Storm pummels town, Estates

Forecasts of thunderstorms didn’t prepare Ramonans for the deluge that came on Sunday afternoon, when nearly 3 inches of rain fell in areas of town and San Diego Country Estates, sending walls of mud, debris and rushing water onto properties and roads, flooding homes, drowning cars, and, in one of the most unique scenes, sending a shed floating down Gunn Stage Road.

The summer storms Saturday and Sunday dumped a total of 4.1 inches of rain in Ramona, more than anywhere in the county. The storm wreaked havoc for many residents whose homes were flooded, and, in some cases, left uninhabitable.

Streets flooded, submerging some cars, and the usually dry Santa Maria Creek and its tributaries became streams of rushing water as remnants of Hurricane Dolores unleashed on Ramona.

“It’s a disaster,” said Danny Romero, whose house in the 1100 block of H Street near 11th Street was flooded with ankle-deep water.

“It just happened like that,” he said.

He had been watching his backyard that is bordered by a parking lot. It looked OK, he said, and then suddenly he had water in a bedroom.

On Monday morning he had a pile of carpet on his mud-caked front yard, and said he will have to rip out 2 feet of drywall throughout the house. They cannot live in the house, he said, as he waited to hear from his insurance company. However, Romero said, he doesn’t

have flood insurance.

“Who ever thought in Ramona we’d need flood insurance?” he said.

Ramona received the brunt of the two-day storm on Sunday. Saturday’s rainfall total at Ramona Airport was 1.18 inches, the National Weather Service reported.

Jesse and Melissa Lanini came home from Yuma late Sunday afternoon to find their wading pool floating in their front yard in the 900 block of H Street.

Jesse Lanini said he had 3 to 4 inches of water in his garage and up to two inches in two rooms and a hallway in his home, requiring him to rip out carpeting and drywall up to 8 inches high.

With no sandbags, he improvised by filling black garbage bags with wood shavings from two trees he recently cut down.

According to Lanini, flooding on his street was due to a clogged drain at Ninth and H streets. The grate, he said, was popping up and rattling as water flowed out.

“It was moving pretty good. That was a lot of water,” he said.

Lanini noted the repairs will delay other home projects he had planned.

“Basically we’re just keeping our heads down and staying positive,” he said. “It could have been worse.”

Other homes in the 11th and H street area had water damage, and on D Street, between 10th and 11th streets, at least four homes had flood damage.

Emergency crews responded Sunday to flooding in the 23000 block of Vista Ramona Road, 700 block of D Street, 500 block of Camino De Amor, 24000 block of Del Amo Place and 1100 block of Sixth Street.

In San Diego Country Estates, Luis Gonzalez in the 24000 block of Rutherford Road ended up with about 4 feet of dirt around his house and flooding on the first floor of his two-story home after water, dirt and rocks came rushing down a culvert from a hill across the street into his yard. The force collapsed a slope in his front yard, sending down more mud.

“Took out my garage door,” said Gonzalez.

His sunken living room, he said, “became like a pond.”

On Monday, friends assisted with cleanup, using a Bobcat and shovels to scoop up the dirt, bringing it to the street where county workers scooped it into trucks.

Gonzalez, like others, said he does not have flood insurance. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it couldn’t offer assistance because it is not an emergency, he said. The American Red Cross offered help with accommodations, he said.

Cal Fire Battalion Chief Steve Foster, fire marshal for the Ramona Fire Department, kept busy Sunday trying to protect his home on Open View Road.

At one point, he said, “all of a sudden this big wall of mud started coming down the hill.”

The mud overwhelmed the drains in his yard and his pool overflowed. With no sandbags he dug up rocks in his garden, using them to divert water from entering his home.

“It was close,” he said. “It was really close.”

Foster said he saw a shed floating down Gunn Stage Road.

According to California Highway Patrol, the storms blocked numerous roads.

Around 3 p.m. Sunday, debris blocked both sides of the roadway at 26757 Old Julian Highway, and at 3:15 p.m. a rockslide blocked both lanes at Route 78 and Horizon View Drive. Throughout town vehicles waded through deep puddles, and emergency vehicles blocked areas such as Ramona Street near H Street from traffic because of water rushing over the roadways.

During Sunday’s deluge, sheriff’s Senior Volunteer Patrol members set up cones and one of their vehicles along Main Street in front of the Stater Bros. shopping center to keep vehicles away from flooded areas. A day earlier, Ramona firefighters responded to reports of lightning strikes in the 17000 block of Puerto Oro Lane and the 16000 block of John Henry Lane.

Sunday’s storm uprooted a bridge on San Vicente Golf Course, which was closed Monday and restricted to cart path only on Tuesday.

Ramona Unified School District workers arrived at the district office on Ninth Street Monday to find ceiling tiles down in most of the offices. It’s the oldest building in the district, and the roof leaked.

“Food services, special ed, HR (human resources), Ed Services, the board room all got hit,” said Supt. Robert Graeff. “The board room’s a mess.”

Most of Ramona schools weathered the storm well, Graeff said, but water damage occurred at Barnett Elementary and in Ramona High’s agriculture area and welding shop at the northeast end of the campus.

Supervisor Dianne Jacob visited the community Tuesday afternoon to assess storm damage and to talk with some of the affected residents. Jacob is encouraging flood victims to fill out a short damage survey that will assist the county in collecting damage information and associated costs, and see if the region will qualify for federal disaster assistance. She advises flood victims “not to underestimate the damage.” According to the supervisor, the county’s emergency assistance threshold is $11 million. The survey is available at sdcountyrecovery.com.

Also on Tuesday, sheriff’s Sgt. Andrew Mowins swore in four members of Ramona’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) as Disaster Service workers with a one-day loyalty oath to assist residents, primarily elderly people, with cleanup at 10 properties in town and in the Estates. American Red Cross, working with the county Office of Emergency Services and Ramona Fire Department CERT coordinator Joseph Thompson, coordinated the effort.

Jason Adams, disaster program manager with the Red Cross, said three teams assessed the damage Monday, offered cleanup kits that included a mop, broom, bucket and face masks, and helped those who could not live in their homes and needed a place to stay.

CERT workers who volunteered to help were Don Scott, Teresa O’Donnell, Joe Flynn and Paul Niswonger.

The weekend storm drowned records countywide, City News Service reported. Sunday’s downpour pushed San Diego’s July rainfall to 1.6 inches, breaking the previous July record of 0.92 inches, set in 1902. Lindbergh Field’s high temperature of 88 degrees was one degree higher than the previous record for July 19, set in 1951.

“San Diego has broken just about every record it has for July,” said Roger Pierce, a National Weather Service forecaster. “It was a pretty amazing weekend.”

Despite the measurable amounts of rain, drought measures stay in place.

“This rain won’t bring an end to the drought,” Pierce said. “You’ll be able to turn your lawn sprinklers off for a few days. But by the end of next week it’ll be hard to tell that rain fell.”

James Thomas of the National Weather Service described the system as an anomaly, exacerbated by warm temperatures and high pressure brought by Dolores.

This caused the San Diego region to be thunderstruck repeatedly. The National Weather Service counted nearly 1,800 lightning events, 528 of which hit the ground.

Lightning disrupted power for more than 14,000 San Diego Gas and Electric customers, primarily within the San Diego City limits.

The weather caused several events around the county to be postponed, including Sunday’s Padres game at Petco Park against the Colorado Rockies, rescheduled for Sept. 10, and the Maritime Museum of San Diego’s launch of its replica San Salvador flagship.