LAKESIDE, Calif. - As rain battered San Diego County Thursday, some Lakeside residents expressed serious concern over possible flooding in their neighborhoods.
Water running down Lemon Crest Drive has been a problem for a long time, some residents say. The issue has been worsened by a cross drainage depression put into the roadway a few years ago.
Resident Deserae Kimura told 10News, "It's been flooding over 30 years, but it gets worse and worse every year."
County maintenance crews have stacked hundreds of sandbags in front of two homes where the water surged through on Wednesday night.
Kimura took videos and pictures to show how bad it was.
"So basically, without sandbags, it's a river that comes through and it'll wash all this gravel up and its sits in the backyard, and when it goes through his fence, it goes into my yard and my garage got flooded and the shed almost did this year as well," she said.
Floodwaters going into the crawlspaces under the homes, the alleyway eroding and fences being torn up; it's a real nightmare for the homeowners on Lemon Crest Drive.
Ken Hughes and his wife have only owned their home next door for a couple of weeks. He's dismayed at the floodwaters that rushed into his yard.
"When I opened it, it was like a tidal wave; [I] had to hold onto the gate when I opened it because it was like opening a dam, I guess. It's eroding the soil at the fence line and it's fallen down; if you go further back it's doing the same thing back there," Hughes said.
The county Department of Public Works has released the following statement regarding flooding at Lemon Crest Drive:
This community was built in the 1950s, and when it rains the water naturally flows to the lowest point, which happens to be this area of Lemon Crest Drive. There are no public drainage facilities, like storm drains and gutters, in many older communities like this. The County placed permanent road signs in both directions on Lemon Crest Drive warning that this road floods.
Addressing this historic flooding is #2 on the construction priority list for the community of Lakeside, after the $15 million Woodside Avenue Flood Control project which is nearly complete. The Lemon Crest project is currently unfunded and is estimated at approximately $8 million to install drainage facilities and improve the roadway. We are currently in the design and environmental analysis phase of the project, and are seeking to identify grants and matching funds to cover the full cost of the project.
