The Floods are Warning Us

As floods rage with rainfall and snowmelt, one has to wonder about high water yet to come, and also to reflect on floods we’ve endured.

On February 20, 1986 I lived ten long blocks from the American River, but still a full story beneath the level of floodwaters brimming Sacramento’s levee. At a riverfront park I climbed to the top of the skinny pile of rock that—as a levee—constituted the city’s tenuous defense and, with water lapping at my feet on the other side, I watched angry flows sudsing toward sea. Turning back the other way, I looked down on the roofs of the city.