San Diego neighborhoods flooded in 2024. Can the city handle a super El Niño storm?

Greg Montoya wrote San Diego city officials for two decades, pleading with them to maintain the portion of the Chollas Creek watershed that runs parallel to his neighborhood. Meant to carry water from throughout eastern San Diego to the ocean, the channel instead had grown thick with vegetation, trash and sediment.

A year and a half ago, on Jan. 22, 2024, Montoya’s warnings proved prescient. San Diego County was inundated by a torrential storm that overwhelmed drainage systems in a matter of hours — submerging streets, flooding homes and displacing more than 1,000 people.

In Southcrest, where Montoya lives, stormwater jumped the channel’s banks and rushed downhill. Many homes were filled with several feet of water. Some are still unoccupied today, their residents living in trailers, waiting for relief.

The flood spurred dozens of lawsuits against the city, county and other government entities, which residents contend failed to properly maintain drainage systems.

Now, as forecasts predict a record-breaking “Super El Niño” weather system will drench the region this winter, city officials and residents alike are — once again — bracing for impact.

‘We could be at this for years’

Montoya’s is the first of over 50 coordinated lawsuits filed in San Diego Superior Court. Almost 2,000 victims are alleging that half a dozen public entities failed to properly maintain flood channels from Southcrest to Spring Valley.

Attorney Evan Walker is one of a team of lawyers representing the victims. He said his clients range from renters and families to churches, nonprofits and businesses.

Flood victims suffered not only property loss but also physical injuries, economic damage and trauma, he said.

Dozens of attorneys for the plaintiffs have split the litigation into phases. A trial date for Phase 1.1 — which focuses on just one block of Montoya’s Southcrest neighborhood — has been set for February. Trial dates for other phases are set for March and May.

“Litigation, as a rule, is dynamic, and it’s stressful, and it changes, and there are all kinds of complications that creep in,” Walker said. “That’s just the nature of the beast. But when you look at something like this, it’s magnified a thousandfold when you have so many parties involved.”

Walker said that survivors could wait a long time before seeing financial relief.

“We could be at this for another two or three years, for a total of five or six years,” he said. “And that’s probably best-case scenario.”

City officials have been focused on cleaning the flood control channels they cleared after the January 2024 flooding, with an extra $1 million in the current budget to expand work such as vegetation management and debris removal.

A statement from spokesman Ramon Galindo said the city has “proactively established an El Niño Working Group” with members from multiple city departments.

“The City of San Diego is no stranger to heavy winter rains,” Galindo’s statement said. “It prepares continuously by maintaining and strengthening critical stormwater infrastructure all year around. With forecasts pointing to a stronger El Niño season this year, we are not taking any chances and are making efforts to ramp up our city’s readiness to help reduce flood risks and keep neighborhoods safe.” 

But even as this winter approaches, many victims of the 2024 floods are still grappling with the past.

‘The earth just descended upon us’

The St. Mary Protectress Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Spring Valley is ringed by a wall. Standing about two feet tall and made of gray bricks, it’s supposed to separate the property from the dirt slope behind it. 

The wall was constructed as a last line of defense against any water flowing downhill from Spring Valley Academy’s playing fields, following a 2018 flood that caused extensive damage. Drains on school property were meant to funnel water through a culvert, to the street and away from San Diego’s only Ukrainian Orthodox church.

But in 2024, that culvert — property of San Diego County — was choked with vegetation and discarded furniture. Vera Skop, the church board secretary, had been asking the school to clean its drains for years.

On Jan. 22, 2024, fast-moving stormwater failed to drain into the street properly, raced downhill and jumped the church’s wall. It left 50 tons of mud on the property and soaked boxes of humanitarian donations for Ukraine. The priest and his wife clung to a fence for 45 minutes amid rushing water as they waited for their son to rescue them.

“The earth just descended upon us,” Skop said.

La Mesa-Spring Valley School District Superintendent David Feliciano declined to comment on the litigation specifically but pointed to the county-maintained culvert as a source of flooding.

“Anytime there are heavy rains, the culvert clogs with debris from adjacent land and a river of water overflows across Rogers Road and onto properties downstream of the culvert,” he said via email. 

The county declined to comment on the litigation due to its ongoing nature.

In the days following the flood, 100 volunteers — both churchgoers and neighbors — worked “around the clock” to clear the mud before it dried, Skop said.

“Everybody brought their shovels,” she said. “At that point, everybody was affected, people across the street, all of Casa de Oro, and we started digging ourselves out. Somebody else had a neighbor who had a Bobcat, so he was able to move all that dirt. It was just backbreaking.”

With Walker’s help, Skop filed a lawsuit on behalf of the church against the school district, county and other jurisdictions last year.

