The week of Jan. 18 brought out the best and worst in Ocean Beach. It all started with a river of water inundating much of the areas west of Bacon Street in north OB from about Brighton Avenue and the area along Newport Avenue to the San Diego River and beach. Unbeknownst to most of the locals, there is a huge storm drain running down Bacon Street from Newport Avenue to the San Diego River channel. This drain is a whopping five-foot-diameter pipe that is supposed to take the water from the hillside and dump it in the river channel to prevent flooding. Years ago, when I was part of the OB Town Council, I remember hearing that as big as that pipe is, in order to drain the hills above OB, it would have to be about twenty feet in diameter. Now maybe that’s what we need — shut down Bacon Street and dig a big streetwide trench in the street about 20 feet deep — turning OB into a mini-Venice Beach with our own OB canal. I’m sure some local would have a gondola in it before you could say “sand bag.” I live in OB and I knew I might need more sand bags, so my wife called Home Depot to find they were selling bags at 32 cents. Bravo, Home Depot, I hope you made a profit on the same bags that the city supplied free of charge at the main OB lifeguard tower, not to mention the mega-dollars which come from OB into Home Depot every year. Well, it might be time for me to sell my HD stock. So, I get my bags lined up at the top of my driveway to stop the looming river of water that must come down Long Branch, Brighton, Muir, Newport, Santa Monica and all of the other roads running to the beach, and the rains come, and come, and keep coming for three days. The yahoos also come with their cars, speeding down the same streets going nowhere and causing a wave action which breaches many of the sand-bagged properties along the roads. These folks could give two hoots to the fact that they are contributing to, or at least adding to the problem of quasi-water-control. They could care that their fellow Obecians are battling to keep their houses, businesses and apartments dry. Yeah, we all love OB as long as we can do whatever, whenever, and to whomever. The city jumps into the fray like Mighty-man with a pump to help out and the pump only becomes flooded and useless after a few minutes (the city is trying something new). Meanwhile, more of our OB locals get to surf in their residences. Maybe we should all get a new flat-board for in-home practice; at least if we fall it would be cushioned by a soggy carpet. To add injury to insult, even the OB MainStreet Association office on Bacon Street got flooded. The water on Bacon was so high that it came through the walls. However, nothing beats the neighbor who stole sand bags from a property on Bacon Street, resulting in flooding of numerous apartments. To that unmentionable we give a new prize — the OBSOB award. [This is almost akin to horse stealing.] My god, man (or woman) —the bags are free. And it’s not like we don’t have enough sand, you OBSOB. On the upside, I did see many locals helping each other at the beach, filling sand bags and putting them at properties around the area. Bravo to you folks. You get no award, just thanks for helping out a neighbor Obecian. The irony is that a couple of years ago, the OB Town Council (and yours truly) pushed the city to spend about $2.5 million on a new three-and-one-half-foot diameter storm drain pipe that was put under Abbott Street from Newport to the river. I hope it wasn’t a waste, at least for the apartments, homes, and businesses on and east of Abbott Street. I wonder if anyone who got flooded in the past did not get inundated this time thanks to the Abbott Street pipe. I have to give a special high-five to SDG&E and the city water department. They have managed to again tear up many of the streets in OB to upgrade their systems. It’s funny, because Abbott Street and other streets were just torn up a few years ago to upgrade the sewer system. Yeah, I know scheduling is beyond our planning capabilities. I guess it’s our gopher-gene in action. The ubiquitous asphalt potholes erode easily with the rain adding to the mess, and when some not-so-careful driver parks too close to the curb they inadvertently break the temporary water line (yes, some are plastic) and thus, you guessed it, we add to the flooding problem. Once again we have found out that trying to divert rainwater via storm-drain pipes going north to the river channel does not work for Ocean Beach. Trying to turn a mountain of water coming down the hill 90 degrees at Bacon Street is like trying to turn a moving train the same angle. The problem starts at Bacon Street! Thus, for all of us down-hillers who live at an altitude of about 10 feet west of Bacon Street, the problem of flooding continues. But are there options? Any attorney in the area with expertise in class-action suits, who may want to represent a group of local property and business owners, who feel that water being unnaturally diverted north to the river channel solely to keep our beach pristine, should start to act. Or is that too radical? Or can the city come up with a solution at Bacon Street to stop the flooding? What we have built in OB is an asphalt storm-drain system called roads, with tons of water rushing down the hillside, and then we try to change its direction with an antiquated storm system built in the 1950s under Bacon Street and a new drainage system under Abbott Street, which is one block too far downhill. In addition, years ago we constructed a dam called Abbott Street, which is at a higher elevation than most of the land to the east of Abbott Street. The result is like the sorcerer’s apprentice in a failed attempt to carry water. Tom Perrotti Ocean Beach