Floodwaters Swallow Vehicle, Erode Creek

The storm is over, but floodwaters left damage in their wake.

The Murrieta Creek were reinforced with gravel as the waters chewed away at the east bank north of Rancho California Road, said Greg Butler, the city's director of public works.

Bulldozers began Tuesday night and finished this morning dumping tons of rocks onto the bank to keep the soil in place, he said.

Public works officials monitored the creek levels periodically by checking a water level gauge under the Rancho California bridge. One of the columns bears the gauge, which is visible from the north side looking south.

The Murrieta Creek water level concerns officials because if a "100-year storm" hit the city, Old Town will flood.

A "100-year storm" is the kind that hits a city once every 100 years, Butler said. The city is not prepared for this.

The Army Corps of Engineers started a flood-control project in 2003 that would ready the city for such an event. The project included four stages, but the corps was working on the second phase when the economy went bad, and legislators cut the funding.

The project's third phase, building a huge basin on Temecula's northern boundary, would ready the city for this kind of storm, Butler said.

The city has been lobbying legislators to fund the project, but with no success.

At least one person lost a vehicle in the floodwaters in Wine Country today, said Jodi Hagemann of the fire department.

At 1:15 p.m., dispatch got a call reporting two men were trapped on the roof of their submerged vehicle on Benton Road near Winchester Road.

Read the incident report by clicking here.

A water rescue team saved the two men, who were unharmed, Hagemann said.

The chance of showers will be 40 percent until 4 a.m., when the sky will be mostly sunny, according to the National Weather Service.