Forget Earthquakes. THIS Is What Could Doom California

[@greggjohnson621]

We used to sail on a lake that had flooded an old town when it was built. We unexpectedly ran aground one day, several hundred feet offshore. No matter which direction we turned, we’d go a few feet and hit something with the keel again. Figuring that the keel was stuck in some kind of recess, we threw out the anchor so we could winch it in and tilt the boat on its side. When we threw the anchor over, about sixty feet of line went out. We think that our keel had been stuck in the top of an old grain silo.

[@lonestarr1490]

So... You're still on that boat on that lake?

[@silluete]

Well at least he got Internet.

[@cherrydragon3120]

😂😂

[@intothevoid47]

​@@lonestarr1490Legend has it...they're still getting stuck every few feet. They've come to accept that they've joined the lake people.

[@joescott]

... or a gravestone. ;)

[@thedutchest]

I didn't think Joe was allowed to leave the house! Good to see you out there! Doing fun things with the channel

[@submechanophobia768]

Green screen.

[@LazyIRanch]

I loved seeing White Rock Lake again. When my son was born, 31 years ago, his father and I lived in a cute 2 bdrm. 1920s bungalow 2 blocks from the Arboretum and WR lake. I would hike around the whole lake carrying my baby in a backpack baby carrier until he got too heavy, then I switched to a stroller. My son loved the ducks. Their quacking sent him into giggling fits. Sigh, good times!

[@joescott]

Those houses are SUPER expensive now.

[@joescott]

I took my ankle tracker off. :)

[@FirestormX9]

​@@joescott perfect window for a "THIS IS THE FBI" joke. Fun.

[@sprad31jt]

Literally surrounded by dams and reservoirs here in Tennessee lol. Another important thing to note is how the large amount of dams built in the US have seriously hurt populations of native fish by interfering with their migratory patterns during spawn.

[@jerelull9629]

I have a newspaper clipping from the "society" pages where my grandmother and her sister were "entertained" by so-and-so, esquire in a town now under the local reservoir. Pretty lake, TBT. It's kinda a shame that the town was lost, but it's welcome that we don't run out of running water during the droughts. Somewhere around, I have a newspaper clipping from 1980 of me standing on a boulder pointing up to where the waterline used to be we we kids rode our bicycles down to "fish". ( To drown worms, more accurately; The fish didn't cooperate, much.)

[@mikelouis9389]

How are those damns going to do when the New Madrid fault cuts loose?

[@LazyIRanch]

@@jerelull9629 I grew up in Texas, 4th generation born there. People didn't believe me when I told them the Trinity River used to be a major waterway for moving goods between E. Texas and Galveston/Houston ports on the Gulf of Mexico. Lots of barges and steamboats traveled that canal then, and prosperous towns were built around it, like Magnolia, TX, a major cotton exchange in the 1800s. My great-grandmother was widowed, and her wealthy first husband left her with a thriving plantation of more than 800 acres near Palestine, and a fortune. Being a pretty woman who still loved a good party, she would take her teenage daughter to Magnolia (@10 miles away) on Saturdays so they could board a fancy steamboat that docked there and had dances, drinking, dining, and lots of gambling. That's where G-grandma caught the eye of the handsome young Mr. Haddon sometime around 1870s. He looked like Tony Curtis with a handlebar moustache, so she enjoyed his company even though she was almost 20 years his senior. Haddon most likely heard the rumours that her first husband had buried caches of gold and silver on that 800 acre farm, and figured that if he married the owner he could look for it in leisure, and he was all about "leisure". He loved gambling and wearing fine clothes, and not working. During a card game in Palestine, legend has it that he accused a fellow gambler of cheating and bashed him on the head with a stick. This pissed off the alleged cheater, he vowed to get Mr. Haddon. A few days later, he shot and killed my Great Grandfather, Mr. Haddon. His daughter, my grandmother (her mother was @40 yrs. old when she was born!), used to tell us horrifying stories about this. She was 8-9 years old when his coffin was set in their front parlor and _all_ the family was expected to take turns sitting wake with it until all the kinfolk could travel there for the funeral, even her, sitting alone with her father's body keeping flies and rodents away... I never did like her "bedtime stories". All my life people have commented about my big eyes, so I'd tell them, "Funny thing about how that happened, when I was a small child my grandmother used to tell me these stories... and that's why my face looks permanently horrified!" 35 years ago, I went tubing on the Trinity near the place where my great-grandparents met. Hard to believe that big steamboats navigated that 100 years prior. Probably couldn't get a canoe down it now.

