It’s here, and it’s big: 2026 is the year of the potentially record-breaking Super El Niño.
Nearly every city department was on hand at Balboa Park on Tuesday to explain the city’s preparations for heavier-than-normal storms and flooding — while urging residents to do their own readiness work, too.
“The city is doing everything we can to be prepared, and we’re asking for your partnership in doing the same,” Mayor Todd Gloria said. “You do your part. We do ours.”
The Office of Emergency Services, Police, Fire-Rescue, Transportation, Stormwater, Homelessness Strategies and Solutions, Environmental Services, Performance & Analytics, and Communications, among others, were in attendance alongside elected officials.
In other words, the entire city is preparing in case of a potential natural disaster.
“The leaders and subject matter experts behind me represent our city’s unified approach to preparedness,” said Fire Chief Robert Logan. “But preparedness doesn’t start and stop with city departments. We’re asking San Diegans to prepare with us.”
The cross-section of department officials reflected the city-wide action being taken ahead of expected extreme weather conditions this fall and winter, with the warm water in the Pacific from El Niño expected to drive heavy rains and fast flooding.
“If you’ve seen flooding in the past in your neighborhood, expect the same, or perhaps even worse during El Niño,” said Council President Joe LaCava. “We need residents and businesses to take steps now.”
Office of Emergency Services leading
Partners from other jurisdictions were in attendance too, including the county’s emergency response team.
In addition, Assistant Fire Chief Robert Rezende announced that a meteorologist from the National Weather Service, Felix Castro, will also be embedded in the Office of Emergency Services.
“(Emergency planners) have worked tirelessly alongside staff from nearly every city department to get us ready for El Niño, to ensure a citywide preparedness to handle whatever comes our way. We’re not taking this weather event lightly,” Rezende said. “Residents need to take steps to stay ready too.”
He urged residents to research whether they are in a FEMA flood zone, build a to-go kit with three days of supplies, create an evacuation plan and stay informed by signing up for Alert San Diego emergency notices. Then, when the storms hit, never drive or walk through flooded areas and move to higher ground if flooding is a threat.
“If an evacuation order is issued, that is not the time to make a plan. It is the time to execute your existing plan,” Rezende said.
The city launched an El Niño webpage to detail how to prepare for the expected extreme weather and connect residents with resources.
“Preparedness is a shared responsibility because when we prepare together, San Diego is stronger and safer,” Logan said.
The fire chief said he was proud that OES reorganized to fall under the Fire-Rescue department because it “strengthens the connection between citywide emergency planning and operational response.”
During storms, transportation and stormwater staff will patrol neighborhoods, ready to address clogged drains or other issues that arise.
First responders also have heavy-duty equipment on hand for rescues.
Infrastructure not up to the task
One aspect of getting ready for heavy rains is clearing drains and maintaining stormwater channels, pipes and pump stations.
“We’ve really accelerated maintenance on all of those,” said Todd Snyder, director of the city’s Stormwater Department.
Before 2024, he said the city typically cleared four stormwater channel segments per year. In the budget for fiscal year 2027, the department plans to clear 67 segments, accounting for 20 miles. To do that, crews are out six days a week for 12 hours per day.
“That’s historically far and above anything that we’ve ever done before,” Snyder said.
After the January 2024 floods, San Diego increased its investment in the stormwater system. Multiple capital improvement projects are underway to replace aging infrastructure.
Long-term, the city is upgrading an aging system.
The city took out a $733 million low-interest federal loan from the Environmental Protection Agency to pay for upgrades to the system, but those dollars are expected to run out long before the system is fully upgraded. Those take years though, with current stormwater systems not up to the task.
“Our stormwater system faces a $5 billion funding gap over the past five years,” LaCava said. “But I have never seen a city hall under this leadership move more quickly to understand the nature of stormwater, our infrastructure and the potential impact to residents and our businesses.”
However, even with the boost in maintenance, as well as several ongoing capital improvement projects in the stormwater system, it won’t be enough amid the scale of predicted rains and how old the system is.
“If we get a storm of the magnitude that we saw in 2024, we are going to have areas flood, regardless of how much maintenance is happening,” Snyder said. “I went and inspected those channels yesterday. They are as clear as a whistle, but they will flood if we get enough rain.”
Snyder urged residents to pay attention to whether they’re in the flood zone, which covers 15,000 acres in the city.
Lessons from 2024
The fumbled response to the January 2024 flooding that drove people out of their homes for months at a time was top of mind for city leaders looking to improve preparedness this time around.
“The actions being taken now really are a reflection of the way that that sat with all of us,” San Diego City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera said. He echoed others that the city had never prepared so thoroughly for a flood event before now.
And while the city was not prepared in 2024 for long-term recovery, Elo-Rivera praised community members for helping each other in the wake of the floods. He emphasized that the community needed to prepare again, and be treated as a stakeholder in the city’s response.
“When the system fell short, our community stepped up,” Elo-Rivera said, describing the response to the floods as the most moving experience he’s had while in office. “The people who live along these channels can see the problems first and can be part of the solution.”
Elo-Rivera announced the creation of a community task force made up of many of the people and organizations that responded to the 2024 floods, now with designated roles for the next round of extreme weather.
“We’re reactivating that 2024 network, reaching out now to those who were there in the moments immediately after, and the months that follow that flood, so we have a plan in place before the rain to prevent, mitigate response, or recover from any flooding,” he said.
A changing future
Current weather predictions anticipate that this year’s El Niño will break all-time records for intensity, although that is not guaranteed. It is expected to spur chaotic extremes in weather that could include heat waves, drought and heavy rainfall globally during the year-long cycle, but its impact on San Diego could vary.
“I understand it is hot and it is humid, and it’s hard to believe that winter is coming and that this prediction of greater weather is even possible in the near term,” Gloria said. “I’m here to tell you that the best available information the city has is that it is, and it very well will come.”
Whatever happens, city leaders are preparing for the worst. But they also don’t think this year will be the end of San Diego’s extreme weather.
Climate change and El Niño are separate phenomena but do affect each other. 2027 is expected to be the hottest year on record.
“Our aggressive preparations will be beneficial, but they will not address the larger issue that our system was not built for the climate realities of today,” LaCava said.
There are other factors that have left San Diego struggling to cope with heavy rainfall.
Snyder blamed at least some of the flooding on infill development and San Diego’s growing population, with stormwater systems subject to more intense runoff than ever before.
“Given the age of our infrastructure, it was built for a San Diego that existed decades ago,” the stormwater director said.
He joined city leaders in calling on residents to prepare for potential flooding and checking the new El Niño webpage.
In addition to the steps laid out by city leaders — check flood area maps, build a to-go kit, create an evacuation plan, and sign up for emergency alerts — Elo-Rivera had one other call to action: Check on your neighbors and build community to provide resilience against the coming storms.
“The storms will keep coming. The climate won’t stop changing,” Elo-Rivera said. “What we can control is whether we face them prepared, and whether we face them together.”
