Sandbag shortage affects Bay Area cities; SF's Marina District residents stock up on supplies
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – Multiple home garages on Marina Boulevard were lined with sandbags Tuesday night, ahead of Wednesday's monstrous storm.
The Srivastava home is still drying out from the New Year's Eve storm. The family returned from a holiday trip on Monday to find their entire bottom floor, including their garage and car, flooded.
The force of the water was so strong, it knocked their garage door off its track.
Wednesday's storm system is expected to be even more powerful.
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"We're very worried about it. I just spent all day putting sandbags in front of the garage at every entry point and we're just crossing our fingers and hoping we won't have more damage," said Deepak Srivastava.
Srivastava said he waited two hours for five sandbags, which was the limit, on Tuesday at the Department of Public Works. He and his wife Denise filled up more empty bags with sand throughout the day.
Since Saturday, the city has given out nearly 10,000 free sandbags.
Workers had to tell drivers that they ran out around 5:30 in the evening. They are expecting more at 8 am Wednesday.
The Srivastavas are also expecting more pricey repairs.
"Little overwhelmed and knowing that we've been through this a year before, having to rip out all the floors, knowing that we're going to have to do that again this year, probably having to redo the sheetrock also, it's difficult," said Denise Srivastava.
"We had a similar flood jsut last October," added Deepak. "They call it a 100-year storm, but sounds like we might have two of those in one week."
On Tuesday, we saw several people waiting to buy storm supplies at Fredericksen Hardware in the Marina.
The city said it will have extra workers staffed round the clock.
"We've been working very hard to source sandbags from wherever we can in Northern California. Some are being delivered to our operations yards, we're always sending trucks out to pick them up," said DPW communications director Rachel Gordon. "If you don't have to be out in San Francisco, please don't be out on the roads."
Deepak said he plans to work from home on Wednesday.
"My hope is that our city will respond to this and redouble our efforts to improve our drainage and do something to prevent this in the future, because it's going to keep happening," he said.
