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elevation the Santa Ana River reached on that devastating night. Almost a
century later, this high-water mark allowed hydrologists, commissioned by
San Bernardino County, to calculate the peak l ow of this l ood: an incred-
ible 330,000 cubic feet per second, the highest ever recorded for the Santa
Ana River. h e torrent swept away settlements in San Bernardino, Riverside,
and Orange counties, and it submerged vast areas that lay downriver.
Ironically, farmers and ranchers had prayed for rain in the years preced-
ing the great l oods of 1861-62, because almost two decades leading up to
that year had been exceptionally dry. But in December 1861, the farmers'
prayers were answered with a vengeance. A series of monstrous Pacii c storms
slammed, one at er another, into the west coast of North America, beginning
in Canada in November and working its way as far south as Mexico, produc-
ing the most violent l ooding residents ever saw—before or since. Sixty-six
inches of rain fell in Los Angeles that year, more than four times the normal
amount. h irty-i ve inches fell in the 30 days between December 24, 1861,
and January 23, 1862.
All across Southern California that wet winter, rivers surged over their
banks, spreading muddy water for miles across the arid landscape. Large
brown lakes formed on the normally dry plains between Los Angeles and the
Pacii c Ocean, even covering vast areas of the Mojave Desert. In Anaheim,
Orange County, l ooding of the Santa Ana River created an inland sea four
feet deep stretching up to four miles from the river and lasting four weeks.
In San Diego, just north of the Mexican border, rainfall was three times the
normal amount for the month of January, causing rivers to spill across the
surrounding countryside, washing out roads, drowning cattle, and isolating
people when travelling by wagon became impossible. All of Mission Valley
was under water, and Old Town was evacuated as rising waters i lled the town.
northern california under water
Given how quickly news spreads today in our digital world, it seems incred-
ible that news of Southern California's l oods that awful winter did not reach
Northern California until February 1, 1862. But residents there, where most
of California's 500,000 people lived, were contending with devastation and
suf ering of their own.
Before the l oods, California state geologist Josiah Whitney had hired an
assistant, William Brewer, to help survey the young state's natural resources.
