San Diego Made Factory Flood Damage 2024

Hi Friends - San Diego Made Team here.

After more than 5 years of pouring every resource we have, every bit of physical energy we could muster, and every bit of heart we possess into building our wonderful Factory, in the blink of an eye, all of that has been destroyed.

Video of the damage:

During the storm in San Diego on January 22, our entire building flooded, including our creative warehouse with over 20 creative studios/small businesses housed inside. Our conference room, kitchen, and event space were all submerged. Every studio suffered water damage.

While our amazing team has been able to get most of the water out of our side of the building, we still have so much more to do.

Our downstairs neighbors in the building, the amazing team at Finest City Entertainment, are still struggling to extract the water from their space, which went well over 4 ft high. They lost many pieces of expensive A/V equipment, some of their business and personal vehicles on the street were washed away or flooded, and their whole space and everything in it is unusable. Their business is devastated.

At the moment with standing water still in the building, we have no use of the electrical system and are having to rely on borrowed equipment and generators to try to help our friends downstairs get the remaining water out. As overwhelmed as we are, the city's flood restoration companies are equally maxed out with so many families and businesses having suffered major flooding in the past 48 hours. There aren't enough resources to meet this demand, and people, including us, are struggling with the clean-up and dry-out process as a result, with water damage worsening the structure of our buildings and belongings with each hour that goes by. It's a very helpless feeling.

On top of this, almost everyone in San Diego is finding that their insurance company deems that flooding is an excluded peril and is refusing to cover the damages. Our building owner, us, our tenants, and our neighbors all have excellent business insurance but are finding out that that means nothing in this instance. As of now, we are not being offered any financial relief or assistance from city or government agencies. We are out of options, out of resources, and truly at rock bottom.

If you know our team, you know how much we have worked to make the Factory a reality and how much we have struggled to get through 5 already challenging years for small businesses. We feel so defeated, to watch something we've worked so hard to keep afloat literally wash away in an instant. It's unreal.

If you know our building, you know what a special place it is, and how many amazing small businesses call it "home."

While we ARE defeated, tired, scared, and unsure of what our future holds, we know one thing–this special space and the wonderful businesses in it deserve a fighting chance, so we are not throwing in the towel.

We will work to keep moving clean up forward, but we need your help now more than ever.

It's never easy to ask for help, especially financial help when we know how hard so many people are struggling right now, but if you are in a position to give, we thank you sincerely for your donation. Our damages will likely total over $100k and we have no way of meeting our general operating expenses without the use of our space right now, so the costs are mounting.

Every dollar donated will go directly toward water mitigation and operating expenses as we try to keep our business going while also trying to rebuild and help our tenants and neighbors rebuild. Anything you can do is truly a gift to us in this hard time and we thank you.

If you can't donate funds but want to volunteer, we will be looking for help once we have a better plan of how to safely bring people into the space to help. We thank you for that as well.

Lastly, we know San Diego is hurting, and we are not the only ones affected by this tragic situation. Our heart goes out to everyone struggling right now, especially those who lost their homes, pets, and personal belongings. We grieve with and for you and we will do all that we can to help get the city and state to assist us all through this difficult time.

So much love to you all.

The San Diego Made Team