If you don’t think heavy rains cause major problems in Ocean Beach, just go down to the Ocean Beach MainStreet Association’s (OBMA’s) office on Bacon Street and check it out.
It’s been closed for repairs since flooding out earlier this month.
“We had to move out of our office at 1868 Bacon St. Suite A and had to have part of the wallboard replaced, moved everything out of the office, and took out the wet carpet, the desks that were damaged,” said Denise (Denny) Knox, OBMA’s executive director. “We really only lost furniture. Everything was up high enough that it wasn’t a (big) problem.”
Knox added that drying out the office and working from home “has been a little difficult.” But she added, “It could have been a lot worse,” while adding “it is very expensive to have to move out, store everything and remodel the office and still keep working.”
Since the water also came in through OBMA’s office’s walls, Knox said, “We are working on sealing up the building so that there is no way for the water to get in . . . then building a dam at the doorway.”
Knox noted extensive flooding also occurred at the parking lot under Shades. “Wings was still closed a few days ago,” she said. “The OB Playhouse got a lot of water, apparently.  Businesses with cement or tile floors fared the best because you can immediately suck the water out and clean the floors.  What killed us was having a carpet.”
OB also had major flooding problems a few blocks away up at Dreamgirls women’s boutique at 5054 Newport Ave., where the damage was less extensive — but more intensive — on Tuesday, Jan. 5.
“We flooded, and it (only) took a minute,” said Carla Vega, the boutique’s manager. “It was coming in like a river. It (rain) was creeping in. The next thing you know, it was all the way to the back (of the store) and we were scrambling around trying to get all the electrical wiring off the floor and disconnected.”
After the rest of that day and night of clean-up, Vega said Dreamgirls opened the very next day.
Vega said the boutique will be better prepared for the next heavy rain event in this El Nino year.
“We have a gazillion sandbags ready outside the door,” she said, adding there was such a run on sandbags locally that they had to travel miles away to a Home Depot to get them.
Meteorologist Jimmy Taeger of the National Weather Service in San Diego said short-term projections indicate a major storm is not expected before the end of January, but added El Nino is something real — not imagined.
“Chances are good of us getting above-normal winter precipitation,” he said.
Taeger said San Diego’s normal rain average per year, most of which falls during the winter, is 10.34 inches.
He said during the six most recent El Nino years that rainfall then has exceeded the yearly average, ranging from a low of 10.99 in the least rainy El Nino year to 18.49 inches during the rainiest year, 1982-83.
El Niño means The Little Boy, or Christ Child in Spanish and refers to the large-scale ocean-atmosphere climate interaction linked to a periodic warming in sea surface temperatures across the central and east-central Equatorial Pacific. Typical El Niño effects are likely to develop over North America during the upcoming winter season.
OBMA’s Knox said their office “should be back up and running in 10 days to 2 weeks. Many local businesses got flooded ,and we are working to compile the information so that we can go to the City and make some changes if possible to lessen the impact when we get heavy rains.”
Knox had one other piece of advice for local merchants.
“Every merchant and many homeowners should have a heck of a lot of sandbags if this happens again,” she said. “We’re at the low point on the coast, and with high tides and lots of rain, it gets a little dicey.”