Thanks for that link. I had never heard of that devastating rain in California.
I’d never heard of this event in 1861 but since there was only a few thousand people living in what would become Orange County in those days maybe there were too few to pass on the story. In any event major work on flood control channels was done after flooding in I think the 1930s, so conditions are much different today. I hope I don’t find out how much different anytime soon.