Here Comes the Flood

1997 flood of the Feather River at Oliveherst [click photo for brief history]

Yesterday the Army Corps of Engineers announced that they would be decertifying the Natomas Basin as being safe from a 100 year flood, reducing the protection level to a 30 year flood. This will effectively stop all new construction in this area.

The Natomas Basin lies just north of downtown Sacramento and currently is the area of fastest growth in the region.


The Sacramento River flows south from the upper left hand corner of the photo past Sacramento International Airport then heads east near the bottom of the photo to its confluence with the American River just north of downtown Sacramento. The area to the east of the river and north of Interstate 80 is the area that would be effected by flooding of the basin. I-80 is the road running diagonal downward from the right to left. Downtown Sacramento lies to the east of the Sacramento river as it exits the bottom of the photo and south of the American river.

Along side the farm land is a large area of high density housing built in the last few years. Below is one of many neighborhoods in the area.


Check back for much more on this situation in the days to come as I put together a report.

In the meantime here is a hydrologist's take on the history of floods and the Sacramento Valley.

Link

And a musical interlude from Peter Gabriel

Here Comes the Flood

We Survived

We survived somewhat damaged but not as bad as the folks in the photo 99 posted. Hopefully they have insurance!
It's not worth making a claim for my losses since the fence was 18 years old and the roof is 8-10 years old. Any payout would be minimal and not worth the risk of getting dumped.

Here's where I will be if you can't find me - click on photos to enlarge.


Tree parts - you can see the power line in the street to the upper left of the tree part pile. Ten minutes before it all came down my truck had been parked with the rear bumper at the right hand yellow line.



Downed power lines. One down to the ground and one sagging into the lower wires. Notice the insulator broken off of the transformer.




My roof - not as bad as I had envisioned. Big Dan will flip over this photo!












A portion of my fence. There is about another 40 feet behind the camera's view that's also down as well as some parts of the back fence. The ironic thing is that the post which is tied with the yellow rope was the only part I was worried about. I had tied it off yesterday in anticipation of the storm.


The crime tape which provided much entertainment as the cops tried to keep it deployed.








The back edge of the storm has finally arrived.

They Call the Wind Maria

Somebody's House in Sacramento Today

Agent BB2 ain't whistling Dixie....

Ridin' The Storm Out

Wave 2 is here, I made it to work with numerous encounters of tree limbs and misc. debris. At one point I got to play chicken with a large garbage can and had to dodge one of those giant fiberglass van bumpers that was blowing across the freeway.

I was driving 45mph with the wind to my back, torrential rain falling and my windshield was dry!

From the home front my wife reports:

So far the toll is about 150' of fence, a pile of tree limbs and 30,000 volt power lines down in front of my house.

Winds currently are around 40mph sustained with 65mph gusts with soaking rain.

The cops have our house surrounded with crime tape to keep people away from the power lines. It's a regular Keystone Cops episode watching them trying to keep the tape up and keep people from driving down the street past the downed lines.

The cops are sitting in their cars about a half block away in each direction. When a car comes down the street the cops get on their bullhorns and tell the car to turn around with a cordial "Don't make me get out of my car".

Here at work the neighbor who shares or building has had two large roll-up doors blown in off their tracks. Their business is closed today but fortunately one of his customers stopped by and happened to know his home phone number so we could alert him.

The cold front is still about 50 miles off shore and isn't due to pass through for another couple of hours. As it passes we will see the highest winds and most torrential rainfall.

RIDIN' THE STORM OUT
.