Downpour Floods Streets, Some Homes in Seal Beach

Seal Beach residents on Sunday afternoon fanned water-logged carpets and dried car interiors damaged in overnight flooding, which some residents said was made worse by a drainage system malfunction.

Other Orange County cities also coped with the aftermath of heavy overnight rain, which flooded parks, streets and houses. In Anaheim, emergency workers were called out Sunday to a flooded garage containing 20 cars.

Seal Beach neighborhoods between Pacific Coast Highway and the ocean appeared the hardest hit.

Before dawn, hundreds of Seal Beach residents awoke to water rushing through the streets and in some cases into garages and living rooms. Officials said they were unsure how many homes and business were damaged. 1st Street was partially closed because of flooding.

Joe Aguilar, 25, who moved to Seal Beach two months ago, looked out his apartment window to see his car floating down Seal Beach Boulevard. “You could see it bobbing up and down the street,” he said.

Mayor Paul Yost said he took calls throughout the night from residents who blamed the city’s storm drain pumps for the flooding. “If only they could make those pumps work better,” said Greg Curd as he watched his 2-year-old daughter play in water in their home.

Yost said city officials were trying to determine if the pumps malfunctioned. He said the pumps probably were overloaded because of the downpour. More than 3 1/2 inches of rain fell in a short period, he said.

There are two pumps in Seal Beach, one owned by the city and one owned by the county. Both should start automatically, Yost said.

Seal Beach Public Works Director Mark Vukojevic said the city-owned pump on 1st Street was operating before 3 a.m.

But some residents who watched water rise outside their homes said the water subsided only after a man entered the county-owned second pump station off Seal Beach Boulevard after 3 a.m. Residents said they believed the pump was activated then. County officials did not return calls seeking information.

Many Seal Beach residents spent Sunday sorting through soggy possessions, trying to start water-filled cars and calling insurance companies.

The Learning Tree, the city’s only operating preschool, suffered flood damage, Yost said. It will operate today from city buildings, including the library and the community center.

The city will have a town hall meeting about the flooding Thursday at Mary Wilson Library, the mayor said.

“We want to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” said Yost, whose garage was flooded. “The question then becomes how much do you spend to prevent something that happens once every five or 10 years?”

With more rain expected, Vukojevic said the city was clearing leaves from the pump stations, offering sandbags to residents and keeping city staff on call.

As a storm system off the coast of Canada moves south, heavy rain is expected over Southern California on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The roof collapsed at a tire store in Stanton, an underground parking structure in that city was flooded, and boats were damaged in Huntington Harbour, said Orange County Sheriff’s Lt. Hayward Miller.

Two adults pulled four children out of a waist-high puddle at Twila Reed Park in Anaheim on Sunday afternoon, said Anaheim Police Sgt. Rick Martinez. The children jumped into what they thought were wood chips, not realizing that the chips were floating in water, he said. No injuries were reported.

Just blocks from the park, 30 residents of a 15-unit Anaheim apartment in the 900 block of Western Avenue were evacuated at 11:20 a.m. after cars in the complex’s garage were discovered under water. Between 25 and 30 cars were destroyed, said Nazyr Barbosa, the apartment manager.

“We’ve never had anything like this, ever,” said Barbosa, who lost three cars. He said the pump was working at 2 a.m., but residents woke him up 90 minutes later after water rose to the garage ceiling and was seeping into the stairwells.

“I was shaking.... I just couldn’t believe something like this could happen,” Barbosa said. He said firefighters told him that debris may have prevented the pump from working properly.

Southern California Edison reported that 13,000 customers lost power at various locations in north Orange County, and 36,000 lost power in L.A. County, although power was restored to almost all homes in both counties.

No flood-related injuries were reported in Orange County. A traffic death was reported in Los Angeles County.