Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
h e death and destruction of this l ood caused such trauma that the
city of Sacramento embarked on a long-term project of raising the down-
town district by ten to i t een feet in the seven years at er the l ood.
Governor Stanford also raised his mansion from two to three stories—
leaving empty the ground l oor, to avoid damage from any future l ooding
events.
h
e San Francisco Bay Area Deluges
Downstream of Sacramento, towns and villages throughout the San
Francisco Bay Area were struggling with catastrophes of their own. In
Moraga, a small community twenty miles east of the San Francisco Bay,
great l ooding and destruction washed away meadows and drowned horses
and cattle.
h e scene was repeated throughout the greater Bay Area: twenty miles
northeast of San Francisco, four feet of water covered the entire town of
Napa; to the east, the small town of Rio Vista on the Sacramento River was
under six feet of water. h e entire population of Alamo, at the foot of Mt.
Diablo i t y miles east of San Francisco, was forced to l ee rising l oodwa-
ters. People abandoned their homes in the middle of the night; some found
refuge, others drowned. h e San Ramon Valley was one sheet of water
from hill to hill as far as the eye could see. h e destructive force of the
l oods carried houses, otherwise intact and complete with their contents,
away in the rapids, and horses, cattle, and barns were swept downstream
for miles.
h e heavy rains also triggered landslides and mudslides on California's
steep hillsides. For instance, in Knights Ferry and Mokelumne Hill nearly
every building was torn from its foundation and carried of by mud and rock,
and a major landslide occurred at the town of Volcano in the Sierra foothills,
killing seven people.
h
e Gold Rush Connection
In an ironic twist of fate, the California Gold Rush, which had drawn
so many people to California and heralded modern society in the West,
was partly to blame for the extensive damage brought on by the l oods in
Northern California that winter of 1861-62. Early mining practices used a
simple process of panning for gold, but once the accessible gold was cleared
