Visitor to California

Flood control is vital in California, where the nightmare is water--too much in the rainy north, too little in the arid south. Key to California's burgeoning economy is a multimillion-dollar system of dams and reservoirs that channels northern water into the fertile but dry Central Valley and the water-starved cities of the booming south. But no flood-control program is watertight, and California's is far from complete. Last week, in the wake of northern floods that cost $170 million and 74 lives, Californians were grateful for the dams they have, but bitterly regretted a three-year lapse in starting more.

Triggered by moist tropical air, which the Pacific jet stream freakishly shot in from Hawaii over cool northern Califor nia, a tremendous downpour began at mid-month. The downfall deposited as much as 31.5 inches of rain by Dec. 26, melted Sierra snowpacks like a blowtorch, streamed off steep hillsides in the rugged redwood country. Swollen mountain streams burst out of the woods like furious brown snakes, swallowing topsoil and drowning animals. The Klamath, Russian, Mad, Eel, Ten Mile, Navarro and other rivers picked up speed, boiled out of gorges toward the Pacific, wrecked railroads and cut coastal U.S. Highway 101.

As far east as Reno, rain sent the peaceful Truckee River on a binge, cut the city in half. Undaunted tourists kept yanking undaunted one-arm bandits in Harolds Club, joked about floating crap games. Though no lives were lost, the Reno region suffered $5,000,000 in damages. In southwest Oregon, the heaviest rains in 78 years brought floods that killed twelve people and flung huge fir logs off cliffs like harpoons.

Berserk Feather. Near the headwaters of California's two most important river systems, the Sacramento and the San Joaquin, great dams such as Shasta, Folsom, Friant and Pine Flat curbed angry water that might have caused infinitely more damage and death. At flood's height, more than 200,000 cubic feet of water a second poured into the reservoir back of the Sacramento's Shasta Dam, which shrank the downstream rush to only 16,000 cubic feet a second, saving the rich Sacramento Valley.

There was no such barrier on the Feather River, where the proposed $400 million concrete Oroville Dam, planned as the world's largest, is still a paper dream tabled by legislative inertia. The Feather went berserk. It swept madly to its confluence with the Yuba River in the peach country just southwest of Marysville (pop. 12,500) and Yuba City (pop. 8,000). Advised to flee across the river to their sister town, the people of Marysville quickly found themselves scrambling for their lives in Yuba City, where the flood demolished levees while dikes held fast in Marysville.

"A Tricky One." Upon Yuba City, jammed now with 21,000 people, helicopter rescue pilots descended with precision and courage. Coast Guard Lieut. Henry J. Pfeiffer and crew saved 138 people, helped keep the number of Yuba City deaths miraculously low. Spotting a paralyzed woman and her husband on a roof, Pfeiffer found a tall TV aerial obstructing his way, neatly snipped guy wires with his rotor blades, blew over the antenna with his rotor wash. When the man was unable to lift his wife into a rescue basket, Pfeiffer hooked one 'copter wheel under the eaves of the house, held steady while a crewman hopped onto the roof to help. "Kind of a tricky one," said Pilot Pfeiffer.

On a flooded road near Yuba City, Navy Lieut. Jack L. Caldwell, Coast Guard Lieut. Dick Leisy and Aviation Mechanic Clifford Covert effected a brave 'copter rescue of travelers trapped in cars. Holding her two-year-old son, Mrs. Norma Bartlett shivered in water atop her overturned car, looking from the air as if she were sitting on the water. Lowered with a rubber raft past a string of high tension wires, Lieut. Leisy reached Mrs. Bartlett, was swept away before he could save motorists on other cars nearby. Mechanic Covert, a nonswimmer, then asked to go down, held fast to another woman and child on a car. A second 'copter pulled Leisy's rescue raft back to the scene. Eight people were saved.

As the mighty waters receded and President Eisenhower declared the state a "major disaster" area, Californians began badgering their legislature and the Federal Government for new dam-building money as soon as possible.

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