[@xenuno]

Goes along with human's sterilization of the Earth. Though I know global warming is real, it's just one of the numerous negative effects humans have had with many of those in much more immediate need of addressing ..

[@NickRoman]

Yeah, here in Rancho Cordova, they dealt with that by building a fish hatchery for salmon another fish, and they built a fish ladder to get the fish up there so that they can extract the eggs.

[@amylsmith]

It’s always unsettling during drought in Australia as one of our dams used to be an area with a cemetery. So when the water level drops you can see headstones out in the middle 😳

[@AceSpadeThePikachu]

I've always been fascinated with footage of divers exploring sunken cities. It's like shipwreck exploring, but it bends the mind because you're seeing things submerged that one wouldn't normally THINK of when they think "submerged." It's one of the reasons I love the "Wet Dry Land" level in Super Mario 64 (and the DS remake) so much. Though something I find equally fascinating is when the reverse happens. Like the example you showed at the beginning of the video, when an area that's been submerged for a VERY long time suddenly dries up...that makes for some really eerie scenery. Like when a lake or river that used to be a major trading hum dries up and you find all these rusted shipwrecks sticking out of the desert sand.

[@world_still_spins]

Like the movie Waterworld.

[@BuckeyeStormsProductions]

My brother went to college in Tennessee, and remained there after. He got his scuba certification in his early 20s because of all the sunken towns that were near where he lived. He decided he wanted to explore them for himself.

[@briandoolittle3422]

The Pineapple Express is actually a fairly consistent and frequent atmospheric River. It usually makes landfall in Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, and is responsible for the Pacific Northwests reputation for extremely cloudy weather, and for heavy rain and snowfall in the mountains in these regions. Californias huge snowfall this year was close to normal snowfall for Washington State and British Columbia. Average annual snowfall for Mt. Baker is over 500 inches, and average annual snowfall for Mt. Rainier is about 650 inches. The difference is that Washington, Oregon, and B.C have ecologies and geologies adapted to handle the pineapple express (rivers tend to be deeper, and can hold much higher water volume before flooding for instance), and our infrastructure is developed around the weather (we don't really have high elevation mountain towns here), so its much less devastating for the PNW than it is for California.

[@Sembazuru]

I remember being told by a tour guide in Ketchikan AL (in the inner passage area of Alaska), that if they couldn't see the top of the nearby mountain (I forget the mountain name) it was raining, and if they could see the top of the mountain it was about to rain. (Ketchikan claims the highest annual rainfall in the US.)

[@briandoolittle3422]

@@Sembazuru Ahaha. Thats great. Yeah, SE Alaska should be included in my comment. Its definitely part of the PNW temperate rainforest created by our common Atmospheric river events.

[@simonfea2]

I'd like to postulate that it's supposed to rain more around my area of California, San Francisco Bay. However, due to human intertervention negatively impacting our environment by cutting down all our redwood forests, we have turned our area more dry and less wet.

[@freetrailer4poor]

I think the term came from Fritz Coleman. It refers to a boost of tropic moisture in a winter storm. Can probably occur anywhere in CA. 50 miles north, 50 miles south will get less rain than the main river.

[@kingbee1971]

A Bay-area citizen concerned with ecology. Shocking. :)

[@bellalily822]

I live in the California mountains in central California, we have a pineapple express hitting us later this week. It was 80 degrees yesterday. We are getting snow this week. The weather has been absolutely bananas.

