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On a summer day, sitting beside the slowly moving waters of the Eel River as it meanders its way from its headwaters in the California counties of Mendocino and Humboldt to the Pacific Ocean, it is difficult to visualize the terror and destruction it can generate when winter closes in. Then, in some years, there are gale winds, torrential rains, and snows at higher elevations.

The river is aptly named, not only for the presence of eels, but because it flows in sinuous, erratic twists and tums, especially after it leaves its narrow confines and spreads out into the lower valley.

Not only in the memory of those now living, but probably for ages past, flood after flood has inundated the lower valley, and the Eel has changed its course time after time, cutting new channels and silting up the old ones.

One of my earliest childhood memories is of the Eel River in flood. We lived on the uplands with a clear view of the valley from the confluence of the Eel and Van Duzen rivers to well below the town of Fortuna. It looked as if the whole valley were under water, and indeed it was. Fields were flooded, houses were surrounded with water, and farm animals smuggled desperately in the swirling current. Great trees, roots and all, parts of houses, and debris of every description hurtled headlong toward the sea. The roar of the rushing water, more than a mile wide, filled the air.

As great as this destruction was, the real damage came as the flood subsided. When the flow of the river dropped to the level where the stratum of topsoil ended and the layer of sand and rock began, the velocity of the water made a neat cutting weapon which undermined the topsoil and sent it tumbling into the stream. Only imprudent people stood near the bank then because great chunks of land disappeared without warning. Tons of topsoil cascaded on downstream and the delta at the mouth of the river built up gradually. Through the years great islands covered with willow trees have formed, until there is no clearly defined channel.

To a child such a spectacle meant little, and it was not until, by a strange quirk of fate, I found myself living on the very banks of the Eel that the full import of its threat was brought home. The plot of ground, a little over twelve acres, was purchased from Romeo and Mary Giacomini about 1920. There were over one hundred acres in the original piece owned by the Giacominis, but year by year the river had claimed all but about twelve, leaving its southward trend toward Waddington and Ferndale and moving northward. By some unknown line of reasoning, it was thought that the trend would be reversed. Some sixty years later, this has not occurred, but perhaps the next sixty or one hundred years will tell a different story.

It was December, and raining, when we moved into the big two-story house. The river was already reaching fiood proportions. It never did overflow its banks that year, but it did reach the cutting stage. By morning a chicken house and other small buildings were gone, the sound of their going lost in the raging torrent.

Not every year produced a loss of land, but in several years’ time the river crept closer and closer. Then one winter again it was raining, the obvious threat was there, and the house was moved to the northeast corner, the farthest boundary possible on Sandy Prairie Road,

By 1952, only three acres remained, with the house perched precariously on the river’s bank. Clearly the battle was lost, and the house was razed. Where it once stood, a levee . was built by the Corps of Engineers, U.S. Army, whose design criterion for protective works encompassed “once-in-a-hundred” years. Judging from the flood of 1964, the levee almost met the design criterion, since history records that a flood of gigantic proportions occurred in 1862, long before loggers appeared on the scene.

A possible witness to this flood of 1862 was an Indian, known as Indian George. No one knew how old he was. His favorite spot in Fortuna was the bench in front of Hansen-Hunter Company’s store on Main Street, now known as Low’s Furniture Store. There he spent much of the day, and many townspeople stopped to have a word with him. During one flood he was asked if this was not the worst yet, but he shook his head and said, “No, When I was a boy whole valley covered by water,” and he waved his hand toward the Ferndale area. “All under water,” he said, and lapsed into his customary silence. He may have meant 1862, but dates, as such, meant little to him. He has been gone many years.

The Killer Eel, published by J. Dwight O’Dell of The Humboldt Beacon following the 1964 flood, is complete with data, photos and commentaries. For those who have not read it and who believe that the Eel can be controlled, it should make interesting reading, as well as for those who believe in wild and scenic rivers.

An estimated flow of nearly half a million cubic feet per second boggles the imagination, not only of the layman, but of engineers engaged in flood control as well, and casts doubt on the hope that protective flood control measures are economically feasible now or perhaps ever, for the lower reaches of Eel River.

At one time, probably around 1912 or earlier, a concrete jetty was built along Sandy Prairie Road between Alton and Fortuna near the John East property and the summer bridge across the river. How it was financed is not known, but it was supposed to divert the Eel from its northward course and prevent bank erosion. Unfortunately, either because of some fault in design or construction, or simply because it was inadequate for the purpose intended, the first major flood flowed around the upper end of the structure, pried it loose and broke it into massive blocks of concrete and steel which were visible for some years.

Studies have been made, read and filed. Meanwhile, mining of sand and gravel along the north bank continues, creating a natural channel, as flood waters rush in to fill the void, thus bringing the river ever closer.

A series of dams in the upper reaches of the river would certainly mitigate minor floods, permitting diversion of the excess, and providing impounded water which could be released during the summer months or years of low flow. rather than allowing it to waste uselessly into the Pacific Ocean. Instead, each political subdivision of the counties which would benefit from such control will fight to the death to keep any water from being diverted to “those vandals” in central and southern California. The story is as old as Aesop — 550 B.C.

To name only two, the battle for the waters of the Colorado and the Rio Grande has been going on for years. Compacts have been made and broken; lawyers and engineers have spent a lifetime in court in never-ending attempts to allocate the water equitably.

Only time — and who can foretell how long — will produce the answer, but it is relatively safe to assume that Eel River will continue to wind its way from its headwaters to the ocean undeterred, as it has for generations past.

For my part, I recall vividly those anxious days and nights when we huddled together in our home on the banks of the Eel, hoping and praying that we would survive one more attack of the Wild River. Let those who will, enjoy their wild and scenic rivers but, without meaning to be sacrilegious or facetious, the words of the old hymn come to mind: “Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.”

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About the Author: Alice Mulley died March 17, 1999, in Eureka at the age of 94. She was a native of Fortuna, and a graduate of Fortuna schools and the Woodbury Business College in Los Angeles. She was associated for many years with a consulting civil engineering firm in Los Angeles and after her retirement, returned to Fortuna in 1970. This article is reprinted from The Way It Was, Volume II.

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