Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
that will inevitably be washed away in the next extreme wet year. To this day,
cities sprawl onto the l oodplains, housing developments pop up in the deltas,
and homes are built on the edges of clif s and canyons where landslides occur.
Clearly, as Steinbeck indicated, society has collectively “lost its memory” of
the earth's climatic past. h e worst l ood in recorded history in the West
occurred in the winter of 1861-62. h is diluvial disaster turned enormous
regions of California into inland seas for months. Today, these same regions
are home to California's fastest-growing cities. Much can still be learned
from that historic l ood, since many of the survivors wrote chilling accounts
of it. In the next chapter, we focus on the l ood of 1861-62, relating i rsthand
accounts of harrowing events and drawing the lessons we should have learned
from this catastrophe.
