Flood of excuses

Amid the deluge of public outrage that has justifiably followed last month’s flooding in San Jose, city officials have taken the blame for failing to give thousands of residents timely warning — sort of.

Even as Mayor Sam Liccardo, City Manager Norberto Dueñas and other San Jose officials have publicly accepted responsibility in the wake of the disaster, they have been noticeably quick to deflect it, particularly toward the Santa Clara Valley Water District.

“The city accepts responsibility for not giving adequate and timely notice ... about the potential for flooding on Coyote Creek and the need to evacuate,” declares an after-action report by Dueñas’ office, before adding, “The city relied on data from the SCVWD that was fundamentally flawed.” Too much of the city’s post-disaster analysis has taken just this form: It was our fault; it wasn’t our fault. For the water district’s part, Chairman John Varela maintained that some of the city’s official statements have been made “in good faith but without full knowledge or facts.”

San Jose does deserve credit for examining its missteps (and others’) at length and acknowledging puzzling shortcomings, such as a dearth of information in Vietnamese and Spanish, languages far from new to the region. And there is surely blame to go around, from extraordinary weather to miscues at the water district and other agencies. Santa Clara County, for example, neglected to get emergency-alert technology up and running, according to the Mercury News, an embarrassing oversight in the heart of Silicon Valley.

Nevertheless, if San Jose officials really want to accept their responsibility to protect public safety and eschew finger-pointing — as they keep insisting they do — they should start with their own fingers.