Last January’s destructive floods highlighted the many problems that need fixing within San Diego’s flood prevention system, problems that the city’s stormwater department and residents alike have warned about for years. But a year later, even after the hardest-hit flood channels were cleared, many of those infrastructure problems persist and continue to leave San Diego vulnerable to flooding risk, department officials say. The city’s stormwater facilities are still underfunded and outdated, and not all of them are being maintained. While the stormwater department cleared 18 miles of stormwater channels last year in the flooding aftermath — the most it has cleared in one year in recent history — dozens of channel segments across the city still have not been maintained in at least 14 years, recent city records show. And the city is still behind on fixing or updating several known deficiencies in other stormwater facilities, such as its levees and drain pipes. The condition of the flood channel on Bonilla Drive near University Avenue in Rolando, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Howard Lipin / For The San Diego Union-Tribune) Following through with more of the needed repairs and upgrades will prove difficult. The stormwater department doesn’t get nearly as much funding as it needs to properly update and maintain its facilities. Its unfunded infrastructure needs total more than $1.6 billion for the next four years. Meanwhile, city leaders declined to try for a parcel tax measure in November’s election that, if passed, could have provided a sorely needed funding boost for the city’s stormwater system. At the same time, San Diego is confronting a structural budget deficit of more than $250 million for each of the next five years, Mayor Todd Gloria said during his State of the City address earlier this month. He did not mention the flood in the speech. San Diego officials say they have responded efficiently and effectively to the disaster, noting the 200-plus water rescues made on the day of the flood. The city quickly secured a disaster declaration, paving the way for federal relief. Officials also helped sign up thousands of victims for federal aid, opened two relief centers and waived permit fees to help applicants rebuild. “A year ago, parts of San Diego were hit by an extraordinarily rare storm that devastated some of our communities, and many San Diegans are still living with its impacts every day,” Gloria said in a statement. “I am extremely proud of our first responders who saved lives that day,” he said. But the city also succeeded in limiting its legal responsibility for flood damage suffered by business owners who applied for emergency response grants. The grant applications include language that releases San Diego from future legal damages. “The city of San Diego shall not be liable hereunder for any type of damages, whether direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, exemplary, reliance, punitive or special damages,” the grant application stated in part. It was not immediately clear how many San Diego small-business owners agreed to the terms. Meanwhile, the city is confronting dozens of lawsuits from more than 1,500 flood victims, the City Attorney’s Office told the City Council earlier this month. The cost of defending the flood-related litigation is likely to reach into the millions. Two weeks ago, the City Council agreed to spend some $6 million on outside law firms to fight complex litigation, including the lawsuits filed by flood victims. Even worse, internal records show San Diego is badly underinsured, and may not have the cash it needs to resolve the slew of litigation. City records show San Diego had seven insurance policies in effect for the year ending June 30, 2024, capped at a combined $50 million. In legal complaints filed to date, plaintiffs’ lawyers have claimed damages of up to 10 times that amount. ‘Before you cause another flood’ The city says it cleared more than 66,000 tons of vegetation and sediment from its flood channels and other stormwater facilities last fiscal year. The stormwater department says it will continue to maintain the channels that were cleared last year following the flooding to ensure vegetation doesn’t grow back in them this year. The condition of the flood control system behind Dalehaven Place at the corner of Euclid Avenue, in the Ridgeview-Webster neighborhood, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Howard Lipin / For The San Diego Union-Tribune) The flooding emergency cost the stormwater department $8.8 million for staff overtime and other expenses for channel clearing, city spokesperson Ramon Galindo said in an email. It also prompted more than 20 emergency stormwater infrastructure improvement projects totaling $73 million. Even after that maintenance blitz, however, significant infrastructure deficiencies remain and are exacerbating flood risk, stormwater officials say. More than 30 flood channel segments across the city still have not been maintained or cleared in at least 14 years, according to city documents — including channels in Point Loma, Mid-City, Balboa Park, Chollas View and San Ysidro. Aside from flood channels, other parts of the city’s stormwater system are also in disrepair, per the stormwater department’s own performance metrics for the last fiscal year. More than 86% of deficiencies in the city’s levees, such as excessive vegetation growth and burrow holes, have not been addressed. About 29% of flood channels are unable to carry stormwater as intended. And 15% of storm drain inlets were not inspected. The condition of the flood channel at the corner of Rolando Boulevard and Vista Grande Drive in Rolando, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Howard Lipin / For The San Diego Union-Tribune) The city replaced less than a mile of drains made of corrugated