General Discussion

Our home was buried in river silt, a general store family had owned since 1938 destroyed and my father's gravel and gold operation gone as was 100 plus years of family history in the Klamath River town. I was 12 years old and spent Christmas marooned near the Humboldt-Mendocino border on a mission with father to bring grandmother from Eureka to the Bay Area. Everything changed and had a big impact on all our lives. It is hard for people that were not actually there in that time to visualize the devastation.

National guard helicopters brought people in or out. The highways alone took years to rebuild and all many bridges save for the bridge at Weitchpec, juncture of Trinty and Klamath Rivers, were gone. Entire mountain sides of dense old-growth timber slid into the valley bottoms.

Christmas flood of 1964

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_flood_of_1964

The Christmas flood of 1964 was a major flood in the United States' Pacific Northwest and some of Northern California between December 18, 1964, and January 7, 1965, spanning the Christmas holiday.[1]

Considered a 100-year flood,[2] it was the worst flood in recorded history on nearly every major stream and river in coastal Northern California and one of the worst to affect the Willamette River in Oregon. It also affected parts of southwest Washington, Idaho, and Nevada.[1][3]

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California Governor Pat Brown was quoted as saying that a flood of similar proportions could "happen only once in 1,000 years," and it was often referred to later as the Thousand Year Flood.[1] The flood killed 19 people, heavily damaged or completely devastated at least 10 towns, destroyed all or portions of more than 20 major highway and county bridges, carried away millions of board feet of lumber and logs from mill sites, devastated thousands of acres of agricultural land, killed 4,000 head of livestock, and caused $100 million in damage in Humboldt County, California, alone

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Starting on December 21, intense downpours across Northern California caused numerous streams to flood, many to record-breaking levels. California Governor Brown declared 34 counties in the region disaster areas.[1][7] Together, Del Norte, Humboldt, Mendocino, Siskiyou, Trinity, and Sonoma counties sustained more damage than the other 28 counties combined.[7] Twenty-six U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) stream gauges were destroyed.[7]

Note: Our home was at 400 foot elevation immediately surrounded by mountains to over 6000 feet elevation. There had been a recent snow event with snow in the valley when the warm rains began to fall.

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The Eel, Smith, Klamath, Trinity, Salmon, and Mad rivers, as well as other rivers and large streams, all went well beyond flood stage and peaked nearly simultaneously around December 21 and 22, breaking previous records (notably those set in the "hundred year" flood of 1955 in most cases).[1][7] Sixteen state highway bridges were destroyed in California's 1st congressional district, most of them on Highway 101, and another ten county bridges were destroyed in Humboldt County.[7] The flood destroyed 37 miles (60 km) of track with multiple stream and river crossings of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad through the Eel River canyon, the region's only major railroad.[12]

Many communities of Del Norte and Humboldt counties suffered extensive power outages and were left isolated or cut off from the rest of the state for a period, including the region's larger populated areas around Humboldt Bay, such as Eureka and Arcata, despite the fact that those cities were located on higher ground and not in the path of raging rivers. Riverside communities like Klamath, Orleans, Myers Flat, Weott, South Fork, Shively, Pepperwood, Stafford, and Ti-Bar were completely destroyed by flood waters; some of them were never rebuilt and none regained their former status.

Note: One of the destroyed towns is our home and near where I live in old age. There area was cut off for months until temporary wood and Bailey bridges and major road repair provided any access.

More at wiki.