Water, Fire and Flood Damage Restoration in Thousand Oaks

November 8, 2018, brought two fires to the Conejo Valley in a single afternoon. The Woolsey Fire was reported in the Simi Hills at 2:24 p.m. Minutes later the Hill Fire started near Hill Canyon and Santa Rosa roads, west of Cal Lutheran, and burned 4,531 acres and destroyed four structures. About 1,200 homes in Dos Vientos and Camarillo Springs were evacuated, and the Woolsey Fire went on to spread into parts of Thousand Oaks and Westlake Village.

Five years before that, the Springs Fire started off the southbound 101 between Camarillo and Newbury Park on May 2, 2013, and burned about 24,000 acres, most of it public open space. Crews protected about 4,500 homes and none were destroyed; the National Park Service credited defensible space and newer construction. A house that flame never touches can still take smoke, and that is the call we get: residue in attic insulation, return ducts and closets, and an odor that comes back every time the heat runs.

Water is the other half of the city's history, and it travels through the barrancas and channels that cut across it. On February 17, 2017, heavy rain flooded a barranca near the 1200 block of Camino Dos Rios. Rescuers pulled three people out, and a fourth man was swept away and found the next morning in the Arroyo Conejo. Conejo Valley trails and creeks were closed while the water was up.

In 2014 the city and Ventura County asked the Army Corps of Engineers to study the South Branch Arroyo Conejo, a channel about a mile and a half long beside the 101 in Newbury Park that cannot carry a 100-year storm. FEMA maps the area south of the freeway, from Borchard Road west toward Wendy Drive, as a high flood area, and about 300 properties there, including homes, schools and the Borchard Community Center, were counted at risk if it overflows.

When channel or street water reaches a home, it is flood water and it is contaminated. We pump it out, remove wet carpet pad and anything porous that cannot be disinfected, clean and disinfect the structure, and then dry it, with readings recorded every day. A mud line on a wall means silt behind the baseboards as well, and that silt has to come out before drying can work.

Thousand Oaks incorporated on October 7, 1964, after the Conejo Valley grew from about 3,000 people in 1950 to about 30,000 by 1970. Most of Newbury Park was annexed in the late 1960s and 1970s, North Ranch in 1973, and Dos Vientos, a 2,350-unit development, was approved in 1988. That spread matters for water damage. Homes from the 1960s and early 1970s still carry plumbing that has been under pressure for half a century, and a slab leak shows up as a warm patch of floor and a climbing bill. Newer neighborhoods fail at appliances and fittings: washer hoses, icemaker lines, water heaters and connector failures behind walls.

Many two-story homes here have an air handler in the attic, and a clogged condensate line can drip into the ceiling below for weeks. A stain, a soft spot or a musty smell in an upstairs hallway is the usual sign. We check the ceiling and insulation with moisture readings and thermal imaging before deciding what has to come out, and mold that has started gets containment and HEPA filtration, with a written account of what we found.

Offices, clinics and shops along Thousand Oaks Boulevard and in Newbury Park lose the most when a supply line breaks after hours and is found in the morning. We contain the wet suites so the rest of the building keeps working, and keep logs and photos for the landlord, the tenant and the carrier.

Before we arrive, shut off the water at the fixture or the main, keep power off in rooms where water reached outlets, stay out of any channel or barranca water, and photograph every wet room, including any mud line. We document the loss, estimate our own scope of work, and can bill your carrier directly for our services. FEMA states that standard homeowner policies do not cover flood, so channel or street water is usually a separate policy question for your carrier, your agent or a public adjuster you hire. We respond in Thousand Oaks and anywhere in Los Angeles, Orange County and Riverside around the clock, our technicians hold IICRC certifications, and the first inspection is free.