County’s Citrus Growers Spend Christmas Eve Watching Over Their Crops

Robert Davis does not plan on getting up early this morning.

Seven years ago, the Ojai citrus grower found himself in a losing battle against a once-in-a-century deep freeze that ruined his fruit crop.

This year, the subfreezing overnight temperatures are back, but not with the fury that came in December 1990.

So growers have their wind machines and temperature alarms ready, but they expect to get through the latest cold snap without any crop damage.

“I know the weather forecast says a lot of stuff about it being the coldest since 1990,” Davis said. “But it isn’t comparable to that at all. We’re prepared, but we don’t expect it to ruin our Christmas.”

Davis’ sense of calm seemed contagious Wednesday, as homeless shelters, highways and shopping centers all reported a busy, yet mostly uneventful, holiday bustle.

And forecasters are predicting clear, breezy and extremely cool weather throughout the holiday weekend, with almost no chance of rain.

Daytime highs will range from the upper 50s to low 60s, dipping into the mid- to low 30s at night.

The coldest weather will be found in the mountains, where temperatures are expected to dip into the low teens and single digits.

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Growers say their orchards can easily handle brief periods of chilly night air. Depending on the variety of fruit, crops are damaged only with sustained temperatures of 25 to 29 degrees.

The potential for damage changes from grove to grove, said Link Leavens, manager of Leavens Ranch, which farms hundreds of acres of citrus and avocado in Moorpark and the Santa Clara Valley.

Much depends on how long the cold sticks around, the health of the trees, the soil moisture, foliage canopies and what varieties of fruit are growing, Leavens said.

Some varieties of citrus and avocados can withstand temperatures as low as 25 degrees without any appreciable damage, Leavens said.

Even so, growers will be watching their orchards carefully.

“It’s difficult because we’ve got a fairly dry air mass, so the temperature drops pretty quickly,” Leavens said. “You just don’t know. It’s challenging.”

It wasn’t just the growers who were worried about winter’s wrath on Wednesday.

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At the former Camarillo State Hospital, about 150 homeless people have found shelter from the cold in recent nights, with the space reserved for families at near-capacity, officials said.

The future university site is being used this winter both as the county’s cold-weather shelter and to house people booted from their encampments in the Ventura and Santa Clara river bottoms.

“We’ll have a lot more tonight, but we’ve been averaging about 150,” said shelter coordinator Cindy Marshall.

On Christmas Eve, county firefighters pulled up in a hook-and-ladder truck, handing out turkeys and toys for the roughly 35 children calling the shelter home.

And today, shelter officials plan a special Christmas Day brunch, an early dinner and plenty more toys for the kids.

The California Highway Patrol was reporting no major accidents but throngs of holiday shoppers and travelers on area roadways. By late afternoon, traffic started jamming up on the Ventura and Moorpark freeways.

“There’s a lot of people out there,” CHP Officer Steve Reid said.

The CHP planned to have 75% to 80% of its officers on the roads during the so-called maximum enforcement period, which runs from 6 p.m. Christmas Eve through midnight Sunday.

On Friday and Saturday nights, CHP officers will be assigned specifically to seek and arrest suspected drunk drivers, Reid said.

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Traffic at the county’s malls and shopping centers was fairly calm--especially for the last shopping day before Christmas.

The Simi Valley Target store was busy with shoppers, many of whom came for more wrapping paper, tape and decorations.

“This happens every year,” said Gretchen Nelson of Simi Valley, who picked up several rolls of wrapping paper. “I never seem to have enough.”

The real action, however, seemed to be at grocery stores, where people stocked up for their holiday feasts. At the HoneyBaked Ham store in Ventura, a line of about 50 people snaked out the front door and down the sidewalk.

“We’ve got a lot of kids coming, so it’s important to be prepared,” said Ginny Hamstedt of Simi Valley, whose cart was brimming at a Simi Valley grocery store. “They get to live it up this year.”

Still, as tradition would have it, some were embroiled in a last-minute scramble.

“My Christmas wish is that Christmas would be over,” said an admittedly frantic Liz Wilson of Oxnard, as she raced into the Best Buy for compact discs and a Walkman.

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Wilson, 37, said she had been so busy visiting her new husband’s family across the state that she hadn’t bought a thing for said spouse or her own parents.

At the Janss Marketplace and The Oaks mall, stores saw a steady stream of last-minute gift-seekers.

“We’re not as busy as we were earlier this week,” said Ann Romero, a customer service employee at Toys R Us. “What we’re seeing today is an outrageous number of refunds, what with Hanukkah starting yesterday.”

Even if business wasn’t at its peak the day before Christmas, a plethora of procrastinators helped the cash registers sing.

Ron Goodman of Westlake Village said he likes shopping on Christmas Eve, because it’s less of a rush.

“I do this every year,” he said. “I guess I procrastinate on things that are not that enjoyable . . . like shopping.”

Truth be told, Stacy Watson of Westlake Village was not procrastinating on Wednesday.

She was just replacing gifts for her daughter that she had given away to her nieces.

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Seems the young relatives had slipped her mind. So off went her daughter’s beaded curtains and African board game.

“They all like this retro” stuff, she laughed.

Jim Hendle of Camarillo carried armsful of tennis and golf balls, fishing lures, ski and tennis socks and a T-ball bat out of the Oxnard Sportmart.

“I do this every year--I have a ball,” Hendle said. “I don’t really get into the Christmas thing until I do this.”

“It’s great buying all this little stuff today,” he said. “It’s tomorrow that I’ll have sticker shock.”

Correspondents Lisa Fernandez and Coll Metcalfe contributed to this story.