As warnings of a potentially historic El Niño mount, city crews are fast at work preparing for the unknown.
Workers in the city’s Stormwater Department are tasked with clearing a record number of stormwater channels to prepare for potential flooding, along with replacing flood control gates in Mission Beach and conducting emergency repairs on stormwater pumps and generators.
On Aug. 20, city directors for the Office of Emergency Services, Stormwater and Infrastructure updated councilmembers on the Environment Committee about their departments’ work to try to prepare the city for what could be a historic El Niño weather pattern.
Assistant Chief Robert Rezende from the Office of Emergency Services noted that sharing the plan with the council was the first step in the city’s preparation for what could be the strongest El Niño since before 1950.
“This is not the culmination or the end point of the preparedness that we’re doing,” Rezende told committee members. “It’s not that it’s done. It’s really just getting started.”
Preliminary preparations began in June, when the city formed a large working group with employees from 24 departments. The group was tasked with identifying gaps in past flood responses and preparing the city as much as possible for potential floods. The working group, said Rezende, also used an audit of the city’s response to floods in January 2024 that destroyed dozens of homes in South San Diego.
During the Aug. 20 Environment Committee meeting, department leaders said the working group has identified 50 projects and is working towards improving communication and coordination between departments, agencies and the public.
At least one councilmember on the committee expressed concern that the city needs to focus on infrastructure needs.
“The city has launched a website. A website is not gonna solve the city’s inadequate storm drain system,” said council president Joe LaCava.
One of the most concerning obstacles the city faces, however, is finding the funds needed to pay for the preparations and improvements.
Those budget constraints can be seen clearly in the case of the “sandbag working group.” While the group has prepared a plan, found a vendor and secured a storage area to fill 100,000 sandbags to hand out to residents, it has yet to find $300,000 to execute the plan, which will take two months to complete.
That is only one of many El Niño-related projects that face budget uncertainties.
Despite using low-interest federal loans, known as WIFIA, to design a replacement for the city’s largest stormwater pump in Old Town, the city does not have funds to actually replace it. In addition, the Jamacha Waterway Revitalization Project is in the design phase too, but the city needs $100 million to complete the project.
The stormwater department, meanwhile, began inspecting and clearing important stormwater drains when the fiscal year began.
Much of the maintenance focus has been on areas fixed around Chollas Creek that were reconstructed after the January 2024 flood.
Despite this, stormwater director Todd Snyder had a grim outlook on the upcoming winter weather. Snyder noted that very few of the city’s channels and drains have the capacity to handle a 100-year storm, which is a measure of a large amount of rainfall within a short period of time, such as two inches within three hours in San Diego.
Only 17% of channels are sized to handle a 100-year storm and only one of the city’s 15 pump water stations was designed for a 100-year storm. Several of them were constructed in the 1940s.
In addition to the capacity, another concern is the current condition of the system.
“We’ve already declared four more emergencies, and it’s not even raining,” Snyder said. “I think it’s a reflection of the aging condition of our overall system. We’re an older city and our stormwater (system) has not really been updated in decades.”
Even with funding, replacing all the corrugated metal and other aging systems built for a San Diego of the past will take years to complete.
Snyder noted that between capacity and the condition of the system, even if storm drains are perfectly clean, flooding will still occur if it rains hard enough.
Kris McFadden, chief infrastructure officer, echoed that clearing channels and storm drains will not be enough.
“We’re not gonna dredge our way out of this. We have to build big things,” McFadden said.
