SUN VALLEY, CA. As Los Angeles officials warn of a potentially severe El Niño season, residents of Sun Valley are asking a direct question: Will preparation arrive before the next flood, or after?
As Los Angeles warns of a potentially severe El Niño season, Sun Valley residents are questioning whether promised flood-control infrastructure will be built before the next major storm. The long-delayed Rory Shaw Park project, decades in the making, has not yet been funded or constructed.
SUN VALLEY, CA. As Los Angeles officials warn of a potentially severe El Niño season, residents of Sun Valley are asking a direct question: Will preparation arrive before the next flood, or after?
Sun Valley, a largely working-class neighborhood in city council district six, is one of the city's most flood-prone communities. Ordinary rainfall already exposes broken pavement, clogged drainage, large potholes, and vulnerable sidewalks. When rain falls hard, water pools in streets, carries debris, and turns existing infrastructure failures into immediate safety hazards.
This is not a hypothetical danger. In 2005, Los Angeles civil engineer Rory M. Shaw was killed when floodwaters swept him into a sinkhole that opened on Tujunga Avenue while he worked to address storm-related conditions. His death served as a stark warning that in a community without resilient infrastructure, heavy rain can be deadly.
The Rory M. Shaw Wetlands Park Project was conceived as a transformative answer to Sun Valley's flooding and environmental inequities. The plan calls for converting a 46-acre former construction-debris landfill into a stormwater-capture and flood-control facility with park amenities. It is designed to capture runoff from a 929-acre upper watershed, treat it, and move it to adjacent Sun Valley Park for groundwater recharge or downstream drainage.
A separate Upper Storm Drain Project is proposed along Glenoaks Boulevard, San Fernando Road, Tuxford Street, and Tujunga Avenue.
The plan is not cosmetic. It is intended to reduce flood risk, reduce stormwater pollution, conserve water, create wildlife habitat, and bring sorely needed open space to Sun Valley. Yet the community has heard these promises for more than two decades.
The Sun Valley Watershed Management Plan was approved in 2004. The Sun Valley Park Drain and Infiltration System was completed in 2006. The landfill site was acquired between 2008 and 2012. Community design workshops occurred in 2011. The project was renamed in Shaw's memory in 2013, and a groundbreaking ceremony took place in 2014. Yet in 2026, the permanent project still awaits financing and multi-year construction.
County officials acknowledge that implementation has been delayed by the site's complexity and cost. Organic landfill material and methane discovered in 2014 required a substantial redesign, the addition of a passive methane-treatment system, and extensive geotechnical investigations. The county's current account says financing efforts are ongoing through state and federal loan programs, while the project remains delayed due to its significant construction cost.
Residents living near the site have described flooding during even small rain, debris and trash around the project perimeter, dust, deficient sidewalks, inadequate drainage, potholes, and streets that become "lakes." The county has responded with interim improvements costing about $4.1 million for new fencing, landscaping, irrigation, trees, and other perimeter improvements in 2025.
Those are welcome steps, but fencing and landscaping are not flood control. A community facing rising water needs functioning drains, maintained streets, clear gutters and catch basins, safe sidewalks, repaired pavement, enforceable cleanup standards, and a clearly funded, publicly accountable schedule for the permanent infrastructure it has been promised.
This is especially urgent around the project perimeter, where nearby businesses, discarded materials, illegal dumping, and encampment-related debris can become part of the flood hazard when intense water carries trash and obstructions into streets and drainage paths. Community advocates say this is not a reason to stigmatize unhoused people, but a reason for the City and County to provide consistent sanitation, outreach, shelter options, waste removal, and drainage maintenance before severe weather turns neglect into danger.
Mayor Karen Bass has said city crews are clearing catch basins, preparing for flood impacts, and coordinating with emergency agencies for the approaching El Niño season. The city has also stated that street services crews are on standby and that residents can report flooding, road hazards, and other public-right-of-way problems through 311. The city has publicized pothole work, stating that more than 10,000 potholes had been filled in 2026 following winter storms, and the adopted budget calls for increased street and sidewalk repair funding.
Where does Sun Valley stand in those citywide efforts?
Those numbers do not answer the neighborhood-level question: Which streets are being repaired before the next major storm, which catch basins are being cleared, where are temporary pumps or barricades being staged, and who is accountable if known hazards remain open when the rain arrives?
Sun Valley is in Council District 6, represented by Councilmember Padilla, who said the Rory Shaw project is one "Sun Valley residents have anticipated and deserved for a very long time" and that she is committed to identifying strategies to accelerate it.
Community advocates are urging Mayor Bass, Councilmember Padilla, County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, Los Angeles County Public Works, and state leaders to jointly publish a Sun Valley-specific emergency readiness plan within days, not months. The proposed plan would include:
The test, advocates say, is before the rain. Climate resilience is not a slogan. It is whether a parent can walk a child down a sidewalk without stepping into a flooded ditch, whether an ambulance can travel a pothole-ridden street in a storm, whether debris is removed before it reaches a drain, and whether a worker sent to respond to flooding returns home safely.
The Rory Shaw Park Project should be completed, not endlessly celebrated as a future possibility. Its delays may have legitimate engineering, environmental, and financing causes, but the community should not bear the full cost of governmental delay. Los Angeles cannot claim to be ready for a major El Niño event while communities such as Sun Valley are expected to weather it with crumbling roads, neglected drainage, and decades-old promises.
Sun Valley has waited long enough. It should not take another tragedy, another sinkhole, or another flooded neighborhood for government to act as though this community matters.
Mariam Moore, who wrote the original report, is the founder of TCCI, the first environmental non-profit organization dedicated to advocating for environmental justice in disadvantaged communities of color, particularly in Sun Valley.
This article was generated with AI assistance.