[@yourlocaltoad5102]

Regarding the cities at the bottom of lakes: I live in Austria and in Summer, we often go hiking in a beautiful valley called the Dorfertal. It has a small river running through it, many pastures with cows and beautiful views in every direction. But it also has many metal fixtures you can look through to see points which are 222m (728ft) above the bottom of the valley and these spots mark the top of a dam and hydroelectric plant that they wanted to build back in the 70s. Luckily this project was stopped by people who wanted to protect this beautiful valley. Whenever we sit in garden of the little restaurant in the valley or just in some meadow where we take a break and eat something, it’s really weird to think about the fact that we sit at the bottom of what could have been the biggest and deepest artificial lake in austria. But luckily the dam was never built and so people can go hiking there and cows can spend their summers there and eat a ton of grass. So if anyone is actually reading this and wants to see this beautiful valley, google „Dorfertal Osttirol“ and click on images. It truly is a beautiful place.

[@ohkaygoplay]

I looked it up. Thank God they didn't build the dam. It is a beautiful place.

[@ohkaygoplay]

I grew up near Melones reservoir in California - one of the reservoirs that provides water for Los Angeles. It was during a major drought that the lake drained low enough to return to its original state as a river. The town of Melones saw daylight again for the first time in decades. I saw a lot of the old buildings, and jumped off the original cement bridge into the deeper part of the river. The river dropped so low that you could leap across it using the stones protruding from the water. That was the first time I saw a real sunken town. Up until that point, I'd had no idea that I was passing over a lost town every time I cross the bridge over the lake. I didn't even know that's how the lake got its name - from the town it drowned. Seeing it was super cool, but also made it real. And that made me sad. I kept imagining life there, and the people who called it home. I felt sorry for them that they had their entire town destroyed so that people hundreds of miles away could have water. For the longest time, I hated Los Angeles for causing this kind of death. Funny how I live here now, and some of my water probably comes from the lake I grew up near. Apparently, some of the older locals either were or knew people displaced by the flood waters. That made it even more sad to me that people who had first-hand memories of that town as children were still alive. :(

[@calivalley9056]

I live in the Central Valley of California, just outside the Tulare Lake basin. Tulare lake was the largest fresh water lake west of the Mississippi prior to it being drained for agricultural expansion and the sale of water, it is now filling rapidly from the snow melt. It’s amazing, I hope it fills completely and returns to its natural state. There are a few small towns that have built up in the basin, this should have never been allowed.

[@loke6664]

You would need more then a single winter with a lot of snow for that though but it is possible. Not super likely at the moment based on historical weather patterns, you rarely go from a 25 year drought to a wet period in a single winter and if it doesn't get a yearly refill, heat and agricultural pumping will make a short process of it. But predicting long time weather patterns is one of the hardest things in the world so who knows? California could certainly use some more lakes. Building a city in a dried out lake seems like a very poor long term choice. California have historically had many wet and dry periods (from the mid 40s to the late 90s was a slightly wetter then usual period followed by a dryer then usual period) so sooner or later your house will be pretty much ruined, could take 200 years or happen soon... Hopefully we do get a few more wet years at least, let's just hope Spain get a few soon as well as they are having a really bad mega drought at the moment. California's water use is a bit out of hand though, fresh water is a limited resource and you can just use more fresh water then what you have for so long before you got a big problem on your hands. The climate and soil is perfect for agriculture but pumping up ground water and basically emptying the Colorado river is a huge problem, particularly when you grow really thirsty crops like almonds and California grows far more of those then the rest of the world put together. So I fear my prediction is that it will be gone again pretty soon unless the weather have changed a lot. But it could be worse, you could live in Catalonia which hasn't been as dry as it is in recorded history (and that recorded history go far further back then it does in California).

[@sohsraider26]

Out in Visalia too.. driving down the 99 seeing water in the fields was quite a sight to see!

[@YungSteambuns]

thank you for the copy paste comment

[@Dragrath1]

@@loke6664 yeah the incredulous bit about water use in the western US is that most of it is going to grow export crops to feed cows in Japan not only is this bad for California but its bad for the world given how inefficient beef is in terms of caloric value but also in terms of methane production.

