SAN DIEGO — On an altar at Carlos Ramirez’s home in southeastern San Diego, a laminated photo of his mother who passed away years ago rests atop a candle, surrounded by idols of Jesus Christ, angels and the Virgin Mary.

Ramirez is in awe of the photo. Two years ago, flood waters swept through his Shelltown neighborhood and others nearby — devastating entire blocks and displacing more than a thousand residents. The water in his yard was 7 feet high, and the altar was submerged.

But when the flood waters receded and he returned to his home, he saw that the photo had not moved from its place.

“It wasn’t taken,” Ramirez, 72, said tearfully in Spanish on Thursday. “It was a miracle… my mother was saved.”

Remembering moments of hope from the destruction and honoring the resilience of the community was a defining aspect of the two year anniversary of the flooding on Jan. 22, 2024.

Residents joined together in Shelltown on Thursday for commemorative events, including a morning blessing from Father Brad Mills from Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish and an evening neighborhood gathering to recognize the community and how far it’s come.

The memory of the floods is still fresh in residents’ minds, but many want to focus on the community’s future.

“We continue to talk about what happened two years ago, and it’s very traumatic,” said Patricia Cruz, who lives on Beta Street in Southcrest. “But as a whole community we should be able to find healing and move forward.”

Jan. 22, 2024, was one of the wettest days on record in San Diego. Waterways such as Chollas Creek overflowed into neighborhoods. Working-class communities in southeastern San Diego, including Shelltown, Southcrest and Mountainview, were some of the hardest hit, but other areas were also affected, including National City and Spring Valley. At least five people died.

Close to 2,000 people are suing the city in more than 50 lawsuits, saying the city’s failure to maintain its storm channels led to the catastrophic flooding.

Ramirez’s home sits at a low point on Yama Street, near an embankment alongside Interstate 5. He lives with his wife, and his three daughters also have homes on the property.

He says about 15 cars washed down the street and piled up in front of his property on the day of the floods.

His youngest daughter, the family’s strongest swimmer, rescued several neighbors who were trapped in their homes, after bringing her own daughter to safety.

“She chose to do the better thing, the braver thing,” said Ramirez’s other daughter, Cristal, of her sister’s efforts.

Residents in southeastern San Diego say the community was connected before the floods. But the community has come together to support one another in new ways over the last two years.

Shelltown resident Beba Zarate hosts craft nights in her home, where neighbors can come together to paint or crochet and share how they’re feeling. She and another flood survivor also hold a weekly bagel distribution in Southcrest for any families that need it, flood victims or otherwise.

Local nonprofits, like the Harvey Family Foundation — which helped residents rebuild nearly 80 homes — have supported the recovery efforts as well.

A group called Shelltown Resilience, of which Zarate and Cruz are members, has also emerged in the wake of the floods, hosting park cleanups and toy distributions. Its goal is to serve as a voice to help shape what the rebuilt community looks like.

“We organize ourselves to help the community,” Zarate said. “If we do not stand and advocate for our community, who is going to do it?”

The city has a decades-long backlog of storm channel infrastructure maintenance and an outdated stormwater system that city officials warned before the 2024 floods could lead to catastrophic flooding. It has a nearly $4 billion deficit to address stormwater infrastructure needs.

In the last two years, the city has performed more regular maintenance on channel segments affected by the 2024 floods, but recent city records show that nearly half of its channel segments and infrastructure haven’t been maintained in at least 15 years.

Following the 2024 floods, the city’s stormwater department says it cleared roughly 18 miles of channels — including 12 miles of channels in the Chollas Creek watershed.

And the city has stormwater capital improvement projects in the works, including one on Beta Street in Southcrest that recently received $1 million in federal funding — part of $4 million the city got from the federal government for critical stormwater infrastructure projects. Other capital improvement projects are sorely underfunded.

But residents are demanding more accountability. The lawsuits against the city and other public entities say they failed to maintain the storm channels, leading to the flooding. The city has in turn filed more than 20 cross-complaints, including against at least two flood victims, maintaining that they were responsible for drainage on their properties or took steps that could have increased storm runoff.

A trial date is set for October.

Some residents say they hope to use any money they receive from the litigation to pay off debt incurred from reconstructing their homes or buying back items they lost in the floods.

Shelltown resident Daniella Avila was eight months pregnant when the waters flooded the home she shares with her mother, father and brother. She lost all the gifts she received at her baby shower and relied on donations from friends and family to resupply before her daughter was born the next month.

For the Ramirez family, the cost to fix their entire property was estimated to be around $250,000. Nonprofits stepped in to help with the rebuild, though the family handled much of the early recovery themselves, including mold remediation and removing the mud from their home in the days after the flood.

Windows still need to be replaced, and a bathroom is still under construction. But the home is now about 90% complete — “little by little,” Ramirez said.

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