As the community continues to rebuild after devastating flooding in January that destroyed homes in neighborhoods like Southcrest and Encanto, the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department (SDFD) and the San Diego Police Department (SDPD) are sharing more details about the emergency calls they received on Jan. 22.
According to a report presented to San Diego City Council's Public Safety Committee, there were 985 911 calls processed by the dispatch center that day, a 53% increase over average, and 752 SDFD “first responder incidents” within the city of San Diego, which is a 73% increase over average.
More January storm coverage:
“We’ve practiced for some of this, right, for when the system gets inundated,” Chief James Gartland, who oversees SDFD lifeguards, told NBC 7.
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Gartland said that day started like any other rainy day. The forecast discussed with the National Weather Service predicted an inch to an inch and a half of rain. The department’s swift water rescue teams were ready and staged at known flood zones, then 911 calls started to pour in.
“We just had, you know, so many calls and there were major, major trouble spots in some of the neighborhoods,” Gartland said. “We were evacuating, you know, 80 people from one street.”
The majority of calls were received from the Southcrest and Encanto neighborhoods. According to Gartland, lifeguards saved approximately 140 people and 30 animals, but it was not easy.
“You have cars floating down, right, you have people trying to cross areas, so all of those hazards are out there,” he said. "That’s why we train as hard as we do.”
Gartland told NBC 7 that lifeguards go to Oregon to train, in part, because they need an environment with rushing water that San Diego doesn’t always have.
“People don’t know, you can’t get the kind of river flow here in Southern California in the time we need to train so lifeguards go away," Gartland said.
Obviously, he said, they could not have prepared for a storm like the one we experienced, but the training they did have helped fill in the gaps. It helped that they recently received new gear from a grant, too.
“We had people out there that were well-trained. They have the right equipment and they executed the mission that we needed them to execute,” he said.
On the other hand, San Diego police officers who were in the field that day were not as prepared, but it didn't stop them from making rescues.
“We don’t carry around things to take people out of houses, evacuate them in water conditions and flooding conditions,” Captain Julie Epperson, with SDPD’s southeastern division, told NBC 7. “My officers were very innovative in that they grabbed paddleboards, they grabbed canoes and they were literally using them just to get people out of the houses on that day because that was the best we had.”
According to Epperson, officers saved approximately 60 people and five animals, all with the limited training and resources they had.
“I think our officers, the ones I’ve talked to and myself as well, we’ve never seen a day like this as far as rain,” she said. “I mean, that will go down in infamy probably as the worst rain that we’ve seen during our tenure here at the police department.”
Epperson has been with the department for close to 30 years. She only recently came to the southeastern division, but said they have been doing what they can to help people recover, including accepting and distributing donations from their division headquarters.
“I will remember it as a tragic day for our community, it was and it still continues to be a tragedy for [residents],” she said. “But, it was a proud moment for us as our officers, and for all first responders, that we did the best we could with having very little time to prepare for it.”
Both Gartland and Epperson agree, there were invaluable lessons learned that will be referenced for generations of San Diego first responders to come.
“I think we now know exactly where the spots are, where the flooding is, the officers know. We’ll learn from that experience,” Epperson said. “Moving forward, our response will improve every time. I hope it never happens again, but if it does, I feel like it was a learning experience for all of us.”
To watch the full presentation presented to the Public Safety Committee by both SDFD and SDPD on their emergency flood response, click here to access the Feb. 14 meeting.
