Immense Destruction of Property – Damage $10,000,000.
The Pacific slope has been visited by the most disastrous
flood that has occurred since its settlement by white men. From Sacramento northward to the Columbia
River, in California, Nevada Territory and Oregon, all the streams have risen
to a great height – flooded the valleys, inundated towns, swept away mills, dams,
flumes, houses, fences, domestic animals, ruined fields and effected damage,
estimated at $10,000,000. All Sacramento
City, save a small part of one street, part of Marysville, part of Santa Rosa,
part of Auburn, part of Sonora, part of Nevada, and part of Napa not to speak
of less important towns were under water.
The rainy season commenced on the 8th of November and for
four weeks, with scarcely any intermission the rain continued to fall very
gently in San Francisco but in heavy showers in the interior. According to the statement of a Grass Valley
paper nine inches of rain fell there in thirty six hours on the 7th and 8th
instant.
Sacramento City was the chief sufferer. – The city stands at
the junction of the Sacramento and American Rivers, on the eastern bank of the
former and the southern bank of the latter.
The valley there is wide and flat.
Form the foot of the Sierra Nevada at Folsom, to the base of the coast
range near Fairfield, the plain is about 10 miles wide. The original site of the city was sixteen
feet above low water mark and the river rose 17 or 18 feet above nearly every year.
A railroad connects Sacramento and Folsom both on the
southern bank of the American River and twenty miles apart. The railroad enters the Capital city about
two miles north of the American River on a high embankment. The water ran against the levee and then down
to the railroad embankment, and unable to go further it heaped itself against
these two barriers until it rose above the levee and began to pour in. Soon the soft earth gave way and the vast body
of water poured into the city and flooded every part of it except a small
portion of Front street. The levee which
had been built to protect the city now was the cause of great injury for
instead of keeping the water out it kept it in.
The flood entered at the east, where the land is high and if the levee
had not been in the way the water would have run off without touching the
business part of the city. The
Sacramento River was much lower, its flood had not time to come down so there
was abundant room for the water of the American to spread out when it should
reach Sacramento River. But the levee
dammed the water in and it very soon was ten feet higher inside than the levee
of the Sacramento river on the outside.
In some places the water was fifteen feet deep, in others ten, in others
three. The greater part of the most
fashionable houses had from three to six feet of water in the parlors. In many of the houses the line of the flood
is visible on the plastering in the second story. Dozens of wooden houses, some of them two
stories high were lifted up and carried off.
The destruction of property was terrible. The water came so rapidly that most people
had not more than an hour’s warning of the danger. Most persons living in two story houses
carried their furniture and cooking utensils and provisions upstairs, those who
lived in one story houses ran for their lives.
And when the water filled the city there was no boats. Men, women and children had stayed in houses
thinking there was no danger and when the flood rose they could not get away. –
Some of these houses were carried off and boats were sent after them to rescue
the human freight. All the firewood most
of the fences and sheds, all the poultry, cats, rats, and many of the cows and
horses were swept away.
The Union of the
18th says:
The water had so far receded from the western part of the
city yesterday afternoon that the inundated portion was limited to the section
lying between Third and Seventh and south of M Street. On all the adjoining streets the late
occupants of houses were busily engaged in cleaning out and fixing up those of
their houses which can be made inhabitable again. The scene presented is one of confusion and
desolation. Some of the houses are
turned partially around, some are broken and shattered, and all are covered
inside and outside up to the high water mark with mud – mud of the worst kind –
of a soft slippery greasy character which it required a great deal of labor to
get rid of. The streets were strewn with
fences, doors, shutters, lumber, cord wood, broken furniture, dead horses and
lifeless cows and hogs. Fruit trees and
shrubbery are greatly injured if not utterly destroyed. Boats of various sizes are still actively
engaged in the water picking up whatever is worth taking possession of. Many families are evidently preparing to go
into their houses in a few days.
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye,
Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, February 1, 1862, p. 3
