Hot Rods Car collection flooded, N.California

Actually, mine has.

 

We got flooded out in 07 right before the HAMB Drags. House was OK but us and my folks had much of our furniture plus many of my car mags in storage when it flooded. I had everything off the floor and on pallest but 18" of muddy water killed that.

 

Here in the midwest, it's cheaper to just cover dirt with concrete to rebuild levees. I knew real estate was expensive in CA, but didn't think dirt came anywhere near to the cost of your friends estimate.

 

This is drifting very far off-topic, but a levee that is just dirt covered in concrete does not meet Federal or California state standards for protecting a major city, or two, or three, or six (close to 18M people in danger, and Kansas only has 2.9M total), and the entire Central Valley. Also, you don't have 13,800-miles of levees.

Why don't they meet the standards? Earthquakes, of which we average 100-per-day, of varying magnitudes.

Breach a levee in the Sacramento river delta, and the entire Central Valley will have 6-12 feet of water over all 7-million acres. That won't just be rain and river water, but backflowing sea water. One major failure and that crop and cattle grazing land land will go offline indefinitely. That will take 25% of the US food supply out, and our entire national economy will collapse, due to that, and the loss of industrial production.

That's why dirt and concrete won't do it.

 

That is real sad.
Vic

 

Heartbreaking...

 

So long as they just change all the fluids, those old cars will be just fine with (non salt) water.
Clean the interior, change the fluids, take the plugs out and turn the engine over by hand, etc.

 

No warning with this? I would think the cars could have been moved or cribbed up.

With Sandy in 2012, someone I know had a neighbor with a restored 1958 Vette that was flooded. He ignored the storm surge warnings and it was salt water.

 

I feel ya. I've also learned that tuck tape is better the duct tape for repairs.

Ya mean did they win the lotto. An agreed upon price, a chance to buy them back, a way to cash out.

Crying won't help, prayers will only do so much good. Hard work and tough choices is what's left. Maybe not like finding your car filled with snow because someone bust a window the night before to search for loose change but yea, a ruin your day moment for sure.

Ya got that much nice stuff you must have insurance right?

 

Until a levee failure damages or threatens to damage San Francisco or Los Angeles there will continue to be a reluctant trickle of funding for levee maintenance and reconstruction.
With more rain in the forecast, I rearranged my shop and was able to get my Morris woody inside out of harm's way. I feel a whole lot better! It'll be a little harder to work in there, but I'll get used to it. It's sad to see the amount of dirt and damage that was done by sitting outside tarped for a few months while I worked on my roadster chassis. Nowhere near the recovery work that poor guy has ahead of him.

 

So far, more people have been killed in the flooding than all of the fires in CA in the last two years.

 

^^^^ I was talking about the car damage.
I'd like to see data to support the comment about the number of deaths; flooding vs fires, but remember, we're talking about California events here, not country wide. California doesn't usually see massive flooding like some other parts of the country, but we do get a lot of forest fires. The Camp fire destroyed quite a few hot rods and collectible cars, beyond recovery. They will be able to fix the flooded cars. Make no mistake, we see the floods and hurricanes and such in other parts of the country and feel the utmost sympathy for the victims, contributing what/where we can.

 

This weather is unprecedented in recorded history. I am not sure that anyone has found evidence of it in the geology, before recorded history. We have also been in a drought for about a half-a-decade, so a whole mess of people moved here that have no idea, or simply forgot that it does rain here.

There has been transient flooding in areas that are not only flood plains, or otherwise prone to flooding, but actually are on demonstrably high-ground, due to the soil having zero ability to absorb any more water, and the extant drainage stems being overloaded and/or clogged with debris.

There are buildings with flooded basements two blocks from me, UP HILL, on a 17% grade.

Why? Overload storm water drainage system. It is literally raining harder than the pipes can take it away.

I am below them, and have no flooding, but it is still raining, and hard.

 

True, but it is not either/or. We have both.

Water messes stuff up, and kills people.

Fire removes entire towns, and parts of cities from the map, and kills people.

 

When I worked in outback Australia they had a saying
"if you lie down in a dry creek bed, one day you will get washed away"
I saw it happen, one day outback of my work the dry creek was raging,
it had not rain in my town, but as the old man told me "it rained up north and the water has rushed
down the water channels , the area is known as "Channel Country"

 

When I worked for the CA Dept. of Transportation an engineer in the hydrology dept. used to say "Where water once ran it will run again" and "Water runs where ever the hell it wants" as well.

 

That’s sux.
thought it would be worse reading the comments first.
Luckily nothing other than maybe some magazines looks lost

 

It's an interesting area that not many know about. Levees built by farmers out of dirt. Lot's of them. How many guys know there is a Port of Stockton on the San Joaquin River feeding into Suisun Bay and the Pacific?
https://www.watereducation.org/aquapedia/sacramento-san-joaquin-delta-levees

 

And a bunch of those levees are well over 100-years-old!

 

Anyone ever hear any more relevant info to the original post?

 

Shame the insurance company will probably take a long time to do anything. If you started as soon the water receded replacing fluids drying out everything a lot could be saved. If left to sit the whole drive train will be a write off

 

You cannot predict Mother Nature. Every once in a while, she lets you know who is in control. No matter how many steps you take trying to control it. It`ll show you who the boss is.

 

thinking positive here it looks like it was no deeper than what we see. not a lot of mud. they can all be brought back to thier former glory.

 

the saddest flooded homes I saw on recent news I believe were in the Sacramento area, the flooded area was not that big, 3 acres maybe, it got some of the freeway was the only reason they showed it, but there were 2 homes off to the the side built in the lowest part of the property flooded up to the eves.

 

Ain’t that the truth….but we’ve got a fast train to nowhere.

 

The rain fall here in Taxifornia can be very different in areas very close to one another. Where I live 4 miles off the coast it may rain most of the day and 1/4”. 20 miles inland foot hills can see 2” in the same time. The forest fires the previous year gives away to mudslides where if there was growth and foliage this type of damage like the topic’s collection probably would not happen. It’s uncontrollable water that hurts. In the 53 years I’ve lived in my current home and the 78 yrs I’ve lived in SoCal the flatlands I’ve lived have never been close to flooding. I’ve never heard of any cars near me being flooded.