Thinkwalks & Sacramento County Historical Society present:

A history talk in Sacramento

Storms Like You’ve Never Seen—Yet

Joel Pomerantz of Thinkwalks will present his research on the giant storm sequence that blasted the entire western United States in 1862.

Nature is an almost infinitely complex system. Once it’s broken it’s not possible to get it back to where it was. We might be able to fix it, but only in the sense that we may find a way for our troubled species to survive beyond this century. If survival, or even avoiding raucous chaos is our goal, we’d do well to observe closely all the larger systems we’re part of, especially the history of extreme life-threatening events.

The storms of 1862 don’t especially rank in geologic terms, but they could be at the top of the disaster list in historic times. We have thousands of accounts from eye witnesses who saw towns washed away, stranded people plucked from treetops by steamships cruising well beyond the riverbanks in the Central Valley. We know that the state government was in disarray, fighting about whether to escape to San Francisco (they did move for a time). We know that mine tailings and silt were stripped from Gold Country ravines and deposited into San Francisco Bay.

And we know that the Sacramento flood control systems failed.

Come learn and discuss what reports, songs, newspapers and other sources from 150 years ago can tell us about a storm that will eventually come again, possibly bigger.

⭐ No need to RSVP—Just show up!

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