Levees melted,
the vast, shallow lake returned.
At least five floods,
In January, two in March,
May and June.
Rainfall heavier than usual,
8-inches fell on Three Rivers.
Rain every-day in February.
In the Sierra, massive snow accrued,
record amounts of water
in the Kings,
and Kern River watersheds.
A snow-pack 29-feet high
in February, in the Big Trees
of Sequoia’s Giant Forest.
Snowfall peaked in April,
on the 18th day,
San Francisco was destroyed.
A great earthquake shook
causing avalanches throughout.
In the Mineral King Valley,
the Smith Hotel washed out.
What a good way to end a drought,
floodwaters arrived at the flatlands
suddenly, but didn’t last.
Near Visalia, the St. John River’s
rapid flood-waters too big
for the culvert
under the Santa Fe tracks,
no longer acting as a levee
with a 30-feet wide breach.
China Town flooded.
A large flume across the St. John,
near Venice Hill swept away,
Sand Creek, a mile wide at Orosi.
There was major flooding
on the Kings, Kaweah and Kern Rivers
from March through late June.
The June flood was most impressive,
water ran down Center Street,
a river rushed past
the Tulare County Courthouse.
On June 7th, the snowmelt
reached Sand Creek,
pooling in the lake bottom.
Three weeks later, floodwaters
seven-miles wide, 15-miles long.
A prodigious lake,
12-feet at its deepest.
Levees raised when the lake was low
failed in high flows,
175,000 acres of wheat and barley
Flooded before it could be harvested.
Tulare Lake was filled again,
in summer, pleasure boats returned.
Floating dredges
dug long, wide canal banks,
huge dikes were erected,
and a hundred miles of levee,
to reclaim the lakebed
for the farmers.
Artifacts unearthed
in the digging: an iron mast
from the steamship Alcatraz,
hundreds of skulls
from a Yokut burial ground,
a gigantic bone
of an ancient mastodon.
INSTANT NOODLES 