Photo Essay: 1997 New Year's Floods in NorCal
This year marks the 25th anniversary of one of the most significant weather events in California history.
As the calendar turned from 1996 to 1997, series of intense "pineapple express"-style storms walloped Northern California, setting rain records at the time in communities from Shasta down to Fresno.
The Sierra Nevada mountain range received up to 30 inches of rain, with temperatures above freezing up to 9,000 feet - which caused a rapid runoff and widespread flooding.
In the end, the deadly flooding devastated Northern California and Central California with 300 square miles of flooding and forced 48 counties to be declared disaster areas with more than a billion dollars in economic loss. Floodwaters impacted over 23,000 homes and 2,000 businesses.
DWR photographers captured the flooding, damage, and clean-up efforts in these photographs.
The massive Northern California flood in early January 1997, forced a breach on the east levee of the Feather River near Country Club Road in Yuba County. This aerial view looks east toward the left, Yuba River Moulding & Millwork facility (gray buildings) off Feather River Blvd. south of Yuba County Airport in Reclamation District No. 784. The Sierra Nevada mountain range received record rainfall (up to 30 inches), with temperatures above freezing up to 9,000 feet - which caused a rapid runoff and widespread flooding.
Photo taken January 4, 1997.
There was 300 square miles of flooding that forced 48 counties to be declared disaster areas with more than billion of economic loss. Floodwaters impacted over 23,000 homes and 2,000 businesses including this rural scene near the San Joaquin River.
Photo taken on January 5, 1997.
A submerged trailer park in Del Paso Heights, a neighborhood within the city of Sacramento in Sacramento County, California, during the massive flood that hit Northern California in 1997.
Photo taken January 3, 1997.
An aerial view looks west toward homes flooded along David Lane in Yuba County, California. A breach on the east levee of the Feather River near Country Club Road in Yuba County caused massive flooding.
Photo taken January 3, 1997.
California Conservation Corps workers sandbag a levee boil along the Feather River in Oroville, California during the 1997 floods.
Photo taken January 2, 1997.
California Department of Water Resources crews start on a flood release excavation project - cutting into the west levee of the Sutter Bypass - to allow an outflow of flood waters near the Tisdale Weir in Sutter County. Northern California had been hit by record rainfall in early January 1997, which caused a break on the west levee of the Sutter Bypass near McClatchy Rd. six-miles north of the Tisdale Weir.
Photo taken January 5, 1997.
An aerial view looks over floodwaters at the Yuba River Moulding & Millwork facility off Feather River Blvd. south of the Yuba County Airport.
Photo taken January 4, 1997.
This aerial view looks overtop the agricultural land in Yuba County, flooded from a breach on the east levee of the Feather River near Country Club Road.
Photo taken January 4, 1997.
Flood waters moved swiftly through the failed section on the west levee of the Sutter Bypass near McClatchy Rd. The waters inundated agriculture land within Sutter County during the massive Northern California flood in early January 1997.
Photo taken January 5, 1997.
California State Highway 84 just north of Rio Vista, Calif. in eastern Solano County was over taken by flood waters from the Yolo Bypass during the massive flood of January 1997. This view looks northeast across the Sacramento River toward the Steamboat Slough in the Sacramento Valley section of Northern California.
Photo taken January 7, 1997.
An aerial view of the floodwaters at the Islander Trailer Park on Woodward Avenue, along Waltham Slough near the San Joaquin River in Manteca, California.
Photo taken January 7, 1997.
An aerial view looks east toward flooded agricultural fields along the Sacramento River south of Grimes, California in Colusa County.
Photo taken January 5, 1997.
The Sacramento Valley community of Meridian, California, in Sutter County was surrounded by flood waters from the Sacramento River and a break from the west levee of the Sutter Bypass during the January flood of 1997.
Sandbags were used to make a temporary barrier to hold back the waters in the Northern Calif. community with an elevation of 43 feet.
Photo taken January 7, 1997.
A two-ring dike was built around Meridian, California, in Sutter County, to protect the community from flood waters from the Sacramento River and the broken west levee on the Sutter Bypass.
Photo taken January 9, 1997.
During the massive Northern California flood of 1997, a sandbag crew filled bags for a sand boil along the levee on Highway 160 south of Walnut Grove, California in the Upper Andrus Island area of southern Sacramento County.
Photo taken January 4, 1997.
Debris from the flood stacked up against the Sutter Bypass levee south of the flood release excavation near the Tisdale Weir.
Photo taken January 7, 1997.
During the massive Northern California flood of 1997, waters from the southern Yolo Bypass overtopped the levee at the Little Egbert Tract in the Cache Slough, just north of the Ryer Island Ferry and Highway 84. Levee height on these tracts are designed to allow overtopping in large flow events. The view looks southwest from the Cache Slough and Little Egbert Tract toward Rio Vista, Calif. in the northern Delta region of Solano County.
Photo taken January 7, 1997.
The massive Northern California flood of 1997 inundated much of Sutter County in Reclamation District No. 1660 and District 70, after the west levee of the Sutter Bypass was breached. This view looks north from Reclamation Road just passed the Tisdale Bypass toward the Sutter Buttes in the distance.
Photo taken January 5, 1997.
A family on Butterfly Lane in Yuba County placed furniture and household items outside of their house to start the drying out after the area was inundated with floodwaters. The east levee of the Feather River was breached three miles to the southwest near Country Club Road.
Photo taken January 9, 1997.
Removing tons of debris from the massive Mill Creek landslide that blocked U.S. Highway 50 in El Dorado County on the evening of January 24, 1997. An estimated 35,000 truck loads of material had to be removed during a four-week period. The slide damaged three cabins and also dammed up the South Fork American River, right, for five hours and flooded two vehicles on the highway. No fatalities were reported.
Photo taken February 4, 1997.
