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The Biblical Flood That Will Drown California – Mother Jones
Tl;dr It rained a lot and California flooded
California’s dam system is mostly geared to capturing and controlling snowpack run off, so when massive, long duration storms come in, the state floods. Basically, the Sacramento Delta is the only way for the water in the Sacramento valley to drain out.
My home elevation is ~ 130 feet for a reason!
They also provide a stark look at the greatest natural disaster known to have befallen the western United States since European contact in the 16th century: the Great Flood of 1861–1862. The cataclysm cut off telegraph communication with the East Coast, swamped the state’s new capital, and submerged the entire Central Valley under as much as 15 feet of water. Yet in modern-day California—a region that author Mike Davis once likened to a “Book of the Apocalypse theme park,” where this year’s wildfires have already burned 1.4 million acres, and dozens of fires are still raging—the nearly forgotten biblical-scale flood documented by Brewer’s letters has largely vanished from the public imagination, replaced largely by traumatic memories of more recent earthquakes.
Tl;dr It rained a lot and California flooded
California’s dam system is mostly geared to capturing and controlling snowpack run off, so when massive, long duration storms come in, the state floods. Basically, the Sacramento Delta is the only way for the water in the Sacramento valley to drain out.
My home elevation is ~ 130 feet for a reason!