Native American Response to 1861&2 floods in Marysville, California

Why so many people were caught off-guard by these floods remains a mystery, but clearly these immigrants did not recognize the climatic warning signs. They had never experienced such extreme flooding in the 12 years since the Gold Rush began, although lesser floods were not uncommon. It appears that the Native American populations, who had lived in the region for thousands of years, had deeper insights to the weather and hydrology, and recognized the patterns that result in devastating floods. A piece in the Nevada City Democrat described the Native American response on January 11, 1862:

We are informed that the Indians living in the vicinity of Marysville left their abodes a week or more ago for the foothills predicting an unprecedented overflow. They told the whites that the water would be higher than it has been for thirty years, and pointed high up on the trees and houses where it would come. The valley Indians have traditions that the water occasionally rises 15 or 20 feet higher than it has been at any time since the country was settled by whites, and as they live in the open air and watch closely all the weather indications, it is not improbable that they may have better means than the whites of anticipating a great storm.

end partial quote from:

California Megaflood: Lessons from a Forgotten Catastrophe

This is very informative because thousands of people and even more cattle (1/4 of all cattle in the state of California died in this flood).

Then the population of all of California was only 500,000 which is around half of the population of present day Alaska to give you a reference point.

So, if such a flood were to happen today or even 5 years or 50 years from now, without proper psychological preparation I figure up to 1,000,000 or more people could die if they weren't watching for the signs.

It would be similar but likely worse than the 250,000 that died in the Earthquake and Tsunami around Christmas in 2004 in the Indian Ocean around Indonesia, Thailand and parts of India where so many died. 

But, such a flood if people didn't evacuate in time would mean hundreds or even thousands of miles of escape routes would be lost if people didn't have power boats or sail boats or even row boats or kayaks. But, if water is moving fast enough over rocks or obstacles even boats aren't safe either. Because this wouldn't be a dredged waterway but water would go wherever it wanted to to powerlines, sewage treatment plants, the state capital buildings

 etc. if this happened again.

So, all the people that might stay to protect their properties from vandalism or flooding likely might not make it at all unless they made it to higher ground. And even if they made it to higher ground if they didn't have tents, shelters, water filters or purifiers and dried or edible food (no refrigerators working because no power, or unless they had a power boat that would work in that area with it's own electrical generators and a refrigerator many people that didn't drown might starve or from lack of potable water (like the older people who died in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina). 

So, having a clue what was going on possibly days before it got really bad would be important so thousands and thousands and possibly millions of people wouldn't have the worst experience of their lives which might also be the end of their lives.

People in California always talk about "The Big One" and are referring to an Earthquake but something like this could even be worse if you start thinking about what happened before.

Think about this for a moment, "Interstate 5 cut" in many places not just one by flooding which trumps any small roads or city streets being cut or closed by flooding. Then if 101 was also cut and 395 was also cut it might be really hard to supply people with anything but  by boats or helicopters or planes somehow.

What we are talking about here would likely be the worst natural disaster the U.S. has ever seen. Because the previous flooding like this for thousands of years mostly there were just native Americans living here that somewhat learned to adapt to these flooding episodes every 100 to 200 years for thousands of years already.