Examining the fallout from San Diego's historic flooding
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Damage to the Orange Line trolley tracks between Encanto and Lemon Grove. Photo: Andy Keatts/Axios
San Diego has begun its recovery from Monday's flash floods, with continued disruptions to public services, especially in the southeastern San Diego area, which was among the hardest hit.
State of play: The Metropolitan Transit System announced continued delays and detours Tuesday, with the expectation of prolonged service outages on the Orange Line through southeastern San Diego.
- MTS halted service from downtown San Diego through the Euclid Transit Center Tuesday, but anticipated resuming it by Tuesday evening.
- Yes, but: Service from the Euclid Transit Center and Lemon Grove is not expected to restart for "at least a few days, if not a couple of weeks" due to extensive damage along the segment, MTS spokesperson Mark Olson said.
Details: There's significant damage to a retaining wall near the 65th Street crossing.
- Meanwhile, MTS could also need to replace tracks and ballast rocks supporting those tracks, signaling and track switches along that segment.
- Flood damage on the Blue Line and Green Line is slowing service; as an example, a a sinkhole near the Harborside Station caused reduced service to one track.
The big picture: The rail corridor between San Diego and Los Angeles — where Amtrak canceled service for multiple months in 2022 to conduct emergency repairs to shifting ground — did not see any major damage, a North County Transit District official confirmed.
Zoom out: Mayor Todd Gloria on Tuesday toured damage in Southcrest, a neighborhood under regular flooding threat due to subpar stormwater infrastructure, as the city remained in a state of emergency, a status that eases resource procurement to respond to the crisis.
- Lisa Jones, CEO of the San Diego Housing Commission, told City Council members Tuesday that not all residents of the city's safe camping sites have been accounted for. She noted that many were not present when those sites flooded and the city set up an emergency shelter at the Balboa Park Recreation Center.
What we're watching: As San Diego and its southeastern neighborhoods recover, more rain could soon be on the way.
- A powerhouse jet stream is projected to set up across the Pacific Ocean over the next two weeks, a pattern that's ideal for carrying heavy precipitation into California, Axios' Andrew Freedman reports.
- The National Weather Service said on X (formerly Twitter) that an atmospheric river event could hit California between Jan. 30 and Feb. 4, beginning in the north and moving south.