SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — Nearly eight months after floodwaters destroyed homes, some residents in San Diego's Shelltown neighborhood are still trying to recover.
“I still feel very sad because I’m waiting for my house,” said Fortino Cortes, who is living in a trailer while crews work to repair the damage to his home.
Cortes said he spent four months living with his wife in a hotel paid for by the County of San Diego after the Jan. 22 storm.
But once the temporary hotel program ended, he moved into the trailer in his front yard.
“I feel very bad and I’m still waiting [for] somebody from the city [to] come and bring some help to me.”
Video from the day of the flooding that Cortes took shows water almost reaching the top of his fence and vehicles on his street submerged.
“I lost everything,” Cortes told Team 10’s Austin Grabish.
Grabish covered the aftermath of the January storm and now is following through checking back in on some of the hardest-hit streets.
Cortes lives on Cottonwood Street, a part of Shelltown that’s still cleaning up from the flood waters.
Contractors are still working on homes in the areas as residents try to rebuild.
Some residents including Cortes told Team 10 they’re waiting for insurance reimbursements, which is putting them in tight financial situations.
Others like Beatrice Espinoza are still in mourning.
Her cat’s lungs couldn’t withstand the toxic flood waters from that day. “She drowned,” Espinoza said as she got emotional telling Team 10 about Tootsie.
“When the flood came, somebody had oil. I don't know where it came from. It came out in my yard and everything got full of oil.”
"Never seen something like this"
Espinoza said flood waters destroyed her bathroom and left her kitchen and car damaged.
She said she received about $16,000 in funding from FEMA to replace flooring and remodel.
“I've been here 58 years and I've never seen something like this,” she said.
Cortes told Team 10 he is frustrated that no representative from the City of San Diego has come by his home since the flooding.
“I feel sad. I feel angry.”
City of San Diego communications director Nicole Darling pushed back on that claim and said city teams went to Cottonwood Street in the days and weeks following the storm.
“We had staff canvassing the areas of Southcrest, Shelltown, Mountain View, Mount Hope, Grant Hill, Encanto, Skyline, Webster and Rolando,” she said in a statement.
Darling added the city collaborated with VOAD, which is an organization that had people on the ground for many days after the storm, going door to door to offer resources and assistance.
“We shared our maps with VOAD and they continued the in-person assistance and resource support,” Darling said.
Cortes believes it will still be months before he can move back into his home.
Inside, flooring still needs to be replaced, a new kitchen must be built and he’s waiting for help to pay for new furniture.
A GoFundMe fundraiser has been created to help the Cortes family rebuild.
