San Diego officials respond to criticism of storm response after floods

SAN DIEGO — San Diego officials again responded to criticism from residents over the seeming lack of preparedness for the storm earlier this week that ended in devastating flooding in communities across the region.

San Diego city leaders held a press conference Thursday afternoon to discuss swelling along Chollas Creek, which runs through some of the areas in southeastern San Diego that were the hardest hit by flooding, and the waterway’s future.

San Diego’s Chief Operating Officer Chris McFadden called the overflowing of the waterway a rare occurrence that had an “once-in-a-lifetime impact,” where even a “gold standard” drainage system would have been overwhelmed.

“I know that does not work for cleaning people’s homes. It doesn’t save their precious memories, but it does serve as an important benchmark for us to meet and we know we have strive we have to do better,” McFadden said.

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According to McFadden, dredge and other maintenance work will begin this week in impacted areas, such as Beta Street in San Diego’s Southcrest neighborhood.

However, numerous residents have expressed frustration in conversations with FOX 5 since the storm with the city’s efforts maintain the drains in the debris-filled Chollas Creek leading up to rain events. One resident of Southcrest said he has even rallied hundreds of his neighbors to sign onto a possible lawsuit against the city over this issue.

McFadden addressed these frustrations, saying the city is proactive about inspecting and clearing the storm drains along the waterway. In the last year, he said over 113 tons of material have been removed from nearly 550 of the creek’s nearly 2,200 storm drains.

Moving forward, McFadden said that San Diego officials will be looking at options to re-engineer the area’s flood channels to better accommodate extraordinary rainfall events that Mayor Todd Gloria said on Tuesday could become more frequent due to climate change.

In a separate press conference on Thursday, San Diego County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Nora Vargas also encouraged impacted residents to use the resources available, such as the filling out the county’s damage survey.

The three Red Cross shelters for displaced residents are also still operating, and an upcoming local assistance center at the Spring Valley Library will also be available for those impacted with various agencies offering information and resources.

“Monday’s storm was truly unprecedented and we’re not used to flooding to this extent in San Diego County,” County Office of Emergency Services Director Jeff Toney. “Our local assistance center that will be opening at the Spring Valley Library will be a huge part of the healing process. We wanted to physically bring agencies and resources directly to the community.”

The local assistance center will be open this Sunday through Wednesday. It will have agencies like 211, the Red Cross, the Department of Public Works, the state Department of Insurance and more.

Outside the county-led programs, the San Diego Foundation has also launched a Flood Response Fund to deploy “flexible resources” into the county to aid organizations working to help those impacted by the flooding.

Getting help for flood damage after storm battered San Diego

“To all those that have been impacted, I wanted to make sure you know we are doing everything we can to make sure we are bringing you the resources that you need and to make sure that we help you as you recover from this natural disaster,” Vargas said.

With more rainfall on the way, county and city leaders also urged people to remain proactive in preparing, including by picking up sandbags or by signing up to the county’s emergency notification system, Alert San Diego.

On top of that, Vargas said the annual state of the county initially scheduled for next week will be postponed to a later date in favor of a “Day of Service,” encouraging county residents to find ways to pitch in to help those impacted by the flooding.

FOX 5’s Christelle Koumoue contributed to this report.

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