Claremont residents struggling to control mysterious flooding

CLAREMONT, Calif. - Residents in a Claremont neighborhood say massive amounts of water released from a nearby dam continue to cause major flooding in their neighborhood Thursday. 

Residents in the neighborhood, located about a mile south of the San Antonio Dam, were using hoses to pump some of the water out on one street alone.

Flooding and soaked driveways were also seen on New Hampshire Avenue. In some cases, lawns were completely saturated. 

Homeowners in the Stone Canyon neighborhood said they are protecting their property after they started noticing the water as early as Sunday.

Residents said it started as a mysterious leak and then turned into full-on flooding. There was no clear explanation.

A few days later on Tuesday, the city sent out a letter to residents notifying them that the flooding was being caused by water being released from the San Antonio Dam. 

That shows a water level decrease of 20 feet in the last two weeks, and that equates to hundreds of millions of gallons being released at one time, impacting about two dozen homes.

Officials said the situation appeared to be the result of a perfect storm of factors, including the water release from the dam, the recent spate of intense rainstorms and the beginning of runoff from the melting snowpack in the mountains.

"All these multiple factors are contributing to what we've never seen before," she said, referring to the widespread neighborhood flooding.

The city is providing sand and sandbags for residents and providing referrals for contractors who can help with flood control. City engineers and public works inspectors are also in the area to ensure the foundations of homes are not being impacted.

City News Service contributed to this report.