Nearly nine months after the flooding that devastated homes across parts of San Diego in January, many victims are still rebuilding as multiple lawsuits over the damage make their way through the court system.
“I couldn’t believe it,” said Tony Tricarico as he recalled watching the water rise across his property. “I was just overwhelmed and numb at what was happening. Cars were floating down the street.”
Tricarico said he’s lived for 40 years on Beta Street in Southcrest, where he rents multiple apartments on his property. When the flooding hit, his property was destroyed and his tenants forced out.
San Diego Flood of 2024
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“The flood canal a block away from us overflowed and came down my street, and this was ground zero,” Tricarico said.
Tricarico said he’s spent about $250,000 to pay for repairs, drawing from his retirement at age 76. Many of the apartments, months later, remained stripped to the studs.
“People may think, 'Well, they're just old buildings in an old part of town,' and that isn't the way I see it,” Tricarico said. “This was going to support me. I was going to have a legacy.”
Tricarico estimated returning the apartments to livable conditions could take two years and $2 million. He said neither his insurance nor FEMA gave him any funding, and he’s doing much of the repair work himself.
“It's horrible — it's here like a disease all day, every day, and I'm just dealing with it,” Tricarico said, likening it to war.
Tricarico is one of more than 1,000 people suing the city of San Diego. Multiple lawsuits allege the city failed to maintain Chollas Creek and the stormwater system, making the flooding of the Jan. 22 rain far more catastrophic.
The lawsuits have been coordinated as they move through the court system. The city doesn’t comment on pending litigation, but attorneys on both sides appeared before a judge for a status hearing Friday.
The suits seek around $250 million in damages, the plaintiffs’ attorneys estimated.
“Everyone saw what happened in January's catastrophic flooding,” said Evan Walker, an attorney who filed the first lawsuit with more than 300 plaintiffs in May. “Most of our clients are still struggling to make it work, and we're still working through the devastating damage everyone's gone through. And now we've taken the city and a number of other defendants to court to seek to hold them accountable for flooding these people's homes.”
Attorneys said the goal of the lawsuits was twofold.
“It's putting these people back into a position that they were in before the flood, where their homes are rebuilt and they're back in, living their lives,” said Domenic Martini, who filed another lawsuit with 723 plaintiffs in September. “But it's also about securing the future for these people, right? And ensuring that the city of San Diego commits to making changes that ensure this doesn't happen again."
Attorneys said the lawsuits could potentially take years to reach a resolution. The next hearing on the suits is scheduled for December.
Tricarico said he lives every day with the trauma of the flooding, and when he sees rain anywhere – even hurricanes across the country – that pain returns.
“When you see these things on TV right now about those people on the East Coast, I know what they're going through,” Tricarico said, choking up. “I know what's coming. And it just doesn't end.”
