IN-DEPTH REPORT: Multi-million dollar lawsuit filed over LQ flood damage (Part 3)

Last year’s so-called 700-year storm devastated Al Garcia’s home at the bottom of the La Quinta Cove.

“I’m a little nervous, is next year going to be the 1000-year storm?” Garcia said. His concern is the topography of his neighborhood. “It all seems to just drain here, if you stand at the end of my street and look up, it’s one giant hill coming straight toward us.”

A system built in the 1980s for the Coachella Valley Water District is meant to divert water away from the cove and surrounding communities in a major storm.

“This is the structure designed to protect the city from the kind of storm that is at the 500-year standard,” said attorney Larry Shea, standing in the collection basin at the top of the cove.

Shea and his co-counsel Tom Girardi are representing the homeowners who flooded out in last year’s storm.

The collection basin is designed to capture more than 627 million gallons of runoff from the Santa Rosa Mountains.

“Right here is the big picture,” Shea said.

FEMA removed much of La Quinta from a flood plain zone in 2005 after the city submitted flood improvement work, which included the flood protection project.

Here’s how it’s supposed to work: From the basin, water is supposed to siphon off into Bear Creek Channel, drain into the “Oleander Reservoir,” and escape the city through an evacuation channel.

The reservoir is also home to the La Quinta Resort’s golf course.

“The reality is should that event occur, that resort will be under 8-10 feet of water. that’s the idea,” Shea said.

But last year’s storm didn’t follow man’s plan. In fact, there was hardly any water in the basin according to homeowners.

Instead the storm, which was capable of producing up to three inches of rain on the valley floor, hit localized areas of La Quinta hard and fast.

“The water was really raging, the water kept coming up higher and higher,” recalled Al Garcia who could only watch as the storm flooded his home.

Shea says homes like Garcia’s flooded because the water couldn’t escape into the reservoir and storm channel.

“This drainage wants to go into that reservoir and fill that golf course and somebody decided that wasn’t a good idea and blocked it. And when that happened, the homes that are on the other side got left holding the bag,” Shea said.

Homes belonging to Al Garcia, Dale Wissman, Jeanette Mendoza and Harry Schaffner, plus dozens of other families.

These claims are at the center of a multi-million dollar lawsuit filed by Shea and Girardi. Girardi’s best-known case inspired the movie “Erin Brokovich.”

Together they sued the city, La Quinta Resort and the Coachella Valley Water District.

“Somebody is responsible for letting that go. Those pipes are there for a very important reason. You need to get the water out,” Shea said.

Shea says the local drainage problems (see Part 1 and Part 2) need to be taken care of immediately in case this bigger flood protection system is ever put to the test.

“You can’t be a high-end city and tolerate major intersections flooding every few years. We better take heed and use these storms that happened as a call to action,” he said.

Action that homeowners like Garcia say they’ve been waiting for since last year.

“With the amount of homeowners who are here and the ongoing building this little gem of the desert isn’t the same as it was 15 years ago,” said Garcia. “We need to be more prepped in the future.”