[@loke6664]

@@Dragrath1 Agreed, and it feels a bit wasteful to grow it in a place with such great soil. I'm no agricultural expert but cows are fine eating hay and that isn't a crop that require great soil. Sending cattle feed half the globe also seems pretty stupid to me no matter what. In either case, someone seriously need to rethink the water share system in California. Having a fixed system no matter how much water it is a certain year doesn't really makes much sense since the reality is that a dry year there is a lot less water to go around then in a wet year. That is of course bad short term for the economy but it is worse when the aquafiers run dry and in worse case that can lead to a new dust bowl. Water shares should be set each year depending on how much it snowed during the winter, that is the only way to make it work long term. And yeah, that will lead to fields being dormant dry years but unless you can get water from somewhere else there really isn't any other good options if you want to keep the agriculture at it's current level. Getting water from elsewhere have it's problems too. China did that some years back, creating a huge canal system to get water into areas with more agriculture and it was a bit on an ecological disaster and the only place with enough water in the US would be the great lakes. Making a man made river from the great lakes to California is an option but the cost would be immense and I have a feeling many people wouldn't like to have a river running over their lands so I don't think that is realistic either. The choice is still pretty simple: Use less water or get more water but either option is a political quagmire and expensive to boot. I think the one reasonable thing to do is to focus on crops that need less water, that option wont be popular with farmers but reality have been knocking on their door for the last 20 years and it is better to grow things like melons and tomatoes then nothing at all.

[@bsjeffrey]

earthquakes just want hollywood to portray them accurately.

[@churchofthelambofsat]

With LA being squeezed out into space like a pimple?

[@Dharmarenee]

😂😂😂😂

[@MetallicAAlabamA]

Let's not forget weather wants to be portrayed accurately also. I will say that some movies about storms have been a bit closer to reality. Except when it comes to portraying the storm chasers in the movies lol.

[@neverlistentome]

Wait, you're saying natural disasters DON'T chase people down hallways?

[@khajiithadwares2263]

I have a PhD in forgettology and forget earthquakes are indeed as the title implies, an actual danger in places with seismic bog-woogies or tectonic shim-shimmies.

[@JoeJohnston-taskboy]

The Dunwich Horror was inspired by a reservoir created in Massachusetts that drowned a bunch of some towns. So yeah, this topic is close to my heart.

[@veramae4098]

When Egyptians finally started going outside of Egypt (yeah, wars) they were astonished by rain. Called it a "river in the sky". They were SHOCKED.

[@friendlyneighborhoodvampir9081]

I thought that was the Shadow Over Innsmouth?

[@rodneykelly8768]

"Color Out Of Space."

[@userequaltoNull]

Which one? There have been multiple.

[@beautifulblackbeauty8641]

I'm from Mass. and missed this. What year was this?

[@useazebra]

The Provo joke killed me. Lol. Well played.

[@gazelam]

I grew up in Provo. I guess you can never go home again.

[@hunterfowler8322]

Fun fact, Pickwick Lake in Tennessee, formed after the Pickwick Dam drowned an area that was used to house Native Americans during the Trail of Tears. Also, there's a restaraunt beside the dam called The Outpost, I used to be the "manager" of the back kitchen(did four people's jobs basically) there, and they have some awesome photos of the dam being built and some of the record fish caught there.

[@COD_is_a_sin]

My old town, Gunter Texas, used to be an entire lake. Any backyard had old fossils in it. The last of the lake was still biiiig but owned on private property by a farmer. We got to fish it a couple times. Never much luck in the lake but there was this tiny little runoff pond that had MONSTER catfish. At anytime, there were 10+ catfish 3+ feet long just swimmin on the top of the water. It was INSANE.

[@Hongobogologomo]

When you slap your hand against a fat catfish, it goes "plap" 👌👌👌🤙👁👅👁

[@aserta]

Reminds me of when i used go to my grandma's place before she passed on as a kid, playing in the fields, every rock grabbed by the plow had some sort of fossil. None were any value, most being broken up to bits, but it was still fun finding them. The entire area, used to be sea "back in the day".

