Leucadia residents and businesses still pleading for city to fix drainage

Encinitas Advocate:

With buckets and sandbags, the people who live and work near Leucadia Roadside Park desperately fought an ultimately unsuccessful battle to keep rising floodwaters from entering their homes and businesses as a record-setting rainstorm hammered the region Monday, Jan. 22.

Two days later, they pleaded with the Encinitas City Council to finally resolve drainage problems that have bedeviled the low-lying area for decades, saying the city’s previous attempts have done little, if anything, to improve the situation. The Jan. 22 storm, which dropped more than 3 inches of rain onto Encinitas, provided ample evidence that drainage is still a huge unresolved issue in Leucadia, they said.

Stacy Reddell, the new executive director of the Leucadia 101 Main Street Association, listed all of the small businesses that sustained damage from the recent flooding, including coffee shops, a pizza place and a ceramics studio. Some people, particularly the owners of The Mudd House Studio, were “completely devastated” by the amount of water that came pouring into their buildings after the roadways around the park on Coast Highway 101 began flooding Jan. 22, she said.

Seems like this should have been a higher priority than a second senior center.