Water has come across the parking lot behind the civic center in Sutter Creek and has flooded the city records department. I now understand that all of the spare police radios and equipment have been trapped below the water line and are out of commission or ruined. Volcano and Pioneer have been cut off with more than thirty inches of rain above Pioneer last night. Down in Ione they are sandbagging along the river in town and bracing for high water all along the banks down there.

We are eating lunch when we hear the news that Mel and Fay’s restaurant in downtown Jackson has been evacuated because of rock and mud slides on the slopes overhanging the cafe and Safeway.

That night the news comes that the levees have broken and water has crossed the highway going in to Sacramento. Reporters on the television are airborne in every available helicopter as levees begin to fail elsewhere and residents are driven from their homes in the early hours of the morning by walls of cold, dirty flood waters. Some people are missing and presumed drowned.

In the morning, the Channel 31 folks become marooned on a bridge south of Yuba city and watch helplessly as more homes are flooded by water pouring through new breaks in the dike system. By now, the earth is so saturated with water that driving near a levee may cause water to work it way through mud and silt and result in failures. I learn that many of these critical levees don’t have pilings to support them, but are simple earth works.

On the third day of January, the sun has peeked through and although waters continue to rise in the valley, especially south of Sacramento, the high mountain creeks and rivers are beginning to subside. I’m happy to report that our bridge in Sutter Creek has weathered the storm. The Rotary meeting Lydia was to have in Reno has been cancelled due to massive mud slides on all major highways crossing the mountains. The slide on highway fifty is so extensive that the American River flow stops for an hour or so. Everyone holds their breath on this one, as fog has prevented an analysis of this critical situation from the air. News from some ground observers filter in. They believe that a slide over a quarter of a mile wide and hundreds of feet deep has buried or carried away whole sections of route fifty and destroyed an unknown number of structures and homes. On the television, the damage in downtown Reno looks unbelievable. Sacramento has escaped total disaster by mere inches as the flood waters reached to the very top of the big levees in the downtown section.

On a mundane note, Sutter Creek may no longer look like a disaster, but it sure smells like one. The smell of raw sewage is so strong everyone at the Post Office is gagging and holding handkerchiefs over their faces. Raw sewage from the flood is everywhere. How will this mess get cleaned up? Thank goodness we live up on the hill!

This morning, January 2, the rain gauge has gone over the top at 5.5”. I empty the gauge to start over again. Late last night I put on a slicker and checked the gauge at 4.25”. Are we scheduled for a seat on the Ark?

Katherine calls to tell me that the river is over its banks in front of their house in Fiddletown, so she won’t be able to pick up her work at the show in Sutter Creek, today. We’ve just crossed the bridge in Sutter Creek on our way to the Post Office, and the waters are racing madly just below the level of the supporting structure. Water is tumbling white and violent between the town hall and the antique store on the east side of the bridge, and is over the top of the windows of the library on the west side. If a large tree comes floating down the creek, the bridge will probably fail. Failure of this bridge would stop all north south traffic on highway 49 and cut us off from Sutter Creek.

In the other direction, water is flooding over the roadway in Jackson and inundating the hotel. All of the parking garage under the civil center is covered in muddy water, and the foot bridge across Jackson creek is swinging dangerously as water crashes against its span.

I cook some apple slices in butter, sugar, and cinnamon. This, and toast and coffee keep me going until I get the fire started. Everything seems damp, so I dip the ends of the wood in kerosene and light the stove. I’m rewarded by instant blue flame and some heat.

The thirtieth of December finds me enjoying the “regular” original sandwich on jalapeno bread at Schlotzsky’s in Sacramento. I’m on my way to pick up my first test set of pictures of steel panels using my two new flash units. The use of two flash units with the Cannon camera necessitates the use of a special synchronizing connection between the camera and the two units. If all has worked according to plan, these transparencies will be true color and free of extraneous shadows. Will the lavish investment in lighting pay off?

My report on the test slides is exciting. Never have I been able to take such sharp pictures of blasted steel surfaces. The detail is exquisite, the colors are very accurate, and the plate scale on the transparency is extremely precise-measured with my micrometer calipers. Now I’m ready to go to Seattle and shoot real panels! My only reservation is the statement Rene makes about full frame printing. If the machine print is full frame, the scale on the print will correspond (one to one) with the surface. If the print is not full frame, then the print will be slightly larger than the actual surface and I’ll have to adjust the camera-to-panel distance.

The wind moans under the swinging glass door at the photo processing plant. I’m parked under some giant oaks out front, and some limbs have fallen. One of these is large enough to have crushed my little Hyundai. The highway from Sutter Creek has not yet flooded, but the restaurants at Slough House have become islands. A few more inches and I could be wading home.

The thirty-first finds me back in Sacramento looking for a toner cartridge for out laser printer. I’ve just printed three hundred pages without looking, and the last one hundred pages have blank streaks running from top to bottom. Slough house is less than an island, now, and only boats can come and go to the buildings. I expect the houses to go under by tonight.