[@kitcutting]

@@Hongobogologomo ahh, a man of culture 🍷

[@PneumaticFrog]

​@@Hongobogologomo is this a reference or smth

[@monhi64]

Wait how big could a lake possibly be and still be owned by one farmer. You got me curious so I checked google maps and all I could find was Ray Robert’s lake which is fairly big but said it’s a reservoir created in the mid 1900’s. I actually have a similar situation except where I live used to be part of the ocean bed and we have a ton of coral fossils in upstate New York. The crazy thing that it used to be part of the Western Sahara area until they got split up

[@samcs06]

I live in KY and land between the lakes was once farm land before it was turned into a lake. my dad and I use to fish every so often and on his boat he had a sonar depth finder. I use to think it was neat AF to see underwater. Well one day we were riding along and the avg depth was around 30-40ft. Then out of no where the depth drops to 200+ feet and back up. My dad said it was probably a water well from when it used to be farm land. I still find it fascinating to think about to this day.

[@JTA1961]

Now you where to dump the "bodies"...🙃

[@rtqii]

Forget Earthquakes! The 1692 Jamaica Earthquake is really one to read about. Port Royal was extremely wealthy, everybody drank bottled wine, mead or beer. Water was imported in casks, and even casked water frequently made people sick. The town was built of imported wood and imported brick, and it was constructed on soft sand. They had warehouses, docks, hotels, bars, the works. Most buildings were two story, and three story buildings were not uncommon. When the earthquake hit mid-morning, the soft sand the town was built on not only liquified, it turned into the ocean, waves moved through the sand exactly as waves move through water. When the shaking stopped the sand solidified again, people were trapped half buried, and completely buried, in the ground. A tsunami followed up the swallowing of the town, and the water never completely receded. In the 1950's there were extensive archeological excavations, the parts of the town, and the people, who were swallowed up by the sand are all still buried there. I forget exactly but I think the land subsidence was about 16 feet, and so most of the buried remains are under water.

[@MichaelMacKellar-nu1oe]

It was once said - People say you can't stand in the way of progress. I say you can stand in the way of progress if you wish. Progress will then roll right over you and not even bother to look back to see how badly you were hurt.

[@BobJonesSL]

Well, sitting here in Provo UT I laughed so loudly that my grandchildren came in to see if I was okay. Joe, you're awesome.

[@southwesthardypalms]

Right??? That probably went over so many peoples heads 😂😂

[@No_one_in_particularr]

I was just wondering about that. I live in Europe and know very little about Utah except that there are a lot of Mormons. Can you please explain why this is funny?

[@kait112]

I grew up there and haven't stopped laughing for the last 10 minutes:)

[@duffusd]

​@@No_one_in_particularrProvo and the valley around it is often called Happy valley, and is known for being extremely... Perfect. There is a large Mormon college there BYU that will kick kids out of school for drugs, sex, cheating, lying, or even watching pornography.

[@StevenBanks123]

“Pavlopetri, Greece, predates Plato’s story about Atlantis.” Well yeah, and since being in his past, might even have been some kind of legendary source material. BTW, near where I live in California, during the long drought, our local creek dried up, at last revealing a shopping cart.

[@ecoideazventures6417]

I was wondering why there is no discussion about Atlantis!

[@CAMacKenzie]

A Holocene fossil. Holocene is also called Recent, but that's REALLY recent.

[@seattlegrrlie]

Was it a wild shopping cart? Or a domesticated one?

[@72marshflower15]

I thought California has been flooding for the past few months.

[@mikelouis9389]

Perhaps it was left by aliens? Interstellar bargain hunters

[@communications23]

Joe Scott: "Koalas are so dumb, they don't even hide from the rain." Also Joe Scott:

[@Kat-tr2ig]

There's a place about 3 1/2 hrs away from me called Villa Epecuén, in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 1993 the nearby lake flooded and the entire town was covered by water...and remained that way for 20 years. The water has receeded, and you can visit the ruins, which have been blanched white due to the salt in said water. It''s creepy yet beautiful.

