Significant flooding at 17th and Folsom Streets in the Mission District, the site where Mission Creek used to flow, is blamed on the city by angry merchants.
The intersection is a natural "bathtub," the lowest point, elevation-wise, in San Francisco.
It's also where the Stable Cafe and other businesses are found – under some "foul-smelling brown water" after Thursday's rain, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Some of the owners of flooded businesses in the neighborhood say the city is partly responsible for the severe flooding, which in part occurs because Folsom Street is now higher than the businesses around it.
That sends water flowing not into storm drains, which are already overwhelmed, but into basements, for the "fourth time in six years," according to cafe owner Malcolm Davis, who estimated damage at $100,000.
Not even lines of sandbags laid in anticipation of the flood could keep the water out.
City workers were on hand Thursday, laying some of the sandbags, but also writing tickets for businesses' trucks stuck outside, the newspaper reported.
