Bureaucratic hurdles face fixes to flooding problems on Monterey Peninsula

MONTEREY COUNTY, Calif. (KION) One week after a major storm system pounded the Central Coast, residents are left looking back at the damages the rain had on the area.

Areas south of Carmel near the ocean were flooded, with homes and streets inches deep in water. Some residents there tell KION it took about five hours for the water to drain out.

Residents who went through the ordeal last week are now dealing with the cleanup costs that are piling up. Michael Williams, who lives near the mouth of the Carmel River, tells KION he got an evacuation warning at 4 a.m. last Wednesday from Cal Fire, but chose to shelter in place. He woke up to his neighbor pounding his front door, telling him it was time to leave.

"Water. Everywhere. It felt like I was in Texas," said Williams, after he went downstairs to find 14 inches of water had rushed through the first floor of his house.

It immediately turned into a mad dash to escape his home.

"There was water up to the fender wheels of one of my cars, in the garage there was water literally inside the car. So I had to move those cars and get those cars out, and then we had to wait until the water drained," said Williams.

Williams says it took about five hours to fully drain the flooding. The City of Carmel's public works crews came out to help even though the neighborhood is technically part of Monterey County.

Now, neighbors are dealing with the aftermath. Stacks of sandbags were still guarding the street from any more incoming water from the Carmel River through the marsh. Last week, they were no match for the surge of water coming through.

"Unfortunately what happened this time, you had the convergence of two rather episodic events: a very high tide during a big storm and a major flow of the river at the same time," said Mayor Dave Potter, of the City of Carmel.

It is a problem every storm: the Carmel Lagoon fills up, leading to overflows in residential areas. Breaching the lagoon manually is a hot political topic: while residents want their homes protected, federal and state environmental protections for steelhead fish throws in a wrench.

"The balance between preserving the fish and lagoon and not letting them out so prematurely that are killed is a delicate balance," said Potter.

Regulatory agencies like the California Coastal Commission, National Marine Fisheries and even county rules, making manually breaching the lagoon a tough act to do.

But there are some solutions in the works. Mayor Potter tells KION he is supportive of the Lagoon Enhancement Project, which entails opening up a berm next to the artichoke fields and letting an overflow of the Carmel River drain into that area during storms.

But the project, led by the Big Sur Land Trust, is still getting bogged down in red tape. Meanwhile, residents have to live with the consequences of storms, whenever they come.

"Basically, we're taking out walls, cabinets, floors, doors, and basically starting over anew. It's going to put us out a couple months. Hopefully," said Williams.

PREVIOUS ARTICLE: Carmel residents saw yet another wave of water come through their streets last week as a major storm system brought on inches of rain to the Central Coast.

Neighborhoods were flooded with water, causing a headache for locals in the Rio Road area.

KION’s Josh Kristianto will have more about what the city is trying to do to prevent future flooding at 5 and 6 p.m.