The National City Fire Department requested Team Rubicon, a veteran-led nonprofit disaster response team, to help with flood relief after Monday’s storm devastated parts of San Diego County.
According to someone who works for the department, there are approximately 45 homes that need serious help. Team Rubicon volunteers showed up to the area on Saturday and got to work on some of the first homes on the list near Paradise Valley Road Sunday morning.
“What we do is no cost to anyone,” Lauren Winthers, a volunteer with Team Rubicon, said. “We come out to all these communities and help them and they are welcome to help, but they’re not required to lift a finger or pay a dime.”
Winthers has been working on incidents like this for six years. She said they mostly respond to major natural disasters, like hurricanes and tornadoes. While this flooding wasn’t either of those, she said the aftermath looks very similar.
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“To have this much damage with not as much rain is quite remarkable,” she said.
NBC 7 saw the volunteers while they worked at a small handful of homes on E 8th Street. They broke down fences, hauled away flooring and helped shovel mud and debris out of homes. The street is a dead-end, and the homes are down a slight hill from a relatively-new, man-made rainwater basin.
Sherry Gogue, who has lived there for more than 20 years, shared a video with NBC 7 from Monday. It shows water pouring out of the basin and into their yards. She said she knew their house was in a flood zone — in fact, it had mild flooding last year — but she did not think it would ever be this bad.
“It’s kind of looking like a war zone,” Shalene Thomas, Gogue’s daughter, said. “We had no idea it would destroy everything.”
Thomas explained that this was the house where the neighborhood would get together for holidays and birthdays.
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“You ask anybody here what house they come to for celebrations, it’s going to be this one,” she said.
Thomas also shared that there is a large drainage alley behind the house. She said it usually works to move floodwater through the neighborhood safely, but this time it didn’t.
“That is supposed to keep our neighborhood and our street from flooding, but it failed,” she said, adding that there may have been a blockage closer to the basin that caused it to overflow.
Now, as of Sunday, every room in the house was emptied and the family will now need to start over, but they are not doing it alone.
“This may be your worst day, but it will get better and it’s amazing what other people can help you with and do for you, if you just say you need help,” Winthers said.
Team Rubicon was requested to be working in National City until Feb. 8. They have multiple teams working at different sites, with roughly two dozen volunteers each day. They also have groups surveying for other areas that might need their help, including within the City of San Diego, but they do not move forward with work until it is requested and/or approved.
On Monday, National City is holding a special city council meeting at 4:30 p.m. to ratify the local emergency declaration made on Thursday. For more information, click here.
