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Officials evacuated about 325 men and women from Bridge shelter on New Year’s Day after heavy rains

For the third time in seven years, hundreds of people had to flee a homeless shelter in downtown San Diego this week after a heavy storm dropped a month’s worth of rain, causing floods.

The area received 2in of rain on New Year’s Day, which broke local records and forced multiple water rescues, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Officials evacuated the Bridge shelter, a massive gray tent, on New Year’s Day, and about 325 men and women moved to a gym in a local park, the newspaper reported.

Southern California has seen heavy storms in recent weeks – causing the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, to declare a state of emergency – and the rainfall was expected to continue through the weekend.

The winter storms come less than a year after wildfires devastated much of the area. The Los Angeles fire department issued an evacuation warning in a burn-scarred area because of potential debris flow due to the rainfall, and the National Weather Service issued a flood watch and stated that areas near burn scars are prone to flash flooding.

Such extreme weather events are expected to increase because of climate change and the people most affected by such disasters are often those experiencing homelessness, according to recent research.

“Not a great start to the new year,” Bob McElroy, the CEO of Alpha Project, the non-profit that runs the shelter, told the Union-Tribune.

Hundreds staying at the shelter also had to evacuate in 2018 and 2024.

“We’re definitely seeing more homelessness, more housing disruption, as a result of these disasters,” Steve Berg, of the Washington-based National Alliance to End Homelessness, told NBC News in 2023.

Such events often reduce the housing supply and make it more difficult for people who lose their homes to find affordable housing. In 2024, 11 million people in the United States were displaced from their homes by natural disasters, Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, an international nongovernmental organization, reported.

After wildfires broke out in 2023 in Maui, Hawaii, the state saw an 83% increase in homelessness, according to a US Department of Housing and Urban Development report.

“Disasters like wildfires and hurricanes cause the displacement of housed and unhoused people alike,” a Georgetown Environmental Law Review report stated. “In short-term events, like evacuations, stop-gap measures like temporary housing and camping may be sufficient to meet needs. But when disasters damage or destroy housing, survivors may seek permanent solutions, like new housing, only to find such additional housing unavailable because it was also destroyed and other scarcity at play in the real estate market broadly.”

In 2024, flooding forced Bridge shelter residents to flee through waist-deep water, the Union-Tribune reported. About five years earlier, a flash flood hit the same shelter.

“It takes a lot to scare me, and that scared me,” one person staying at the shelter told the Union-Tribune.

This week’s storm again ravaged the property, at a time when the city already did not have enough beds for people needing shelter.

Michael Coats, 68, who had been staying under the tent with his wife, remained optimistic despite being homeless and having to flee the shelter.

“I call him God,” Coats told a local NBC affiliate. “It gives me my inspiration to keep trudging through this, from being on the street to where I am today and where I will end up one day” with “my wife and I back into another apartment”.

San Diego County is expected to start drying out Friday, one day after widespread heavy rains flooded roads and forced rescues of a dozen people from rising flood waters around the region.

By the time skies were clearing late Thursday, records for New Year’s Day rainfall totals had been broken from San Diego to Chula Vista to El Cajon, and wide swaths of the county had been soaked with more than 2 inches in as many days.

In San Diego, a lifeguard team came to the aid of an adult and a child trapped in a car at the Fashion Valley mall, said Fire-Rescue Department spokesperson Candace Hadley, who was at the scene.

That rescue was one of 10 across the city Thursday, she said. Among the others was a helicopter rescue of a woman who was swept away trying to cross a flooded area while out walking with her husband near Lake Hodges.

Many areas — including downtown San Diego, Mission Valley, Alpine, Poway and Escondido — were drenched Thursday with more than 2 inches in just 12 hours, at a rate National Weather Service meteorologist Philip Gonsalves called “pretty remarkable.”

By Thursday evening, nearly 2.5 inches of rain had been recorded over a two-day period at the San Diego airport, which typically averages less than 2 in the month of January. National City had recorded 2.73 inches, Chula Vista 1.61 inches, Escondido 2.3 inches, La Mesa 2.78 inches and Poway just over 2 inches.