[@joho0]

I live in Central Florida where we deal with surface water every day. We have tens of thousands of "retention ponds" that are used to collect and store surface water, so it doesn't flood our streets and homes every time it rains.

[@sarahhunter2855]

My great grandmother’s childhood home (and town) is under Lake Norman in NC. I’m very in to family history and knowing that there are family graveyards at the bottom of the lake that can’t be seen or visited is a bit sad.

[@aracelylopezpsyd5794]

This. That’s just horrible. Why can’t we humans be more compassionate with one another? We excuse unnecessary cruelty in the name of “progress.” At least add some sort of memorial or a space that acknowledges the loss of life, homes, & history people suffered when these areas were flooded? At minimum, give people a place to honor their history &/or loved ones?

[@laurettelaliberte8864]

My mother's childhood home is at the bottom of the John Flannagan Dam Resevoire n SW Virginia. She remembers sitting at teh top of a mountain with her family watching as the Army Corps of Engineers flooded the valley. I actually think of that storu any time I watch Oh Brother, Where Art Thou Coincidentally, my mother's cousin, Ralph Stanley, sang several songs on that soundtrack).

[@cheesuschrist3081]

A sizable chunk of the town my grandparents used to live in is now 4 very deep lakes because of kilometers of tunnels, that were dug under the downtown area for salt mining, that collapsed in 1978 due to flooding after being abandoned. It is quite a haunting feeling seeing these lakes knowing that a lively town can be swallowed up by water just like that, with all of its historical buildings and sometimes people.

[@Mirddes]

which town?

[@pyrox7x]

Please tell us the name of the town

[@chriscandidi4912]

People just wanna scare everyone

[@sweatysam6264]

"I am a man of constant sorrow..." thanks Joe I gonna have that song in my head all day.

[@JonMartinYXD]

That 1862 flood reminds me a lot of Alberta's 2013 flood. It has been on my mind lately because in an act of craven vote-buying a month before an election, the party currently in government has announced that if reelected the provincial government will help fund the construction of a new arena for the Calgary Flames. There are many problems with this announcement, but one that isn't talked about nearly enough is the vulnerability of the new arena to flooding. The 2013 flood filled the existing arena (the Saddledome) with water up to the tenth row of seats. The location of the proposed new arena, about 100 metres north of the Saddledome, is actually slightly lower in the floodplain. By the province's own data that location has a 58% chance of being flooded in the next 30 years. The expected lifetime of the new arena is at least 35 years. With floods becoming more severe and frequent, we are quickly coming to a point where insurance companies will simply refuse to insure entire neighbourhoods at risk. The reinsurance companies (the companies that insure the insurance companies) have been warning about climate change since the late 1970s and they are starting to put the squeeze on their customers to reevaluate flood risks.

[@poolhalljunkie9]

I called out "and don't call me Shirley" milliseconds before it popped up. Props to the editor for that one. 😂😂

[@michellesheaff3779]

I read regions with droughts are more vulnerable to floods because the soil dries out and hardens making the earth less able to absorb the water. It stays on the surface doing all its damage. Which explains why counterintuitively areas with more droughts also suffer from more floods.

[@darkeness1029]

It’s worse in areas with a lot of clay. The heat bakes it, making it difficult for ground cover to take hold. Then heavy rains are just shed rather than being absorbed, furthering erosion in looser kinds of soil.

[@janemiettinen5176]

It goes the other way too. Im from Finland, we are used to rain, snow and cold - now we have insanely long heatwaves in summer and its unbearable! Before, all you had to do was to open a window, now it might push in even hotter air.. ACs were pretty rare couple years ago, they were in public buildings only. Brown grass, wild animals going in odd places searching for a drink, all sorts of weirdness.. my nordic ass aint looking forward to it at all.

[@therealhellkitty5388]

Part of the problem is land subsidence… as you pump out groundwater, the land sinks. This collapses the space between the particles of earth less space=less holding capacity=more runoff and less benefit from soaking rains. Land subsidence in the Central Valleys has cost an astronomical amount of storage capacity that will never be regained.

