49ers’ Joe Montana and Marina neighbors sue SF for flood damage

Four-time Super Bowl champion Joe Montana couldn’t defend against a winter storm that sent floodwaters blitzing through his Marina neighborhood in San Francisco.

The 49ers legend has joined a lawsuit by residents along Marina Boulevard that accuses the city of flawed sewers and storm drains that allowed yuck water to invade their homes, the San Francisco Standard reported.

The amount of damages sought by residents was not disclosed. 

The flood waters followed a series of atmospheric rivers last winter that sent torrential rains into San Francisco. Marina Boulevard, between Webster and Baker streets on the waterfront by Marina Green, closed over New Year’s because of flooding caused by the deluge.

A spokeswoman for the City Attorney’s office has blamed the storm, and not the city’s infrastructure, for the flooding. 

At least 58 residents along Marina Boulevard, including Montana and real estate mogul Victor Makras, have signed on to the lawsuit. The Marina District tops a list of the 20 priciest neighborhoods in San Francisco.

The residents allege the flooding was not just from a freak weather event, but resulted from insufficient infrastructure, and blamed the city for damage done to their properties, according to the complaint.

Montana and other residents alleged in a June claim that the city had known the sewage and storm drainage system along the Marina Boulevard couldn’t handle big storms. They filed a lawsuit late last week, represented by prominent San Francisco attorney Khaldoun Baghdadi, former head of the city’s Human Rights Commission. 

“We don’t only trust the city to maintain the sewage infrastructure, but we pay it for doing so,” Baghdadi told the Standard. “When the city makes the decisions that cause raw sewage to flood homes, it is responsible for compensating residents.”

Residents on Marina Boulevard allege the storm and subsequent flooding were unlike anything they had seen. An October 2021 storm resulted in 4.5 million gallons of untreated wastewater flooding the street, according to the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board.

The storm on Dec. 31 caused 18.6 million gallons of water to flood the area, the water board said in a letter to the city. Millions of more gallons flowed straight into the bay “without authorization” on both occasions, it said.

The City Attorney’s Office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

“The intensity and duration of the storm that hit the city on Dec. 31, 2022, was almost unprecedented. It was the strongest storm to hit San Francisco in more than 170 years,” Jen Kwart, a spokeswoman for the City Attorney’s Office, told the Standard in an email early this month.

“The storm, and not the city’s infrastructure, was responsible for widespread flooding throughout the city.”

— Dana Bartholomew

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