The Other Big One

August 14, 2022 1:44 AM

A megaflood that threatens California and the West Coast, could be the most expensive natural disaster in history. It has happened before, The Great Flood of 1862, caused by an atmospheric river from the Pacific Ocean, first loading the coastal mountains with snow that was then melted by heavy warm rains.
posted by Bee'sWing (7 comments total)

Were both the first and second links supposed to link to the Great Flood of 1862 wiki page?
posted by RichardP at 2:05 AM on August 14, 2022

Sorry, the link should be:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_river
posted by Bee'sWing at 2:12 AM on August 14, 2022

California, like lots of places, has huge underwater water basins. It doesn't really matter if a lake is above ground or underground, if you pull out too much water, you'll empty it out. As a result of decades of drainage, the 27,000 square mile San Joaquin Valley and all the farmland on top of it, is sinking.

Such a flood would cause many billions of dollars in damage, but maybe at least the deep underground water basins would get refilled.

I wonder if this flood would kill the High Speed Rail project (phase 1 is being built in the valley)?
posted by eye of newt at 2:15 AM on August 14, 2022

I wonder if this recent NPR article was supposed to be one of the links.
posted by eye of newt at 2:17 AM on August 14, 2022

Bee'sWing, perhaps I wasn't clear: the first link (i.e. the "megaflood" link) and the second link (i.e. the "The Great Flood of 1862" link) both point to the same Great Flood of 1862 page on wikipedia.
posted by RichardP at 2:19 AM on August 14, 2022

Oh, Geeze. The main link should be:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/12/weather/california-megaflood-study/index.html

I'm trying out the new Markdown for MeFi, and I'm making a hash of it.
posted by Bee'sWing at 2:25 AM on August 14, 2022

Mods, maybe you could delete and I will try again?
posted by Bee'sWing at 2:27 AM on August 14, 2022