[@gl15col]

@@therealhellkitty5388 I think Florida is having the same problem.

[@albinoorca]

This is why the Texas panhandle is so ecologically f***ed up. There used to be prairie grass with long roots, now there's not even a little left. It's all crops that need more water than the area can provide now, and hard clay. Then in Palo Duro canyon, there are invasive salt cedar and mesquite trees that suck up all the water. I wish I could have seen the area before "settlers" (invasive humans) defaced the entire region.

[@questionnumber1619]

I just had an epiphany. Click-baity titles aren't at all bothersome when you know there will be quality content behind it. Excellent video, as always!

[@JTA1961]

Athefumen ✅ ✅ ✅

[@massminer2343]

I live near a reservoir in Montana that has a town at the bottom of it. It also had a graveyard on top of a Hill. That hill is now a island and the graveyard is still there

[@DarthRayj]

Interesting to come back to this after the massive inland flooding in Appalachia that just happened. Unprepared towns, hurricane brought water unprecedentedly far inland, and we were looking at very similar conditions to this theoretical West coast storm, but on the East coast instead

[@loucatozzi7656]

I just love how Joe describes the destruction of California while smiling and wearing a "This made my day." tee-shirt. That made my day!

[@jerelull9629]

Great T-shirt, what I've seen of it, that is.

[@CarFreeSegnitz]

Just here to mention that and to nitpick. The shirt leaves out the single largest contributor to “day”… the sun.

[@candui-7]

Kiss your winter lettuce goodbye.

[@themollerz]

@@candui-7 Also if they live in a red state kiss their welfare checks goodbye as well. California's success keeps a lot of red states somewhat out of third world country status.

[@mikelouis9389]

​@@themollerz New Madrid fault enters the chat...

[@Nicole-xd1uj]

In November 2021, atmospheric rivers caused massive flooding in the Fraser Valley just east of Vancouver, BC. The valley was under water for days, destroying farms, homes , businesses and the main highway connecting the west coast to the rest of Canada. Like California, this area had a documented history of flooding but nothing had really been done to prepare for it...fingers crossed that we can get our act together before worst case scenarios start happening.

[@jeffreyknutson]

The Baptism joke forced me to stop the video because I was laughing so hard and for so long. Great video.

[@jerelull9629]

As another noted, it was a great python-esque video moment.

[@berntengdahl1519]

I feel terrible today. Thank god there's a new video on Joe's channel to chear me up.

[@k1ng5urfer]

Just had this happen in BC last year and it was pretty bad. A ton of towns and farmland flooded out and basically every major highway north washed away.

[@little-wytch]

If you ever do an episode expanding on sunken towns, you might want to check out the 1000 islands and St Lawrence Valley area from when they built the Seaway. Scuba diving in some of these areas is just creepy.

[@theangrybavarian3876]

This topic reminds me of the stories my parents and grandparents have told me about the Mississippi River Flood of 1993 and how it affected the area I live (Southwest Illinois), an entire town of about 900 people wound up moving 2 miles to the east (and about 250 feet higher in elevation). The new town has shown remarkable growth in the 30 years since, doubling in population following the exodus after the flood. The street grid remains where such things as the school, businesses and houses once stood. Now all that remains is a small park and a handful of houses rebuilt by people who would not (or could not) leave the place they knew as home.

[@dwbrannon]

I live in East Tennessee so I grew with TVA. One thing to keep in mind about dams is that they not only provide power but also flood control. East Tenn. was infamous for floods before TVA. Fortunately these floods are mostly history now. The other thing to keep in mind is that when they first close a dam, it takes weeks or months for the lake to fill in, so the scene in O Brother were they were caught in a flood when the damn was closed was not entirely historically accurate. George Clooney could have walked away from the flood. Hell, he could have crawled.

[@johnkrappweis7367]

You mentioned “O Brother,Where Art Thou”! Yesssss!!! I love that movie. If you hadn’t mentioned it, I would have.

[@malabaletnica]

Our lake, Lake Oroville has Bidwells Bar at the bottom of it along with Native American artifacts.

