The banner Beba Zárate hung outside her Shelltown neighborhood home for Día de Muertos weeks ago is still there.
"Enero 22," it says, or January 22. The day the neighborhood died and had to be reborn.
It’s been almost a year since floods upended the lives of more than a thousand San Diegans. They primarily lived in neighborhoods with some of the city’s highest concentrations of Black, Latino and low-income residents, where many said the city hadn’t kept the storm drains clear.
Rain still keeps some Shelltown neighbors up at night.
But most have working kitchens again in time for Thanksgiving.
"You don't know if you're going to live the next day," Zárate said. "So if you have something today, like a good dinner, enjoy it."
Her carport used to look like an emergency response center, filled to the roof with donated supplies for distribution. Now, it’s mostly empty.
She said they’re largely done scrambling to meet their basic needs. Now, neighbors are planning in case it floods again.
"We hear that it's not going to happen again, but who guarantees us that it's not going to happen again? Probably yes, probably no. But we have to be ready," she said.
Zárate urges her neighbors to keep the streets clear of trash.
They’re also trying to figure out questions like: Who’s in charge of watching for heavy rain? Where’s the closest shelter? Would the nearby school take them in? Who has resources to help?
"The storm — nobody knew where to go. It was like a chaos in there. So we don't want that happen that again," Zárate said.
The holidays feel different.
She said they can’t afford a Christmas tree this year, but she wants the neighborhood to celebrate again.
So she’s planning a traditional Mexican Posada, like in the years before the flood.
Prayer and song will fill the now-dry streets. Neighbors will say the rosary and carol door-to-door, re-enacting Mary and Joseph’s pleas for shelter in the Bible — a now familiar plight. They will share a hot meal cooked on a working stove.
On Zárate’s restored kitchen counter sits a vase of purple flowers from her garden.
They survived the flood, too.
Water covered them entirely. It killed what was on the surface, but not the roots. They grew back and bloomed again.
"Hope," Zárate said.
