$2.8M and counting: Residents, businesses blame San Diego County in flood damage claims

On the morning of Jan. 22, Kristine Alessio was on the treadmill in her La Mesa home, unable to go outside for exercise because of the powerful rainstorm pounding the county that day, when she got a text message from one of the managers at Quarry Self Storage in Spring Valley.

“She said, ‘It’s flooding, what do I do?” Alessio, one of the owners of the business, recalled. “And I said, well how bad? And she said, we can’t get out of the office, we can’t open the doors because the water will come in. And there’s a foot of water, at least, in the office already — muddy water.”

“The whole facility is flooding.”

A few miles away, in the 1100 block of Elkelton Boulevard, Jacqueline Brick was in her one-story home when she heard a noise at her front door. “All of a sudden, this torrential amount of water came flooding into my house through the front door,” Brick said.

Brick and Alessio are just two of the hundreds of victims of the historic Jan. 22 storm that pounded San Diego, overwhelming storm drains and swelling rivers in several low-lying neighborhoods. 

While much of the attention has focused on the hard-hit southeastern city of San Diego neighborhoods of Southcrest and Encanto, the damage done to unincorporated parts of the county — especially in Spring Valley — has been largely overlooked.

Residents like Brick and Alessio have one thing in common with residents of those city neighborhoods: They blame the county and its failure to maintain some storm drains and creek channels for the flood damage that wrecked their homes and property, according to records that inewsource obtained.

A total of 44 damage claims from businesses, property owners and tenants who rented storage units have been filed against the county — the first necessary step before filing a lawsuit. The damage amounts ranged from a few thousand dollars to the mid-six figures.

The total amount of loss claimed is about $2.8 million and is likely to grow. About three dozen claimants specified a dollar loss, the records show. 

Gov. Gavin Newsom highlighted the damage in Spring Valley in a letter last month to the federal government, describing the neighborhood as “disadvantaged.” About 37% of households make less than the federal average of $75,000, and more than half make less than $100,000.

Of the nearly 1,400 households that visited an assistance center in Spring Valley following the storm, more than 900 reported having no flood insurance. 

For Alessio, the damage to her business and the property of her tenants is particularly irksome. That’s because in September 2009 the previous property owner gave the county an open space easement, she said — on the condition that the county maintain the creek that runs behind the property.

That included the responsibility for removing trash and other debris. Over the years, the creek became clogged with invasive species and trash from encampments from unsheltered people, according to her claim.

Alessio said she has numerous emails dating from 2016 from another partner in the business requesting that the county clean the creek, and that she and others frequently called urging action.  

“We kept saying, you’ve got to do something, it’s getting worse and worse,” she said in an interview. But she said little was done: She could recall only one time when the creek was cleaned. 

Michael Workman, the county’s communications director, said that the county Department of Public Works is responsible for only 20 feet of the creek, as well as pipes that run under Quarry Road. 

But Alessio said that the language of the easement is clear – that the county, and not just DPW, is responsible for cleaning the creek.

Workman also said that the county Parks Department has an easement that slices along the south side of the storage property and which is maintained monthly. “Anything problematic would be dealt with by our team or a subcontractor,” he wrote in an email.

Another portion is the responsibility of the Spring Valley Swap Meet, about one-tenth of a mile from the storage facility. Workman also noted the storage facility sits in the 100-year floodplain, and the Jan. 22 storm exceeded the rainfall amounts for such an event. 

The flooding wiped out fencing and a massive gate at the storage business, Alessio said, and caused what she estimated to be $400,000 in damages.

“It has been awful for our tenants,” Alessio said. “They lost everything.”

Several of the claims filed by those tenants detail the loss.

One man said he lost $30,000 of power tools. Another claim is from an active duty military family that lives in a trailer and stored nearly all its possessions in a unit there. “Our entire home was lost in the flood,” the family wrote. 

Another woman said she lost not only $15,000 of computers, cell phones, tablets, power tools and clothes, but also “Priceless memories of my children including: photos, ultrasounds, kids first art works from school, certificates from school awards, first clothes, scrapbooks.”

Over on Elkelton Boulevard, Brick said she ended up with nearly a foot of water in her home. Two storm drains about 100 feet from her front door had not been cleaned for a while, she said, causing the water to back up to her home and those of her neighbors. 

Neighbor Carmen Abalos said that the county used to regularly clean out the drains. Residents would be told the day the cleaning would occur and would have to move cars off the street so heavy-duty county trucks could do the work. The noise of the trucks would fill the neighborhood – but has not been heard not recently.

“It’s just not maintained,” she said. 

Workman provided records showing that a culvert down the street from Abalos and Brick had been inspected on Oct. 14 and was cleaned. But Brick said the problem was with the drains in the street, full of leaves and other debris, which she said had not been cleaned out. 

The collection of filed claims is replete with similar complaints of poor maintenance, though it is difficult to tell exactly where the damage occurred. The county redacted addresses, citing privacy concerns of residents. 

One claimant said a neglected storm drain pipe one street over from his home collapsed, which ultimately caused water to flood his yard and garage. “Pipe had not been changed, repaired or anything for numerous years to the point of half of the pipe disintegrating causing collapse,” he wrote. 

A business owner on Campo Road blamed a drainage canal behind their shop for flooding. “We have called the county numerous times to clean out the canal,” the claim reads. “They didn’t, it clogged, and overflowed.”

The county has 45 days to respond to each claim. If it denies the claim or doesn’t respond, claimants can then sue. Both Alessio and Brick said they were prepared to do so. 

“Do I hold the county responsible?” Brick said. “Absolutely I do. If you have a responsibility to maintain the infrastructure, then that is your job.”