Posted on 02/21/2017 10:02:22 AM PST by BenLurkin
California has seen worse: massive floods have swept through the state about every 200 years for at least the past 2,000 years, climate scientists Michael Dettinger and Lynn Ingram recount in a 2013 article.
The most recent was a series of storms that lasted for a near-biblical 43 days between 1861 and 1862, creating a vast lake where Californias Central Valley had been. Floodwaters drowned thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of cattle, and forced the states government to move from Sacramento to San Francisco.
More than 150 years have passed since Californias last, great flood and a team of researchers with the US Geological Survey have predicted what kind of damage a similar flood would cause today. Their simulation, called the ARkStorm, anticipates that a stretch of the Central Valley 300 miles long by 200 miles wide would be underwater. Cities up and down the coast of California would flood. Winds would howl 60 to 125 miles per hour, and landslides would make roads impassable.
...And it could happen again any time: its been 150 years since the 18611862 floods, they wrote. So it appears that California may be due for another episode soon.
...
The good news is that the weather seems to be calming down for now. Over the past 48 hours, two to three inches of rain washed over the Sacramento valley and between five and eight inches fell in the Sierra Nevadas, Eric Kurth, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, told The Verge. At least a foot of snow fell at higher mountain elevations, and more is expected. The winds have calmed down today, but yesterday they howled at 199mph through Californias mountain peaks. Thursday should bring a brief dry spell, but more typical, cold winter weather will follow.
(Excerpt) Read more at theverge.com ...
Back in the day when people dressed nicely.
I think it was a bit overhyped, but it looks like a number of mountain communities along the coast and in the Sierras got over 10 inches total.
http://water.weather.gov/precip/
If we were smart here in California, we would’ve used the impetus of climate hysteria over drought (which makes no sense anyways because a warmer climate is a wetter climate, but to humor the argument) to build more water infrastructure so that more of the billions of gallons of water now flowing out to sea could be captured and used during dry times, but alas we are not smart as a state. Better to spend that money providing legal services to illegal aliens . . .
They were holding Camanche at about 70% until Oroville problems. My guess is that they stopped dumping because of the impact on the Delta of Oroville. The Cousumnes has also been flooding into Delta. Mokulumne has pretty much been held at high but below flood stage except for a brief period a few weeks ago.
This is not surprising. The Oroville Damn problem is a perfect example of the failure of the state and feds at supplying the funds and work to take care of this.
More than a decade ago, federal and state officials and some of Californias largest water agencies rejected concerns that the massive earthen spillway at Oroville Dam at risk of collapse and prompting the evacuation of 185,000 people could erode during heavy winter rains and cause a catastrophe.
Three environmental groups the Friends of the River, the Sierra Club and the South Yuba Citizens League filed a motion with the federal government on Oct. 17, 2005, as part of Oroville Dams relicensing process, urging federal officials to require that the dams emergency spillway be armored with concrete, rather than remain as an earthen hillside.
The groups filed the motion with FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. They said that the dam, built and owned by the state of California, and finished in 1968, did not meet modern safety standards because in the event of extreme rain and flooding, fast-rising water would overwhelm the main concrete spillway, then flow down the emergency spillway, and that could cause heavy erosion that would create flooding for communities downstream, but also could cause a failure, known as loss of crest control. A loss of crest control could not only cause additional damage to project lands and facilities but also cause damages and threaten lives in the protected floodplain downstream, the groups wrote.
FERC rejected that request, however, after the state Department of Water Resources, and the water agencies that would likely have had to pay the bill for the upgrades, said they were unnecessary. Those agencies included the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which provides water to 19 million people in Los Angeles, San Diego and other areas, along with the State Water Contractors, an association of 27 agencies that buy water from the state of California through the State Water Project. The association includes the Metropolitan Water District, Kern County Water Agency, the Santa Clara Valley Water District and the Alameda County Water District. Because of their reports, federal officials at the time said that the emergency spillway was designed to handle 350,000 cubic feet per second and the concerns were overblown.
It is thinking like this, and applying pressure upon lack of completion of commitments based upon available funds, and the state government not stepping in with pressure being applied to agencies that could have assisted the problem long ago, that has them in the position they are currently in. An ounce of prevention could have alleviated a pound of cure.
red
Biblical proportions my Asspertame! Unless of course you ignore the drought ending rains of the 80’s and 90’s, and the floods of 1825, 1850,1861,1909,1933,1937...........Such hyperbole, OMG we are all gonna die, die die!!!! Next up in spring, when the snow melts into the full reservoirs, we are all gonna die die die!!! And please be prepared for the summer when the threat of a major earthquake scare screams we are all gonna die die die!!! And then we have the asteroids, and disease, and oh yeah, zombies!
Ummmm.... NO.
Read the stuff at the links above. A little knowledge might help...
LOL. Good one.
The next year, we had a flood that was worse...
Oh I remember that one. I was in it in Novato, California. Only time in my life I've been in a minor flood. I had to open the side door, as well as the garage door itself to reduce the amount actually trying go through the house.
Had a few neighbors patrolling the street in canoes and row boats.
Found one of my plastic bins around 60# full of iron and steel tools across the street the following day.
That's as close as I ever want to be to a real flood.
Excellent links. Thank you!
The effort by environmental organizations to get the downslope of the Auxiliary Spillway at Oroville hardened and the Main Spillway chute repaired failed because it was misdirected to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that only has control over the hydropower component of Oroville Dam. The dam is owned, built and operated by the State of California. Moreover, it is alleged that the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) rejected funding any repairs or upgrades. MWD’s charter does not provide for it undertaking flood control projects. MWD is the largest buyer of Oroville water and in its water rates presumably should be the recovery of costs to maintain the safety of the dam. But that is mostly a state matter. Environmental organizations have a tendency to champion causes that attract donations rather than accomplishing much. Owens Valley filed a retroactive environmental lawsuit on the LA Dept. of Water & Power to get them to control dust at Owens Lake. Why didn’t these organizations take a similar action? BTW, there is no failure to provide funds to fix the spillways. There are billions of dollars in Prop. 1, Prop. 84 and Prop. 1-E water bond monies uncommitted that could be used to fix the spillways. The problem is that environmentalists are so busy focusing government on saving fish that there is no effort to maintain public safety (as we also saw with the San Bruno natural gas line explosion). Advocating for fish protection provides jobs for environmentalists, fixing spillways and pipelines doesn’t.
All this rain is going to raise the sea level! Global raining! Where’s algore? lol
Most regular people have no clue about statistical statements which can't remain static. Earthquakes, volcanoes and floods never have a regular schedule.
For example, if a flood occurs every 200 years exactly the "recurrence interval" is 200 years.
If a similar flood occurs once, then not again for 700 years, but four years in a row, the "recurrence interval" becomes also 200 years.
So saying "another one is now due" becomes meaningless.
Put a dam at Martinez, CA and everyone can have waterfront property from Chico to Bakersfield.
Luxury Timeshares coming soon!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salton_Sea
Whattttttttttt? I thought kookyfornia was in the midst of a two millenia drought because people weren’t paying their carbon taxes?
Put a high-speed boat from Gorman to Redding
Act quickly! Reserve yours now! These won't last long!
An abandoned boat stuck in the ground, close to the west coast marina of the Salton Sea
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