metal pipe, considered an outdated and inferior material — the stormwater department says at least 5 miles should have been replaced that year. There are about 20 miles of corrugated metal pipe still in use in the city. “Many of these (corrugated metal pipe) drains are beyond their useful life and need replacement,” Galindo said. There were several days during the wet season early last year when stormwater pump stations were not fully functional. Many of the city’s 15 pump stations are more than 50 years old and need significant upgrades, Galindo said; the city has plans to upgrade two pump stations in Pacific Beach and Old Town using federal loan funding. Residents have noticed the failures. According to the city’s Get It Done online portal where people can report infrastructure problems, residents have filed more than 3,200 stormwater-related complaints since the day of the floods. More than a quarter of those have yet to be marked by the city as resolved. Many of the reports cite storm drains or flood channels that are clogged with trash, debris or vegetation. “The city of San Diego came out last week and cut down trees and brush but left it all in the channel behind the houses,” says one complaint filed last week by a resident of Valencia Park, just east of the Southcrest neighborhood that was badly damaged a year ago. “This is an area that was flooded last year due to clogged drains,” the report said. “The city will need to clear the debris they left in the channel before you cause another flood.” The Get It Done app lists the complaint response as “in process.” A similar problem was reported earlier last week along Minerva Drive, upstream from the section of Chollas Creek that flooded last year. “Current dried brush is a fire hazard, blocked storm brow ditch drainage,” the report states. “Reported eight months ago, case closed when still unresolved today!!!!!” The response to that complaint also is listed as “in process.” The city has many capital projects in the works to update its stormwater infrastructure, including four dozen projects to replace corrugated metal pipes, a dozen green infrastructure projects and the pump station upgrades. But most of the projects are still in the planning or design phase and won’t be completed for years. Tackling a $1.6 billion backlog Year after year, San Diego’s stormwater department gets far short of the funding it needs to maintain or upgrade its facilities properly. The department anticipates it will have $132.1 million in unfunded maintenance and operation costs for the next fiscal year, which include costs to clear flood channels. In addition, early last year the city pegged its unfunded infrastructure capital project needs for the following five years at more than $1.6 billion — a figure the city calculates every year, and that has climbed every year since 2016. The latest five-year estimate is expected to be released early next month. The stormwater department “has consistently shared the significant funding needs in public reports to the City Council over the past several years,” Galindo said. The problem of stormwater systems needing more funding isn’t unique to San Diego, he notes. It is a common theme across the country, where stormwater often must compete with other priorities in cities’ general funds for revenue. San Diego collects a stormwater fee of 95 cents per single-family home and, for multifamily and commercial properties, less than 7 cents per 100 cubic feet of water used. But the fee, which hasn’t been raised since its inception in 1996, is so low that in recent years it hasn’t covered even 10 percent of the stormwater department’s operating budget. After last January’s floods, city leaders discussed potentially putting a parcel tax to voters that would have raised $129 million a year for stormwater infrastructure. That tax would have paid only for capital projects, rather than regular maintenance such as channel clearing — but it would have helped the stormwater department begin to address its $1.6 billion backlog of unfunded infrastructure needs. But city leaders declined to put a stormwater tax on the ballot amid concerns it wouldn’t pass. In California, special taxes like that one are particularly difficult to pass because they must win a two-thirds majority from voters, rather than the simple majority that general use taxes require. The condition of the flood channel on Bonilla Drive near University Avenue in Rolando, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Howard Lipin / For The San Diego Union-Tribune) Critics had also complained that the proposed tax was set too high, and at a rate higher than Los Angeles residents pay for a similar stormwater tax. The San Diego stormwater tax would have raised the median cost for a single-family household by $18.67 a month. City leaders opted instead to go only for a general citywide one-cent sales tax increase to provide revenue for the entire city budget. That tax measure still failed at the polls. Without sufficient local funding, the stormwater department has resorted to seeking public loans and grants to fund fractions of its true needs. The department’s biggest pot of funding for capital projects comes from a $733 million federal loan, for which the city has to match funds. More recently, the city secured a $37 million state loan for storm drain upgrades and green infrastructure in South Mission Beach. The city is waiting to hear back on its applications for another state loan that would pay for restoring Los Peñasquitos Lagoon, as well as two federal grants that would upgrade stormwater infrastructure in the Chollas Creek Watershed and two federal grants that would make improvements for its Jamacha Drainage Channel and Auburn Creek. “The City has been aggressively pursuing stormwater funding through all available sources,” Galindo wrote in an email.