Christmas flood of 1964
Major flood in the United States / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Christmas flood of 1964 was a major flood in the United States' Pacific Northwest and some of Northern California between December 18, 1964, and January 7, 1965, spanning the Christmas holiday.[1]
Date | 20 days December 18, 1964 (1964-12-18) – January 7, 1965 (1965-01-07) |
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Location | California, Oregon, and Washington states |
Considered a 100-year flood,[2] it was the worst flood in recorded history on nearly every major stream and river in coastal Northern California and one of the worst to affect the Willamette River in Oregon. It also affected parts of southwest Washington, Idaho, and Nevada.[1][3]
In Oregon, 17 or 18 people died as a result of the disaster, and it caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.[3] The flooding on the Willamette covered 152,789 acres (61,831.5 ha).[4] The National Weather Service rated the flood as the fifth most destructive weather event in Oregon in the 20th century.[5]
California Governor Pat Brown was quoted as saying that a flood of similar proportions could "happen only once in 1,000 years," and it was often referred to later as the Thousand Year Flood.[1] The flood killed 19 people, heavily damaged or completely devastated at least 10 towns, destroyed all or portions of more than 20 major highway and county bridges, carried away millions of board feet of lumber and logs from mill sites, devastated thousands of acres of agricultural land, killed 4,000 head of livestock, and caused $100 million in damage in Humboldt County, California, alone.[6][7]