Palomar Observatory recorded the highest totals — well over 5 inches — while coastal North County cities were spared, with just about 1 inch over the two days.

Throughout the day, flooding closed an onramp to state Route 78 in Oceanside, snarled commutes on Interstate 5 around Del Mar and forced road closures and detours in the Mile of Cars area in National City.

The rain slowed Interstate 15 traffic when a tractor-trailer hydroplaned, crashed and jack-knifed. And San Diego activated its inclement weather program for homeless shelters for the second day in a row, boosting capacity.

By midday, the worst of the rain was over, and showers were tapering off Thursday night. Friday is expected to bring only “on-and-off light showers, if anything,” said NWS meteorologist Stephanie Sullivan.

But forecasters warned the San Diego River could remain above flood stage in Fashion Valley into midday.

“We had some fairly intense rainfall that was more or less concentrated right in Mission Valley, essentially covering most of the San Diego River basin,” Gonsalves said. “That caused the river to rise rapidly.”

The weekend could bring more chances of light to moderate showers across the county. Sullivan said another storm system could drop more rain Saturday. “There’s just a lot less moisture with that system,” she added.

That rain isn’t expected to contribute to coastal flooding, even as the last king tides of the season arrive Friday and Saturday.

Another pair of weather systems coming in from the Gulf of Alaska could bring more precipitation Sunday and Monday. “At this point, none of them look particularly heavy,” Sullivan said.

Hadley cautioned that despite clearing skies, some roads remained flooded. She urged drivers not to cross even partially flooded roads. Anyone whose car gets stuck should stay put, call 9-1-1 and wait for help.

About 400,000 San Diego County residents and 240,000 families rely on federal SNAP food benefits – which did not arrive on time this month because of the federal government shutdown.

After a court ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to pay out November federal food assistance benefits in full Thursday, funds have been disbursed to recipients in the San Diego region and across California.

The funds from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or , weren’t paid out on Nov. 1 as usual because of the ongoing government shutdown, raising questions about when San Diego County’s 400,000 recipients would receive the benefits.

Also known as in California, SNAP helps people with low incomes buy groceries. About 240,000 San Diego households receive CalFresh benefits, which were worth $75 million in June, the last month of available data.

The order from the U.S. District Court of Rhode Island to fully fund SNAP came as a result of a lawsuit by California and 22 other states. The Trump administration has appealed the decision, arguing that it lacked the legal authority to pay out SNAP and that it wouldn’t tap emergency.

While the SNAP disbursal provides some relief, the government shutdown is not over and “the need in our community continues,” San Diego Food Bank Director of Communications Arika Daniels said. “Many individuals, such as TSA employees, are about to miss another paycheck, adding strain to household budgets and increasing demand for food assistance.”

The court order follows a tense week for food assistance providers. Brigitte Wesselink, the vice president of operations at the San Diego Food Bank, said that calls to 2-1-1, a call line that helps connect people to resources, asking about food assistance nearly tripled in volume, in particular in Chula Vista, El Cajon and City Heights.

Food distributors have been reaching out and asking for help handling increased demand.

“We had one partner reach out just yesterday saying that they had a thousand people additional people show up in what they’re used to,” she said. “Frequently they’ve been running out of food.”

At an event to announce $3 million in emergency food funds by the local philanthropic initiative United For San Diego to fill the gap, providers said the shutdown is driving even more need as San Diego’s large government workforce misses paychecks.

Robert Kamensky, CEO of Feeding San Diego, listed several unexpected groups “looking for provisioning to see families through.” They include TSA airport security personnel, military families at Camp Pendleton, Marine Corps groups and Murphy Canyon Airport Authority personnel.”There is no end in sight for the government shutdown. But when it does end, a quarter of San Diego’s SNAP recipients could lose benefits as new eligibility requirements from the federal spending bill passed in July known as the “Big, Beautiful Bill” kick in.