National City residents who lost their homes in the 2024 floods are preparing for more rain and raising concerns about National City’s communication.
NATIONAL CITY, Calif. — As rain moves into San Diego County, some National City residents are taking extra precautions after experiencing devastating flooding in January 2024. Neighbors who lost their homes and belongings said the storm brings back painful memories, and they want others to be prepared.
On East Eighth Street, every round of rain brings renewed concern for residents like Sherry Gogue whose homes were flooded in 2024.
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“My husband and my son were stuck there for two and a half hours, and I watched them,” Gogue said. “I watched everything being destroyed in my front yard.”
Gogue said she and her neighbors lost nearly everything in the flooding.
“Everything we had was destroyed, and we just remodeled our house by a year before that,” she said. “My mom’s organ-it’s 100 years old. I lost it.”
The neighbors said a grate over a nearby storm channel contributed to the flooding. The grate has since been removed, but the experience continues to weigh on the community.
“When this happened last time, nobody knew what to do,” Gogue said. “I mean, we were all devastated. We were homeless overnight.”
Now, she and her neighbors are urging others to take precautions before more rain arrives.
“Make sure your house is flood protected,” Gogue said. “But if you can get sandbags, do the straw waddle, whatever you can do to protect your home. Try to do that. If you have personal belongings in there, put them up high.”
National City Councilmember Marcus Bush, who is running for mayor, is also going door to door, raising concerns about how the city is communicating with residents and directing them to resources ahead of the storm.
“If we’re not telling people, directing them to resources where to go, if I’m unclear about how to direct our residents and even me as a council member, I’m unclear of what the plan is, what we’re going to do, then there’s a problem,” Bush said.
National City told News 8 that Public Works crews have been clearing drainage ways for the past three months. A full team also worked the day before and the day of the report to maintain them.
The city pointed News 8 to a City Council presentation outlining its storm preparation and cleanup plans.
Bush said the city needs to do more to proactively communicate those plans to residents.
“Our city is prepared, in that we have emergency response on standby. We have great personnel and employees, but we need to do a better job of proactively engaging and informing our residents,” he said.
The city said it has expanded public outreach through its website and social media and is working to strengthen direct outreach to residents.
For Gogue and her neighbors, the goal is to be ready for whatever comes next, and avoid reliving the devastating losses they experienced in 2024.