The recent rain storms turned some parks into swamps and some streets into rivers in Ocean Beach.

Some shops were spared from Mother Nature’s wrath, while others took it squarely on the chin. And there were a few that were prepared to fight back.

“We have to do whatever we can to protect ourselves,” said Jerry Araos, school owner and chief instructor at Setting Sun Dojo at 4993 Niagara St. “I made a wall out of stacked cinder blocks and reinforced them with sandbags.

“The water rose up enough to cover one block, but stopped there, preventing more water from flooding my school. I learned that lesson the hard way. About 12 years ago when we had a big storm, we weren’t prepared for it and our dojo (school) was flooded, ruining all our mats”.

Across the street from the karate school is Poma’s, an OB favorite, which brings in customers rain or shine.

“The rain actually brought in more traffic for us,” said J.B. Bailey at Poma’s Italian Deli. “In this area, the river forms at the corner here. But it has such a strong local following that people come here daily regardless of the weather. The only thing we did because of the storm was to let our customers order from inside the shop instead of using the outside window.”

A few blocks away on Newport Avenue is a shop that took one on the chin, fortunately for them, it wasn’t a knockout blow.

“My roof is completely trashed,” said Patrick DeMarco, owner of Titian Tattoo. “We had a mini swimming pool in here. Every time it rains it’s been catastrophic here.

“Right now I’m cleaning up the water damage, but the flooding wasn’t bad from the bottom, everything came through the roof, the light fixtures, and the electrical system. I’ve had to clean up a lot of damage in here, I’m thinking the cost to repair all this will be about 20 grand.”

Over at The Black, it was business as usual, but just a couple of steps away is Pride Surf & Skate. They got lucky, a wet floor, no carpet to replace, and the only inventory lost was a couple of pairs of shoes.

“Abbott was hit hard,” said Desiree Crider, from BK Printing. “All those condos on Abbott Street got flooded again. We sandbagged, preparing for the worst, but we were lucky, no damage here. I heard Raglan on Bacon Street was hit hard.”

Falling Sky Pottery on Abbott had a front-row view as the storm hurled a torrent of water at their front window.

“Of the 30 years that I’ve been here this was the biggest flood we’ve had,” said Isouro (Lzzy) Elizondo. “We watched as water came rushing at us, we really couldn’t stop it. We had about 6 inches of water in here that damaged a few of our potter’s wheels.

“As the water was coming in I had to get things off the ground, like the podiums in the center of the gallery. If I hadn’t done that they would have been ruined. As the water came rushing in we just picked up everything we could and salvaged everything that we could.”