Statue of the Virgin Mary covered with flood debris. Photo by Chris Stone 
Water line on mirror shows flood height. Photo by Chris Stone 
Flood debris on windows and car seat. Photo by Chris Stone 
Neighbor’s car moved in another’s front yard. Photo by Chris Stone 
Flood waters total neighbor’s car. Photo by Chris Stone 
Deep areas of mud slow residents. Photo by Chris Stone 
Neighbor talks on phone about damage. Photo by Chris Stone 
Engine covered with flood debris. Photo by Chris Stone 
Child’s toy damaged by flooding. Photo by Chris Stone 
A garage is damaged by flood waters. Photo by Chris Stone 
Euclid Avenue caked with mud. Photo by Chris Stone 
A river of storm water damages 42nd St. Photo by Chris Stone 
Fences knocked down by flood water. Photo by Chris Stone 
Girl helps clear mud from driveway. Photo by Chris Stone 
Shovels are squeegees brought in to clear mud. Photo by Chris Stone 
Neighbor carries TV from flooded area. Photo by Chris Stone 
Boy protects small dog from rain and mud. Photo by Chris Stone 
Owner protects rabbit from flood. Photo by Chris Stone 
Neighbor shovels mud off his driveway. Photo by Chris Stone 
Flood waters damage van. Photo by Chris Stone 
Neighbors used kayaks in flood waters. Photo by Chris Stone 
Height of flood waters shown on doorway. Photo by Chris Stone 
Interstate 15 North shut down from storm damage. Photo by Chris Stone
An older man stood in the middle of 42nd Street south of Ocean View Boulevard and surveyed a muddy mess left from Monday’s massive flooding.
“God was mad at us today,” he said.
But not as angry as other residents of the Mountain View neighborhood.
In the hours after rushing waters came from two directions, lawsuits were on some lips, including a prominent local activist’s.
“You see those huge trees?” said Cristina Aguirre, noting the pileup at the end of a wide culvert behind her home. “We’ve been asking the city to clear it out. They haven’t cleared it out. So now we’re looking into a lawyer to see if we can get any assistance.”
Next door was Mary Landavazo, who with her husband, Raul, and 12-year-old son had lived on the street for 11 years.
“We made phone calls” to the city about dangerous congestion of the wide culvert behind her home, she said. “Mattresses, trash — everything you could think of was back there. .. And huge trees on the floor – it just makes things worse.”
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Landavazo said neighbors asked the city to clean the culvert during the summer — “We said there’s a lot of debris.”
Monday afternoon, after tweeting a critique of city officials, activist Shane Harris texted Times of San Diego: “I have a major announcement tomorrow regarding efforts to establish a class action lawsuit for residents along the 100-year flood plain.”
He said several residents would join him for a 9 a.m. press conference at 4150 National Avenue in San Diego — near Nu-Way International Christian Ministries. (See his remarks here.)
Harris, president of the People’s Association of Justice Advocates, ripped Mayor Todd Gloria and the City Council for not using lease revenue bonds to raise funds for infrastructure repairs. (Harris opposes a proposed sales tax.)
“The imagery of our city under water is deeply troubling,” he said in a statement on social media. “But the out-of-sight out-of-mind approach by the mayor is even more appalling.”
Harris, who briefly ran for City Council before dropping out, suggested that the Midway Rising redevelopment plan could have included the revenue bond mechanism — with Pechanga Arena as collateral.
(Before a suit is filed, litigants need to file a claim with the city.)
Asked to respond to the 42nd Street complaints, city spokeswoman Nicole Darling noted how the widespread flooding “is what happens when heavy rainfall overwhelms an aging stormwater system with limited capacity.”
She continued: “Today’s record rainfall reveals the fragile state of our stormwater infrastructure and the need for significant investments going forward to prevent the current situation from becoming the new normal for San Diego.”
Darling said that, before the latest record-setting storm, the city had several hundred employees clearing storm drains and doing other prep work to help reduce flood risk.
That might be poor solace for the residents of the three dozen homes hit hard by the late-morning flooding — among several areas of San Diego with structural damage.
Landavazo said she had insurance — “thank God we do.” But she pointed across the street to a home she said wasn’t covered against flooding.
Earlier, she girded herself to explore the fenced-in chicken coop behind her back yard and on the edge of the once-raging culvert.
She was happy to see one egg-producing hen healthy and exploring. But then she spotted another, dead from debris. She’d later spot a second victim.
“Oh, babies, I’m so sorry,” Landavazo said. “Oh my gosh, I feel horrible.”
Also ruined: a large wooden gazebo built in recent months. She showed a dining room table still perfectly set with fine dinnerware — her decor-sense — and warped floorboards with debris from the garage.
She and her husband escaped via a small window on the second floor.
“Our German shepherd, our three cats, my husband and I,” she said. Her son was at school.
Cristina Aguirre and several brothers cleaned up around the 1,200-square-foot house she’d bought only three months ago.
“We have flood insurance,” she said. “Trying to reach them now. Keep your fingers crossed.”
Her brothers Samuel and Aaron Bermudez helped people out with kayaks from a home across the street.
“We got two elderly ladies out,” she said. “(Aaron) got two cats and a dog and a family out. Guys in the kayaks helped everyone.”
The damage was extensive to her house, with road flooding running downhill into her home and helping fill what she called an aqueduct. A mature papaya tree was knocked over and a five-foot yard wall had collapsed on its side as Aguirre stood nearby.
“I work from home,” she said. “I was right here (in a room overlooking the back yard).”
She called her husband, saying they would need sandbags for the cresting aqueduct. “And within 10 minutes, I looked back out and our back yard was already under a foot and a half in water…. By the time he came, it was already up to the hips.”
One brother, who still hadn’t changed clothes four hours later, said the water came up to his chest.
Even homeowners at the top of the street, nearest Ocean View Boulevard, shared scenes of devastation.
Myriam Hernandez and her dad, Jose, live across the street from her sister, Karen Hernandez, who helped others down the road.
Helping Miriam were her children — Sabastian, 7, and Katelyn, 9. They cheerfully swept out mud.
She heard it rain hard and went to see. Checking the canal, she saw “big tall trees in the back and all came down.” Washed away.
The Hernandezes have lived there almost 13 years.
“First time it’s happened,” she said, and was planning to check insurance coverage.
Francisco Gutierrez, who has lived on the street almost 29 years, showed how flooding reached into all rooms, muddying a fine tile floor and a handsome kitchen and dining room.
He had returned home around 2:30 p.m. to clean up. His wife called him at work in San Diego. She went to his mother’s house.
“She’s fine,” he said.
On Tuesday, retired UC San Diego employee Christopher Anderson said the culvert, also called a drainage ditch, is part of Chollas Creek.
“It seems to me that the underlying problem is that we built too close to the creek and disturbed the natural hydrology,” he said via email. “It’s not enough just to clear out the trash and vegetation periodically.”
Anderson said the city needs to restore a healthy, functioning watershed that can handle runoff without threatening peoples’ homes. He pointed to a master plan on the topic.
“Long dry spells followed by torrential rains are a feature of the San Diego region, not a bug,” he said.
Updated at 12:25 p.m. Jan. 23, 2024
