our company records, all of our tax returns,” Haag said. “We have lost 50% of our inventory.”

But throughout the misery and fear, residents came to one another’s aid Tuesday. In Live Oak Acres, a rural neighborhood wedged between the Ventura River and Lake Casitas, neighbors filled sandbags and helped evacuate animals to higher ground.

The neighborhood of about 100 houses and small ranches has always been susceptible to flooding, incurring damage in the 1969 and 1979 deluges. Some houses occupy sites within 20 yards of the river banks.

“We’ve all lived here a while. Neighbors help neighbors, that’s what it takes,” said Harvey Hooten, 46, who sat in the rain, drinking beer with a group of friends after a morning of sandbagging.

City leaders said that kind of camaraderie was characteristic of the close-knit communities that make up the Ojai Valley.

“Billions of gallons of water run through this valley, and when we have a storm like this it is to our credit that we do OK,” Ojai Councilwoman Nina V. Shelley said. “We get up in the morning, and then we clean up.”

Times staff writers Constance Sommer, Miguel Bustillo and correspondent Jeff McDonald contributed to this story.