Floodwaters Rise, Hearts Sink, Furniture Floats

Jennifer Johnson stood under a battered umbrella, on a high spot by South Budlong Avenue, and watched five feet of muddy water roll through the open front door of her home.

She couldn’t see inside the recently remodeled three-bedroom bungalow she and her husband, Matt, have owned for 21 years, but she knew too well what it looked like.

“The furniture is floating,” Johnson said, casting a glazed, unbelieving stare into the huge pond spreading across her urban neighborhood. “We just bought that furniture and put in wall-to-wall carpeting. Even the walls are soaked through.”

Johnson was not alone Sunday afternoon.

At least a half-dozen families who live near Imperial Highway and South Budlong Avenue in the Athens district north of Gardena also were flooded out.

It was the second day in a row that rainwater from the storms hitting Los Angeles backed up in the neighborhood, forcing hasty evacuations and submerging three cars. Residents had hauled almost a dozen other vehicles to higher ground.

It was the worst residential flooding from the weekend storms in the Los Angeles area. Authorities said it was caused by a malfunctioning drainage system that may have been damaged during construction work on the nearby Century Freeway.

Jean Granucci of the County Department of Public Works said Sunday that several water pumps had been sent to the scene. But help didn’t arrive fast enough for the street’s soaked residents.

The water first rose Friday night at the start of the storm, residents said. The pond subsided Saturday, then rose to even higher levels Sunday when the rain began pouring again.

When the flooding began, said Alisa McCall, she and her neighbors stood in the street trying to keep cars from plowing into the rising waters.

“They just kept coming at regular speeds,” she said. “I guess they just couldn’t believe the water was that high.”

When cars started floating, McCall, her husband and her brother-in-law used a truck and cable to pull as many out as they could, she said. The McCall home, across the street from the Johnson home, was not flooded because houses on that side of Budlong are built on a rise.

Johnson said her family was evacuated at 3 a.m. Saturday by firefighters who cut through their back fence to reach the house, which held nearly a foot of water then.

On Sunday morning, she said, they returned to the house and found about 10 inches of water inside.

“We fed the dog, put him out on the service porch and left,” Johnson said.

“When we got back an hour later, it was like this,” Johnson said. “It’s unbelievable.”

The dog was rescued by firefighters, Johnson said. They found him clinging with this front paws to a clothes dryer, trying to keep his head above water.