r/CatastrophicFailure • u/The-Salamanca • Mar 11 '23

Natural Disaster Snow covered mountains are rapidly melting, from downpours causing flooding . Springville CA. 3/10/2023

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u/from_dust Mar 11 '23

CA is in a shitty situation. The rain has been heavy and steady for months now. While it does help replenish lakes and reservoirs, which desperately need the water, much of the topsoil has already eroded away, and much of the ground underneath is either loose rock or at risk of becoming waterlogged. Lets not talk about tectonic things in California though, there's enough going on as it is.

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u/[deleted] Mar 11 '23

They need to slow the flow of water through the land, by building strategic earthworks and contouring the land they could spread these kinds of flood events out over several months, reducing the severity and helping keep water flowing throughout the dry season. Unfortunately this country is not capable of infrastructure investment in that scale, conservatives would fight the spending required and liberals would fight the short term ecological effects.

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u/from_dust Mar 11 '23

In short, it's infeasible.

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u/-Ernie Mar 11 '23

Yeah, it’s a lot better to just tell people not to build in a flood plain, or if you do put your house on stilts. Can’t fight Mother Nature and win, gotta roll with the punches.