Mud and rock ripped through a wooden fence and crashed against the yellow-and-white, two-bedroom house, surrounding and squeezing it.

It sounded like an airplane to Horst Ringhof, who lives in the hillside home in Casitas Springs, a town sandwiched by Ventura and Ojai and slammed by Sunday's storm.

The crash and boom that came less than an hour before sunrise made his wife, Jackie Ringhof, flash on bombs exploding.

"It sounded like a war zone," the homeowner said, the noise still bouncing in her head 10 hours later. "I called 911 screaming and yelling: 'Help us! Help us!' "

The mud didn't break into the home on a steep lane, known as Cash Road because singer Johnny Cash once owned a home there.

But it piled to the window sills and settled 10 feet deep in their yard.

It invaded their garage and the attached utility room, burying a motorcycle and a barbecue once owned by Jackie Ringhof's grandfather.

"One more slide and it'll come in the bedroom," said Jackie, already worried about the whereabouts of her three cats. "It'll take our lives."

The 61-year-old dance and exercise teacher spent part of her afternoon playing solitaire on the computer and crying.

A Ventura County Fire Department official told the couple they should think about evacuating.

But the Ringhofs were hoping fire department crews using a loader and backhoe would create a channel down mud-buried Cash Road, diverting water and earth from their home.

They didn't want to go. They've lived there for more than 20 years. Everything they own is there. But they also don't want to hear that sound again.

"It'll be pretty hard to sleep here," she said.

A house away, Dan Cooper worried a slide could hit the house he and his girlfriend, Marcia Whitson, bought for $459,000 in October.

Sandbags were keeping the mud and water away, but a chocolate-colored river was flowing through their property.

"It's absolutely unbelievable," Whitson said, noting that fire department crews had been working all day to protect the home. "If it wasn't for them, we wouldn't be here right now."

They and others on nearby Nye Road, which also flooded, say the mudslides are linked to the construction of a home higher up on Cash Road, diverting the hill's drainage.

Another homeowner farther down Nye Road disputed the theory, saying the region always floods.

Cooper and Whitson have been told Cash Road is privately owned. They want to know who will pay for cleanup and damages.

They don't have flood insurance. They thought they were protected because they're nowhere near the Ventura River. No one warned them about mudslides.

"We're going to have a long night ahead of us," Whitson said.