Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
importing water by pipeline or railroad from as far away as Alaska's Yukon
River, or towing icebergs to the region from Antarctica. Cloud-seeding was
tried in Northern California. Losses to California's economy eventually
reached $2.6 billion.
But there was a silver lining in all of this gloom. Due to the enormous
economic costs, California and other states in the West became serious—for
the i rst time—about water conservation. Low-l ush toilets and other water
conservation measures got their start. Industries realized that implementing
water conservation measures would be the most ef ective way to meet future
water shortages. For instance, the agriculture industry, which consumes
80 percent of California's freshwater resources, began implementing soil and
water conservation practices.
Floods
On the other end of the climate spectrum, an overabundance of precipita-
tion and runof in the West can also prove disastrous, causing massive l ood-
ing. Floods are common in the West; seldom has a decade passed free of
these devastating events. During unusually wet years, rivers overtop their
channels, inundating vast reaches of land that are typically dry and increas-
ingly populated. h e enormous power of a l ood destroys everything in its
path, leading to landslides and mudl ows, washed-out roads and bridges, lost
crops, lost homes, even lost lives. Worldwide, l oods cause more deaths each
year than any other natural disaster.
Climatologists talk about droughts and l oods as two sides of the same
coin, because the worst l oods in the West ot en followed on the heels of
some of the most severe and prolonged droughts. In 1937-38, for instance,
catastrophic l oods hit California and other parts of the West, punctuating
the end of the infamous Dust Bowl drought. h e northern two-thirds of
California suf ered severe l ooding in December 1937, with record l ows on
rivers draining the northern and central Sierra Nevada. Two strong Pacii c
storms dumped ten inches of rain in Southern California the following
February and March, resulting in catastrophic l ooding from San Diego to
Los Angeles and into the Mojave Desert. h
ose l oods killed 110 people and
destroyed almost 6,000 homes.
Next came severe mudslides, destroying all roads leading to the San
Gabriel Mountains, stranding residents for days, including an elementary
school class forced to climb on top of the cabinets in their classroom to get
