A flood next time?

From the Menlo Park Fire District:

That was a busy night and week starting with two Swift Water Rescues from homes along Alpine Road in the Stanford Weekend Acres neighborhood and then a man trapped in a car almost completely submerged on the 1900 Block of University Avenue (Wiskey Gulch) and finally hundreds of people moved out of Apartment Buildings by using our Ladder Trucks (Quint’s) along West Bayshore in East Palo Alto where the water was chest height in places.

Cars in apartment complexes along East Okeefe in below grade garages were completely submerged and the levee failed along the Mosley Tract just north of the Dumbarton Bridge flooding along Bayfront Expressway and threatening its closure. A small building was washed off its foundation and pinned against a tree 2655 Alpine Road (Weekend Acres). Highway 101 was Closed due to flooding, standing water, mud and abandoned vehicles between University and Embarcadero because the new freeway sound walls and continuous concrete center divider had created a levee condition trapping the water coming from the overbanking of San Francisquito Creek.

The creek bank erosion, damage, under pinning of trees and power poles was most severe behind homes along Bay Laurel, Oak Avenue, and San Mateo Drive. The old candle shop at Allied Arts was partially hanging over the edge of the creek bank. Woodland between Pope and Laurel had major Creek bank damage and erosion. Woodland Avenue in general between Willow and West Bayshore had bank damage throughout. Up on Walsh Road along the Atherton Channel various bridges were damaged and Sharon Heights had a number of small mud slides and sluffing.

By the time the sun came out that next morning the Fire District had run Some 300 emergency calls. Unfortunately one fire truck was completely out of service because the electronics had been destroyed by water submersion, another was damaged after it had to be pulled out of a drainage ditch, one command vehicle was damaged when a power line fell on it and another had the antennas ripped off due to low hanging tree branches. Three of seven fire stations had minor roof leaks but the good news was no fire personnel were injured, despite some close calls performing water rescues and responding to emergencies under darkness and adverse weather conditions all night long.

Subsequent flooding events have not been as severe and much has improved sine the creation of the Creek JPA but the understanding that the areas below a bowled mountain range that spans an area from Palo Alto to Woodside that then funnels water down to a bay that can also simultaneously experience high tides should always provide a cautionary history that requires vigilance, planning, preparedness and readiness when ever it starts to rain, regardless of the improvements being made.

Sue - Superb reporting - Thank you!

Excellent article. However I had heard that one of the floods in the 1950s was the largest having flooded large sections of MP west of ECR?

The real flood threat comes from the Bay not from the foothills. Over the next few decades a large portion of the Eastern side of Menlo Park, Palo Alto and East Palo Alto) will be below sea level and an even larger portion will be subjected to significant seasonal flooding. There has been no planning for this hazard and significant efforts need to be
made now to mitigate those flood hazards, to provide for a real time warning system that does not rely on cell phones or the internet and to provide well thought out neighborhood evacuation plans for all of the potentially impacted areas AND for the adjacent areas which will, of necessity, serve as evacuation sites (whether planned for or not).

Reference: The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World
by Jeff Goodell