Then, on New Year’s Day, just a few months after the church completed its rebuilding, the property flooded again. Water entered the sanctuary and reached the altar.

Skop said she is terrified by the prospect of a super El Niño. 

When it rained one day last month, she woke up thinking, “The church. What’s happening with the church?”

‘The funding shortfall will grow’

The underfunding of San Diego’s stormwater system has been well-documented for years.

In 2018, the city auditor found that the department would be short $459 million over five years. In 2021, a report on stormwater funding strategies said the city has “nearly 2,000 known stormwater infrastructure failures, with 32 failures considered emergencies due to their imminent risk to life or property.”

The report said that emergency spending had resulted in the stormwater department putting a hold on almost 40% of its existing capital projects — from green infrastructure to flood resilience projects.

A review in March by the city’s independent budget analyst said that much of the funding for stormwater capital needs this budget year comes from a federal program that is “anticipated to be mostly exhausted” in two years.

“No revenue replacement has been identified,” the budget analyst’s report said. “As a result, the funding shortfall for stormwater infrastructure will grow.”

The city’s five-year capital infrastructure plan notes that the stormwater department faces a funding shortfall of $55.6 million this fiscal year. That gap is expected to widen to $2 billion by 2031.

Meanwhile, the San Diego City Council approved a $6.3 million settlement in February to 17 insurance companies seeking reimbursement for property damage claims.

Montoya, the Southcrest resident, expressed frustration over that settlement.

“How come the city’s paying them, not us?” he said.

‘More and possibly larger winter storms’

This winter weather warnings make worries about flooding particularly pressing. 

Dan Cayan, a climate researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, said that scientists have predicted a more intense version of an El Niño weather pattern — which brings warmer waters and gustier winds — during late 2026 and early 2027.

“The stronger the amount of heating that we observe in the tropical Pacific, the stronger the response of the atmosphere,” he said. “The strength of what we’re seeing right now falls into the category of pretty extreme warmth.”

Cayan said that San Diegans could experience “more and possibly larger winter storms.” He said there could be flooding in inland areas, watersheds and valleys and big waves and erosion along the coast.

San Diego stormwater crews are planning to inspect and clean more than 30,000 storm drain inlets this fiscal year and “continue enhanced cleanings” in areas as needed, the city’s statement said. “Teams will also continue replacing deteriorated storm drain segments and complete essential preventive maintenance at all 15 stormwater pump stations to ensure they’re fully operational ahead of the rainy season.”

San Diego has cleaned 100% of its drains for the past two fiscal years — but during the three years prior, that percentage was as low as 79%.

San Diego State University associate professor Hassan Davani said the city should be prioritizing longer-term infrastructure initiatives over cleaning projects.

“What is needed for San Diego to be more resilient when a massive rainfall situation comes, essentially, in plain English, would be bigger pipes and more stormwater pumps,” he said.

Davani, who works in the Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering, added that aging stormwater infrastructure poses risks.

“Some of these systems were built more than 50 years ago, 75 years ago, but the life expectancy for certain materials is only 40 to 50 years,” he said. “So in some areas, the existing pipes also need to be replaced.”

San Diego City Council member Sean Elo-Rivera said there are more sustainable, long-term alternatives than traditional stormwater pipes and rains — systems that reduce runoff using natural, porous materials. Elo-Rivera said this concept is on display near Snapdragon Stadium, where fields have replaced some asphalt.

“The fields that you see and the vegetation that you see there are all part of a modern stormwater system,” he said. “It’s bringing down the temperature in the area. It’s improving the air quality. It’s bringing birds and other wildlife to an area that they stayed away from for a long time. And it’s just a great place in the city now.”

According to city documents, a $111.9 million project to create floodwalls, a new pump station and drainage system upgrades in Montoya’s Southcrest neighborhood is currently in its design phase.

“The proposed improvements will provide a 100-year level of service,” the document says.

While that would be progress, city officials have repeatedly described the 2024 flood event as a “1,000-year flood,” meaning that the odds of a storm of such intensity occurring in a year are 1 in 1,000.

That project on Beta Street is expected to be completed in or around 2031, so it won’t offer any protection this winter.

Late last month, the floor of the St. Mary Protectress sanctuary in Spring Valley was still bare cement. The church has had to tear out its carpet twice in recent years now, but that remains a cheaper option than tiles.

“It’s been tough,” Skop said. “It’s been exhausting. We have people that said, ‘You need to move.’ But, you know, this is San Diego. We can’t afford a million dollars someplace.”

Montoya has already added porous gravel and a stormwater pump to his property to guard against future disasters. He is concerned about the coming winter and the channel behind his house, where vegetation and trash are visible.

“They haven’t finished cleaning it,” he said. “In their eyes, ‘It’s good enough for you guys.’ It’s not.”