The Cost Of Doing Nothing

Mrs. A was showing me pictures of the flooding in San Diego and I joked (knowing nothing) that they proably could've spent $10,000 on something and had no problems. That's a huge exaggeration, of course, but it is true that they have had a YOLO attitude towards their drainage systems forever and well...

Two of the city’s 15 pump stations failed Monday, said Kris McFadden, the city’s deputy chief operating officer. Out of 200 segments of flood channels in San Diego, the city only has funding to do major maintenance on four of those each year, said Todd Snyder, director of the city’s stormwater department.

Gloria said he thinks Monday’s storm would have overwhelmed any drainage system, but he also acknowledged that it is inadequate — something that he and other city officials attributed to a lack of funding and time-consuming bureaucratic processes such as permitting.

“It is fundamentally true that our stormwater system is not resourced correctly, and that’s a long-term thing that we have to probably talk to the voters about,” Gloria said.

Not picking on San Diego here. It's the type of thing that isn't a priority for a lot of cities. Philadelphia has a problem with clogged storm drains because they refuse to do widespread regular street cleaning.