The devastating flood of 2024, told by those who were there

It began, as these things often do, in the quiet early morning hours of the day.

The rain was light at first, but steady. A gauge near the National City Fire Department at East D Avenue between 15th and 16th Street measured less than a half-inch between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m.

But it was enough rain to begin causing problems — just a few at first that, in retrospect, served as warnings for what was to come.

Just before 8:12 on the morning of Jan. 22, the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department dispatch center received a call: A swift water rescue team was needed to pull people out of the flood down off Dairy Mart Road in the Tijuana River Valley.

That was the start of what would become a historic and harrowing day for thousands of residents across San Diego.

Within hours a freakishly powerful storm rolled into the county, pounding neighborhoods with torrents of rain and lashing winds.

By noon, more than 3 inches of rain had fallen at that National City gauge, and across the county — especially in the southeastern part of the city of San Diego — neighborhoods were underwater, homes flooded, dozens of rescues underway.

Nearly two months later, the floodwaters have long since receded. But the storm’s impact is still being felt: Residents are struggling to repair homes and businesses. Many are preparing to sue the city, contending that years of poor maintenance of drainage channels and its chronically underfunded stormwater management system caused the flooding.

As of March 12, the estimated damage to public infrastructure by state and federal officials stands at about $31 million. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has approved $12.5 million in assistance to residences and businesses, and the Small Business Administration has expended $500,000 in loans. 

All those numbers are likely to increase in the coming months.

The storm displaced 1,225 households — more than half in the city of San Diego. As of March 11 nearly 850 households had been sheltered in 65 hotels under a county assistance program.

Now, the imprint of the storm on the city government is coming into view. 

Fire-Rescue officials say they need more equipment. There is talk of proposing a massive funding scheme that would pay to repair the decrepit stormwater system that underlies San Diego, and parts of which failed so miserably.

While a storm was predicted and planned for, a flood was not — and certainly not where it wreaked the most havoc.

“As we started to get calls from the Southcrest area, I can tell you I was shocked,” said Deputy Chief Dan Eddy.

A 25-year veteran of the fire department, Eddy was the chief of operations that day, in charge of all 56 fire stations in San Diego, and the highest ranking officer on the ground.

“I was very taken aback,” Eddy said. “That is not where we have statistically seen the flooding occur.”

Heavy rainfall begins.

As the morning wore on, the rain picked up. Between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m., the amount of rain had tripled to 1.5 inches at the National City rain gauge — the closest one to the hardest-hit areas of southeastern San Diego, exactly where Hernandez was starting to deal with the flooding.

For days the NWS had been forecasting a storm that would cause problems, and ticking up the expected intensity. A weekend briefing held two days out reported the maximum one-hour rainfall rate would be between one-half and two-thirds of an inch.

On the day the storm hit, forecasters predicted between 0.9 inches and 1.5 inches of rain. 

That estimate turned out to be low. The residents in Southcrest, Mountain View and Encanto were beginning to find out just how far off the prediction was.

The National Weather Service issues a flash flood warning.

In the 30 minutes after the flash flood warning was issued, the water was well on its way — and calls for help were picking up from southeastern San Diego and even neighboring National City neighborhoods.

The city’s Fire-Rescue log for that day tells the story in simple detail. Between 9:30 a.m. and 10 a.m. there were four calls for swift water rescues, at first from around the city: Otay Mesa, Pacific Beach. Then, in the following half-hour, there were a dozen calls for rescues, as well as numerous calls to assess flooding.

The storm began to peak in the 10 a.m. hour. The rain data from the National City gauge would show that 1.63 inches fell between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m.

And a lot of that water was pouring into homes, apartments and businesses. The fire department log shows 45 separate calls for swift water rescues in that one hour. 

They came from everywhere across the county: a mobile home park in National City; a Starbucks in Spring Valley, which was also getting pummeled; several from downtown.

One five-minute stretch illustrates how wild things were getting. Between 10:37 a.m. and 10:42 a.m. there were 10 calls for swift water rescues.

Calls for swift water rescues ramp up.

By 11 a.m. Eddy made the decision to switch how the department was handling the flood. Normally a call comes into the dispatch center and an engine is dispatched to an address, he said.

