14 Killed as Floodwaters Sweep Tijuana

TIJUANA —  In the worst flooding in more than a decade, torrential rain washed over this border city Thursday, killing at least 14 people and leaving about 50 unaccounted for as floodwaters transformed downtown streets into raging rivers and mudslides crashed down on shanties.

Three of the dead were children, including an 18-month-old boy whose body was found in a flooded street in the colonia Espaldas del Mundo, Tijuana police spokeswoman Annette Arrellano said.

Most of the dead, including another child, had drowned in flooding caused by poor drainage and backed-up sewage systems. But at least three men were electrocuted when water swept into their homes, a spokesman for the Tijuana medical examiner’s office said.

Officials in the Mexican state of Baja California said Tijuana was “semiparalyzed” by the downpour, with many neighborhoods cut off from emergency services and isolated by the flooding. With another storm expected to deluge the city again today, authorities warned that they were nowhere close to assessing the damage or totaling the deaths and injuries.

Of great concern to rescue crews was the fate of thousands of impoverished squatters who live in colonias, the sprawling, ramshackle settlements of tar paper and cardboard shacks nestled on the city’s hillsides, canyons and mesas.

Frustrated firefighters and paramedics said thick mud blocked the unpaved roads leading to the colonias, making it impossible for them to enter the sodden neighborhoods, where a lack of vegetation tends to hasten the flow of mudslides.

“God only knows how many are injured or dead in those areas. Our vehicles can’t get in,” said one firefighter. “We need a helicopter to get into those areas.”

Various city agencies could only guess that hundreds of shacks were washed away by the rain and hundreds of homes suffered flood damage.

As the downpour continued, Tijuana police issued a plea to residents to stay indoors. A police spokeswoman said emergency vehicles were hampered by cars trying to get through soggy streets, clogging whatever roadways remained passable. Many streets were filled with debris and baseball-size rocks washed along by the floodwaters.

Emergency crews that did manage to get around Tijuana on Thursday waded through streets covered by up to five feet of water to rescue and evacuate almost 500 people.

Some residents were plucked off the roofs of their houses before sunrise. Norma Serrano, a resident of the Zona Norte district near the U.S. border, said her family of five fled water that rose almost to their necks and climbing atop their house at 4:30 a.m.

“It was a terrible experience. We almost had to swim out and were afraid that my two younger sisters would drown,” Serrano said. “We lost everything inside the house.”

Almost all of those escorted to safety lived close to downtown or in the Otay area to the east.

Evacuees were crowded into shelters around the city, including a school, a gymnasium and fire stations. At one fire station, scores of residents slept on dirty floors in a dark room.

At noon, harried firefighters scurried around collecting food for the stranded residents, including many children, some of whom had not eaten in 18 hours. Several dozen quarts of milk and orange juice were brought in, and donations of meals were being sought.

Some emergency crews had worked nonstop since midnight and were showing the strain. The Baja state capital of Mexicali, which escaped flooding, sent 50 firefighters and equipment to assist Tijuana rescue workers. The city of Ensenada also sent a team of paramedics.

Rodriguez International Airport was closed periodically as crews struggled to remove water from runways while diverting arriving flights to Los Angeles International Airport and Hermosillo airport, spokesman Jesus Rosales said.

The flooding also spread to the U.S. side of the border, reducing the Mexican customs checkpoint at the San Ysidro port of entry to a three-lane bottleneck. A highway leading to downtown Tijuana was under as much as six feet of water in some areas, with the roofs of some stalled cars barely visible.

City road crews struggled to unclog sewer grates, hoping that some muddy water would drain off the streets. But rain, sometimes falling in torrents, continued relentlessly.

Although the death toll in Tijuana was the highest since a 1980 storm took the lives of at least 10 people, Baja state officials breathed a sigh of relief because the border cities of Tecate and Mexicali were spared the devastation. Nonetheless, Mexican army troops were providing sandbags to residents still under threat of flooding from the storm that was forecast for today.

On the U.S. side of the border, the low-lying Tijuana River Valley just west of San Ysidro was under several feet of water. The U.S. Coast Guard and Border Patrol teamed up with San Diego emergency crews to rescue several residents and animals. Among those helped to safety were two men clinging to bushes in the rushing river.

A Coast Guard helicopter whisked from the lowlands a mother and two young children trapped by rising waters in their motor home. In all, the Coast Guard rescued 10 people during the day.

Coast Guard Lt. Gene Adgate said the Tijuana River had overflowed its banks up to 10 miles inland, endangering horses and cattle at small farms and ranches. County animal control officers rushed to transport the animals to dry land, aided by Border Patrol agents and a horse trailer.

* SOUTHLAND STORM: Heavy rains caused flooding and three traffic deaths. B1