Trial date nears in Stanislaus County drowning lawsuit

"It was a natural condition of a creek rising," Modesto attorney Lori Reihl, representing the county, wrote in a document asking a judge to throw out the case. He didn't.

Renteria said the county built its road in the path of what regularly becomes an impassable river. He deposed George Stillman, the county's public works director at the time, who acknowledged that the county waits for people to call before putting up flooding barricades, even though officials have become adept at estimating when the creek becomes dangerous to traffic.

"The accident waiting to happen finally happened," Renteria said in a court document.

Witnesses will testify that multiple vehicles have lost control in that same stretch, documents suggest, including a tow truck driver who pulled out several vehicles from 1999 to 2004. One vehicle was swept into the creek and a driver rescued only 11 months before Alvarez's death, because no barricades were put up, records show.

Retired deputy weighs in

Retired sheriff's deputy Louie Galindez said in a sworn statement that he's seen at least a half-dozen vehicles carried away in the creek. While patrolling the West Side over several years, he called for barricades up to 10 times and would wait two or three hours for them, apparently to warn away motorists, a document says.

Snook, the accident specialist, said Garcia would have had to be moving at less than 23 mph to avoid skidding into the creek under conditions that night. The CHP officer who declared Garcia at fault botched the report because he didn't investigate as required for a fatal accident, opting instead for an "inadequate and incomplete" report used for less serious events, Snook said.

Said Renteria, "There is no immunity for this kind of operational negligence."

Bee staff writer Garth Stapley can be reached at gstapley@modbee.com or 578-2390.