8,500 feet of floodwalls nearly complete in San Jose

SAN JOSE, Calif. - It is hard to forget the scenes in San Jose in February 2017 when heavy flooding along Coyote Creek forced the evacuations of about 14,000 people. By the end of this year, Valley Water, the main water wholesaler for Santa Clara County, will have completed the first phase of a massive floodwall project to prevent such events from happening again. 

The Coyote Creek floods were a nearly unimaginable sight of firefighters evacuating residents in boats and rafts from the creek. Heavy storms that month caused Anderson Reservoir, upstream of the flood zone, to overflow its banks and send massive amounts of water down Coyote Creek. At the time, there were no floodwalls and brush and trees grew in the creek only magnifying the damage. "We are designing this project for the same flood event that happened in 2017," said Robert Yamane, the Valley Water senior engineer on the project. 

The floods of 2017 were a 20-year event and the floodwall is designed to protect communities and area residents along the creek from a similar event. The floodwalls are 12 feet high and extend down about 30 feet into the ground. "This project has been very challenging because Valley Water doesn’t own -- we don’t have the land rights. So we have been working with residents to get the land rights we need," Yamane said. 

When complete, the project will span nine miles in all along Coyote Creek. This first phase, which will be finished by the end of 2024, has 8,500 feet of floodwall. The second phase, which will begin construction in the summer of 2025, is even bigger and will have 10,400 feet of floodwall. The entire project is being completed in order to support a new and larger outlet tunnel upstream at Anderson Reservoir which will allow water flow control during heavy rains. 

"Well, we certainly hope it helps and it is long overdue I think," said Ted Smith, a resident of the area and whose son was flooded out in 2017. But Smith, and other residents, said the project is long overdue.  "The district had been kind of derelict for a long time in terms of trying to protect people and we were particularly concerned during the floods when the district failed to warn people – and the city failed to warn people – people did not know this was coming," Smith said.  Both Valley Water, and the City of San Jose, have since settled lawsuits with impacted residents. 

Another resident, Amanda Hawes, said she believes better flood protection would have been provided earlier in a more socio-economically advantaged part of the city.  "There is a prejudice here. The Eastside does not get the same attention and intervention and anticipatory work to prevent harm that the Westside gets," Hawes said.

The current phase of this project costs $117 million and is paid for by Valley Water through wholesale water rates which are ultimately passed along to consumers by their local water providers.  The second phase, which will cost $221 million, will be paid for by a parcel tax measure approved by voters in 2020. The entire project is expected to be completed by the end of 2027.