San Jose Officials Admit Flood Surprised Them
SAN JOSE (CBS SF) – City officials admitted Wednesday they were surprised the speed at which floodwaters from the Coyote Creek overwhelmed several neighborhoods, forcing 14,000 residents to quickly flee their homes.
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Firefighters were forced to rescue more than 225 residents by using watercraft as the streets filled up with 4 feet or more of water.
Assistant City Manager Dave Sykes said the flooding from the overflow of the Anderson Reservoir "was a 100-year event."
"The situation has now stabilized and we are seeing some improvement, but as the mayor mentioned we are through this," he said.
Sykes said officials were monitoring conditions, but were surprised when floodwaters overwhelmed the Rock Springs neighborhood. They were aware of flooding at 10 a.m. and had rescue crews on the scene at 10:30 a.m.
"It's important to note how swiftly things happened at Rock Springs," he said. "It reached the banks at a flow level much less than capacity. We were not expecting to have conditions at Rock Springs for many, many hours. We certainly were not expecting Rock Springs to be the first place we had issues. So we have to review that issue."
Mayor Sam Liccardo echoed Sykes evaluation.
"As I said yesterday, if the first time that a resident is aware that they need to get out of a home is when they see a firefighter in a boat, then clearly there's been a failure," he said.
"We are assessing what it is that happened that led to that failure, but more importantly right now we're trying to ensure that we can make these neighborhoods safe for reoccupation."
Several flood victim had stories similar to Juanita Wilson, whose belongings started to float around her apartment before she was rescued.
"That's like a nightmare, said Wilson. "It's kind of like something you can't believe is happening but it is happening."
