I didn't believe it was that much, so I checked. We may both be wrong.
According to the USGS, Lake Tahoe has an average depth of 1000 feet and covers 191 square miles, or 191,000 square-mile-feet.
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the floor of the Central Valley is about 18,000 square miles.
Dividing, (191,000 square miles * feet) / (18,000 square miles) and we obtain 10.6 feet of coverage, not one foot.
California covers 163,707 square miles.
Dividing, (191,000 square miles * feet) / (163,707 square miles) and we obtain 1.16667 feet, or 14 inches of depth covering the entire state, which is confirmed elsewhere.
Another theory is that a siezemic slide dammed Tahoe up to where it is today, drowning those trees.
Thanks for checking out the inland sea concept and finding out we were both wrong. Amazing, isn't it?