It’s been one month since the heavy storm on Jan. 22 that flooded several San Diego neighborhoods.
“It still hurts, sorry, it still hurts,” Mountain View homeowner Mary Landavazo said. “I love decorations. I did so much inside, so much outside remodeling, all for it to be gone in the blink of an eye.”
For Landavazo, Jan. 22, feels like it happened yesterday.
“We’re still living it. We’re still going through it. We’re still having to go through things everyday,” she said.
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Landavazo says she’ll never forget having to escape her home from a tiny window on the second floor.
San Diego's historic flooding, one month later:
“That little window on the left side, all the way at the top, that’s where we came out of. My husband climbed out, so he could help me. I came out, came down this way, came down here. I had to step on this with my foot this way, and then step on the pillar and from the pillar to a kayak,” she explained.
In the blink of an eye, the water that forced her from her home disappeared.
“Like that. It happened fast,” she said.
But what didn’t disappear was the destruction it left behind.
“This used to be the living area. This used to be the dining area. This over here was the laundry room, and this was like the pantry area,” she said. “This use to be a brick wall. It’s gone. The water, the current, just knocked it down.”
The emotional scars also didn't disappear.
“You’re driving, and it’s raining, and you’re freaking out because you pass by a puddle, and there’s a trauma there. You think you’re OK, you think you’re OK, but then it hits you,” she said.
And when asked if her house will ever be a home again, she answered with a simple shoulder shrug.
“Is it going to be the same? We don’t know. There is no relief. There is no relief. There’s no relief,” she said.
Landavazo said her family is one of the few that did have flood insurance because her home was built in a flood zone.