But when multiple calls are coming from the same area, or even the same address, firefighters switch to zone-based dispatching. That effectively shuttles all calls in an area to an incident commander on the ground, who then sends the units.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because that is the way firefighters handle a different  kind of natural catastrophe: wildfires.

Eddy was now calling on firefighters from across the city — Carmel Valley down to San Ysidro. At one point, the department was using every radio channel it has.

Those calls were increasingly coming from the 92113 and 92114 ZIP codes — the southeastern neighborhoods of the city. In a 10-minute period, six calls came from the 3600 and 3700 blocks of Beta Street.

City officials have said the storm was a 1,000-year flood — meaning there is a one in 1,000 chance of a storm of such intensity occurring in a given year.

Southcrest was on the city’s floodplain list, but as a 100-year flood event. That means a flood of a certain intensity that has a 1% chance of occurring in a given year. 

Fire Chief Colin Stowell said the department pre-deployed rescue teams in known flood-prone areas — the Tijuana River Valley or the San Diego River near Fashion Valley, for example, where rescues are often needed. 

On Jan. 22, Southcrest wasn’t on their radar.

“Our typical rescues in that area are not along the neighborhoods and inside houses, we’ve never seen that,” Stowell said. “We do have swift water rescue incidents in that area, but they’re mostly in the culverts.

“We have never seen the kind of rescues of people inside their houses where they’re literally chest deep in water in their own residence in that area.”

The storm eases, and the extent of the damage is revealed.

By noon the storm was losing intensity. There would be more rescues and calls for assistance, but they tapered off as the afternoon wore on.

In all that day, the Fire Department received nearly 900 calls — 50% more than normal, Stowell said. 

Firefighters, lifeguards and other emergency workers conducted 248 rescues, Eddy said. Officials have since reported three storm-related deaths — a number that Eddy feared during the day would be much higher. 

“When I rolled up and saw the call volume and started driving through the city I was expecting that night to be doing a report on the fatalities we had,” Eddy said. “I was amazed the next morning when we walked the streets we didn’t find any fatalities.”

But the toll from the Jan. 22 storm continues to resonate through the city. Stowell said the fire department learned it lacked certain gear — flotation devices, body boards, and other rain gear that it will need in the event of future neighborhood floods.

“It’s very hard to incur those financial expenses for something that you may only use once in a hundred years,” he said, “but as we look on this now, we probably need to have access to it knowing ahead that we can get that stuff out there and utilize it for our folks.”

Another issue: Firefighting vehicles involved in rescues were damaged by high water and mud, corroding electrical and mechanical components arrayed on the underside of the rigs. 

“Those are going to be a cost to us,” Stowell said.  “We’re going to, for a long time going forward, still see the effects on our fire apparatus, that had mud and debris and water up to the chassis. And the electrical components that are underneath those fire engines — that’s where all the electrical components run in a fire engine, is along those running boards. 

“We’re already starting to see damage, corrosion and things.”

The larger issue the city will deal with comes from the residents of Beta Street and other neighborhoods who are planning lawsuits. 

Evan Walker, an attorney who has sued the city over flood damage to homeowners in that area, said he has filed legal claims — the first step in filing a lawsuit against the government — for more than 300 people.

Whether it’s legal action or holding rallies, Patricia Cruz said she and her neighbors need to challenge the city to feel heard.

“We’re definitely gonna make some noise,” she said. “We’re not gonna let government officials just put us to the side.”

After the storm: Where are they now?

Using a voucher from the county, Gerardo “Jerry” Hernandez is living with his son in a Chula Vista hotel room — the second hotel where he’s stayed since the storm, as he said he encountered cleanliness problems at the first one. A longtime renter who has a Section 8 housing voucher, Hernandez isn’t sure where he’ll move long-term.

Fermin Martinez Jr. stayed at his aunt’s home for about a week following the storm before moving into a hotel with a voucher.

Patricia Cruz stayed at an Airbnb before her family received hotel vouchers. As of last month, she was waiting for a family member to lend her an RV to live in. 

Deputy Chief Dan Eddy will start his 25th year with the department in May. 

San Diego Fire-Rescue Chief Colin Stowell announced on March 12 he would retire at the end of the summer. The city has launched a search for a new chief.

Illustrations by Steve Breen. Photographs by Zoë Meyers. The first-person accounts from residents have been edited for clarity and brevity.