The CHRISTMAS FLOOD

The San Francisquito Creek had been flooding for centuries, but it wasn’t much of a concern to anyone until Christmas 1955. Then as quickly as Santa pops down the chimney, it suddenly became a major problem for everyone living in the new housing developments that surrounded Greer Park.

The 1955 flood was not the largest San Francisquito flooding ever seen.  Floods in 1911 and 1862 had been more extensive, but with few homes having yet been built nearby, damage was minimal.  After all, flooding was good for undeveloped apricot orchards.  But by the mid-1950s, an enormous housing boom had taken place to the west of Bayshore Highway and the new residents living in those recently constructed Eichler housing tracts found their Christmas plans drenched.

That winter had actually been a dry one in Northern California.  Most folks were glad to finally see rainfall on December 9th, bringing much-needed relief to the parched crops of the Santa Clara Valley.  But precipitation also marked the weather reports of December 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st, and still more rainfall was due.  On December 22nd it rained all day and into the evening and the San Francisquito Creek rose to dangerously high levels.  As debris and wood got caught under the bridge over Bayshore Highway, the creek began to back up.

By 11:30 PM, flood waters had jumped the levees on the Palo Alto side of the creek, bursting a 20-foot gap in one levee wall.  Creek water began to rush downhill joining overflowing canals and gutters and sweeping down Greer Road and into the surrounding homes along the way.  At the dead end at Seale Canal near Greer Park, water began to seep further out, inundating homes throughout the low-lying subdivisions south of Embarcadero. And there was more bad news for the Greer Park area: At Matadero Creek, flood waters burst their banks at the Greer Road Bridge, bringing more flood waters nearly two feet high.

By 1:45 in the morning, evacuees were everywhere.  Those who tried to make their escape in cars soon found the water rising so rapidly that they had to abandon plans for a vehicular exit.  As more than 1,000 people were forced to abandon their homes, emergency trucks and buses mobilized to move flood victims.  At 1:50 AM, shop teacher David Downs used his assigned key to open up Jordan Junior High School, which became a place of refuge for the rest of the night.  At one point more than 600 evacuees crammed into the school, most of them without shoes, socks, or dry clothing.  

There were some close calls too.  While helping to evacuate families, Palo Alto police officer Otto Niehues fell into an open manhole that had its cover popped off by extreme water pressure. Niehues managed to save himself only by somehow catching the edge of the rim with his hands as he fell (Oddly, Niehues later would become a victim of the 1998 rains as a much older man. During a severe El Nino downpour he was nearly killed when hit by a car and he never did fully recover).

Other heroics took place nearby.  A 75-year-old Greer Road woman too feeble to leave her house was rescued by two neighbors as she was unable to battle the dark swirling currents on her own.  At Van Auken Circle, John Vecsey and four other men balanced a table and two chairs to steady a surplus navy life raft and rescued their neighbor, Winnie Coughlin.  They then returned to save her guests, seven dogs and a parrot.  Bill Bronson of Moffett Circle, a victim of polio, had to walk through blocks of flooded streets on crutches to make it to the safety of a nearby school.

Others, who were in less danger, let the Yuletide spirit help make the best of a difficult situation. Higgins Court residents merrily sang “Jingle Bells,” as they piled into a truck to make their get-away from high water levels.  And things could not have been better for a pet duck named Ginger that the Hacker family of Chabot Lane had won at a state fair.  Mrs. Hacker told a Palo Alto Times reporter that Ginger had last been seen happily swimming down their street.  Indeed Palo Alto did seem to have become a virtual home for ducks — Mrs. Sullivan of Indian Drive told the Times that one of her excited girls had squealed, “Oh, a duck pond in our own house” when she first observed the transformation of her living room.

In the end, no one was seriously injured in the 1955 flood, but damage was extensive.  More than 650 Palo Alto homes were flooded, totaling $1.1 million in damage.  And many Palo Altans had to forego caroling and Christmas hams to spend their holidays cleaning mud from living rooms, salvaging damaged furniture and shoveling out lawns and driveways.

In the years following the Christmas Flood, attempts were made to remedy the danger posed by the San Francisquito Creek.  Yet events would repeat themselves again 43 years later. The 1998 Flood that would again overflow the levees at the San Francisquito Creek was, in some ways, even worse than its 1955 predecessor.  The similarities between the two floods were unsettling.  In 1998, in 1955, water from the creek overwhelmed the levees, rushed down the eastern side of Palo Alto and settled in the lowlands near Greer Park.  Again residents woke up to water in their bedrooms and again there were some near death experiences.   

Since then, more improvements have been made to creek walls and levees, and better warning systems have been put in place, but many feel that it is only a matter of time before residents are seeking the high ground again.  History does have a way of repeating itself.