Redwood City Has Designated “Drainage” Call Them Flooding Streets

The ongoing rain and wind storms in the area have made this winter season in Redwood City a real struggle. Fortunately, they didn’t come a bit earlier and coincide with the King Tides or the flooding would have been substantially worse. Nonetheless, they clearly exposed the lack of regular maintenance and proper storm preparation procedures. This past week there was a City Council meeting during which the City Council adopted an Emergency Proclamation. On Sunday January 8th, I submitted the following email public comment to the full council:

Dear Council,

The Staff Report submitted for this Agenda Item does not make clear what if any benefits accrue from this proclamation. In the future, it would be extremely helpful if staff made any automatic or potential financial and other benefits clear to residents.

In addition, while it may be helpful to respond to emergencies in process, an effective City Council and Staff would have procedures that should be put in place when forecasted weather events deem certain procedures necessary. While stating that the city is prepared for storm events and making distribution of sandbags available to the public, there are also a lot of other items that the City should be doing. For example it has come to our attention that drains near construction projects are being covered. While I am not sure why that is the case, clearly when an extreme weather event is forecast, ensuring that drains work as they are intended to work should be the minimum a city offers its residents. Given the current ongoing nature of the rains and the likelihood that these storms repeat in the coming years, procedures need to be put in place to not only be reactive but to be properly proactive.

In addition, the City may want to consider creating drainage streets (streets that are allowed to flood and reduce impacts on surrounding areas) in the same manner that during the pandemic it created slow streets. In fact if done properly slow streets should probably also be drainage streets although given that this was not considered in the creation of the current system of slow streets it may require a redesign so as to be most effective.

As some of you may know, I am a resident of Docktown, a floating community, in Redwood City. Given that our homes float, you may have assumed that we would not be as impacted as other areas of Redwood City. Unfortunately, access to our homes has been severely impacted as access streets to our homes have been flooded including because of the aforementioned issue of construction adjacent drains being covered. In addition, while atmospheric rivers carry dangers due to heavy precipitation, they also generally carry danger due to significantly stronger winds. These winds damaged and broke docks and fingers that given the lack of proper maintenance were to begin with very weak. Storm resiliency requires at a minimum proper ongoing maintenance.

Sincerely,

Tania Solé

Docktown Resident

An automated long email response was received as well as a short email from the Mayor, Jeff Gee, with a copy to the City Manager, Melissa Stevenson Diaz. On January 9th, I received a more detailed response from Ms. Stevenson Diaz as follows:

Dear Tania,

I received your public comment regarding the City’s storm response and wanted to provide background on the points you have raised.

I noted in the staff report that proclamation of a local emergency may enable the City to access state or federal relief funds in the future, should such funds become available. We will have a more comprehensive oral report this evening, but at this time, it is not clear what financial assistance may be available to residents as a result of the storm events. The City is supporting County efforts to qualify for federal support through the Small Business Administration. As soon as we know whether such aid is available (or any other form of aid materializes) we will share that with residents.

Thank you for your suggestion for drainage streets. This is the practice in some parts of Redwood City where there are not underground stormwater systems.

Regarding storm drains near Docktown, we believe there may be two factors at play: we are required to install filters over drains in compliance with environmental regulations, and with the onslaught of rain some filters have filled repeatedly, despite regular cleaning. We do not believe there is any intentional closure of drains. Additionally, we have experienced local flooding in many locations in the City, including adjacent to Docktown, as a result of the significant amount of rain and storm frequency.

Finally, TK is regularly walking the marina and we believe the docks and fingers where tenants are residing are safe. Please reach out to TK if there is a specific location of concern.

You may already be receiving information from the City but if not, the best resource for storm-related information is to check the City’s social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter). Updated information is being posted on the City website as well.

Thanks,

Melissa

To say that I was horrified and livid is to understate my feelings, so a couple of hours later, I responded as follows and copied the City Council:

Hello Melissa,

Just to clarify:

There is storm resilience as in proper ongoing maintenance.

There is storm preparedness a in proper preparation for a known coming weather event. Ex: communications, sandbags and proper drainage verification and cleaning

There are emergency proclamations post a large storm event that a city is unable to deal with within its own budget but should not be used to actually pay for deferred maintenance.

Lack of proper ongoing maintenance or deferred maintenance ensures that storm preparedness must be even more comprehensive as deferred maintenance must be performed as well as additional storm specific preparation including things such as proper communications, making sandbags available, and verifying and cleaning drains so as to ensure proper drainage.

Personally I was not aware that any streets in Redwood City had been designated as flooding streets. Could you please let me know which streets those are? Are residents of those streets aware of this? I would suggest that the City make this information more readily available especially during pre-storm preparation announcements.

As regards storm drains on Maple Street, has the city verified that those drains are not covered? Has the city verified that they have been cleared? In a multiple storm event, verifications between storms is critical or the level of damage will only be compounded.

As regards the docks and fingers at Docktown, anyone who even claims to believe that those docks are safe on a regular basis much less during a storm event is either malicious or ignorant of proper marina maintenance.

Sincerely,

Tania Solé

Resident of Docktown

After that I reiterated some of what had transpired during that evening’s City Council meeting Public Comment for Agenda Item #8.

As of this time, I have not received any further responses to the questions in my last email. I am curious in particular as to what Redwood City streets have been designated as “drainage” or what I called flooding streets and if residents are aware of this. If anyone can help educate me, I would really appreciate it.