Residents in mobile home park want more protection from flash floods
The cleanup and repair effort at Safari Park continues after Saturday’s flash flood.
“We had 4 inches of mud up to here in the front, so I put towels under the front door and it started coming in the back door,” said Dennis Quinlal.
“We had to literally put sump pumps in to get it all out. It was coming up to the AC ducts and flooding everything out,” said Rocky Zappia who has lived in the mobile home park for a number of years.
The floodwaters rushed through a channel between two homes on the west side of the park, which is what it is designed to do, but some folks want to see something more done to protect their homes.
“Like what they did for Cathedral City, they put that diversion dam in so those businesses don’t get wiped out no more..why can’t they do that for this place here. This is a known wash,” Zappia said.
Assistant city manager Marcus Fuller said there is not much the city can do to prevent the destructive power of a 100-year-flood. Proposed projects to build an underground drainage system near the park would not of helped stop the water that fell on Saturday even if it was already built.
“Since they have the experience now and they know exactly the damage that was caused and where the flooding occurred, if there is ways to put additional landscape walls or planters or other improvements to act as a flood wall between their unit and the street,” said Fuller.
The city recommends that homeowners in the flood-prone park get flood insurance. Something that not one homeowner interviewed today said they had.
JOE GALLI IN ON FACEBOOK AND ON TWITTER @JOEGALLINEWS
