Newsletter
Newsletter
February 2026
Remembering the Christmas Day Sewer-Flood of 2025
It happened again on Cayuga. We want to make sure people are aware. We don’t want to forget that this problem has not been resolved.
We all know that San Francisco's combined sewer system has a history of being overwhelmed during heavy storms. While it’s been almost two months since a powerful storm hit us with heavy winds, rain, and flash-flooding, we want to memorialize the one that hit Cayuga Avenue on Christmas morning while everyone was asleep.
You may remember that the City was under a flash-flood warning until 6 a.m. that day. But the heaviest rain, which blew off sewer lids and flushed sewage into homes, streets, and sidewalks, happened in the middle of the night. There were reports of flooding near City Hall that morning, at 18th and Castro, and in nearby Daly City. The damage was done around 3 a.m.
We don’t have any video of the sewer-flooding at the north end of Cayuga Avenue. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. We do know there were twenty-eight 311 requests related to sewage in District 11 between December 25 and 27—six of those requests were related to Cayuga Avenue. If you include the calls for street and sidewalk cleaning there were twelve 311 requests for the same period.
There were at least least eight houses along this stretch of Cayuga that had sewage enter their homes during this early morning storm.
The sewer lid in front of one home was blown off by a geyser of sewage which then gushed into the ground-level of their house and damaged their cars parked outside. To add insult to injury, this family also had sewage bubble up from their shower drain and fill their lower-level bathroom with a hazardous muck.
The City Attorney’s office sent a claims investigator out later that week. But they did not offer any help with cleanup or reimbursement for damages—instead they offered a “claims” form to be filled out.
After all these many years, sewer-flooding is still happening on Cayuga Avenue.
The SFPUC offers excuses and explanations, free sandbags, and the nightmare of paperwork and litigation for the victims.
When will they offer a real solution?