California Coast and the Drought

It's much worse than this inland where often people have no water because their wells have run completely dry and often cannot afford to pay to drill deeper for any water that might be deeper. But, even here on the coast even in wealthy areas plants are beginning to die. I'm losing one of My Rhododendrons which don't do well without enough ground water, and I'm losing one of my Scottish heather plants. Both plants were here when I moved in so have been here at least since 1999. But, pine trees are more hearty and are mostly okay because of the fog periodically and the accompanying mist from the ocean even if there is no real drops of rain there is still moisture enough for the pine trees. However, the old live oaks all over coastal and inland California often hundreds of years old are often dying now with the 100 to 500 year drought.

So, if we get flooding this fall, winter or spring the slippage of hills and mud slides will really be something. Because we are known (like parts of the Southern U.S.) to get up to 16 inches of rain within 3 days time here. So, that much at once isn't unusual. However, since we have over a 14,000 foot difference between mountains like Mt. Whitney in the Sierras (the tallest in the lower 48 states) all the way to the Pacific Ocean and Sea Level flash flooding can get really scary at times in some places in California.