[@Soundbrigade]

In Autumn 2010 it started to rain here in the Western Sweden. And it rained and rained and rained. As our lake (biggest in Sweden) started to fill up, the power company was happy as the lake supplies the power station with water and closed all gates until parts of our and other towns around the lake started to be flooded and by then it was too late. The predictions are that by the climate changes, more and heavier rain will fall and the single outlet cannot cope with too much water as the embankments in many cases are made of clay that will slide into the river.

[@xntumrfo9ivrnwf]

I once went on an "adventure holiday" to Turkey and one of the activities involved sea kayaking next to a half submerged town that sank like 2000 years ago after an earth quake. Was really an amazing thing to sea (😉)

[@dittoleeo]

Hello, future AgSci undergrad here! I wished you had mentioned something related to how the flooding of Central California will absolutely decimate farming, like for example, the fruit and nut production. This is a 54 billion dollar industry whose crops feed millions across America and around the world. It's no exaggeration to say that displacement is/will be the least of our worries. There will not just be cool sunken cities afterwards to look at. California may experience 1-3 megastorms within my life time due to climate change increasing the likelihood. As someone who has 80% of my life left to go, I beg that you do not just end the story with "we have to be more flexible." There is much to be done. For example, flood plain restoration and managed aquifer recharge so we can take in some of the water. Forecast-informed reservoir operations so that all those artificial lakes dont fail and cause more flooding damage. Go over the real severe effects of flooding and offer some solutions if you're gonna use arkstorms as clickbait. edit: Removed fluff, added displeasure

[@evastapaard2462]

just ask the Dutch. they'll know how.

[@dittoleeo]

@@Jack_Russell_Brown Sorry about your house, but thanks for the encouragement. It means a lot!

[@Sicksociety334]

My family had a farm that is now at the bottom of dale hollow lake. Very close to willow grove. I still have an aunt that lives right next to willow grove.

[@thisguyhere85]

You know that volcano that exploded in Tonga last year? It put major water into the atmosphere

[@michelevanwormer1575]

I live in a house that was moved from a hamlet that was flooded ninety-three years ago to make way for the Great Sacandaga Lake in the Adirondack region of New York State. You did a great job bringing to light a subject not many people know about. The map you showed was astounding when you think of all the people displaced and livelihoods destroyed it indicates. My house now sits on a mill road in Broadalbin NY. There was a paper mill located somewhere on the road. In the mid 1800’s paper was not made from wood pulp but from rags. In 1855 there was a rag shortage in America. The solution? Import bales of mummy wrappings from Egypt To use as rags for paper milling! So somewhere in the dirt on my property There could be the dust from ancient mummy linens. Ain’t history grand?

[@erinmac4750]

Wow! I knew there was a victorian dad of adding ground up mummy dust to your tea, but using their shrouds for paper, as well!? I'm surprised we had any left for archaeologists with that attitude.

[@sujimtangerines]

I've lived in 3 areas longer than a few months and all of them have man-made lakes nearby, so I've made sure to learn about their flooded towns. Not only Saint Thomas but Oscarville in GA & Table Rock Lake in MO. I too am conflicted by the loss vs power generation & water retention.

[@joequincy5574]

Liked the on-location bits, Joe. I appreciate that you and your team are always trying new things.

[@cadence4527]

Hey, Sacramento resident here. I don't know which great flood you are referring to, but that picture was from an inauguration of our governor and was a result of excessive hydraulic mining at Malakoff Diggins. The picture used to hang somewhere in the State Capital (I don't know if it's still there as I didn't see it the last time I went) Malakoff Diggins excessive hydraulic mining not only caused regular flood in Sacramento, but the mass destruction of crops, the shallowing of San Francisco Bay and washed large amounts of mercury into the Bay which is why there are mercury consumption warnings pertaining to certain seafood from California's coast. Malakoff Diggins was the largest hydraulic mining operation in the state and probably wouldn't have pulled enough gold out of the hills to offset the cost of damage it caused. Folsom Dam was constructed as a means to mitigate the constant flooding and there are at least two towns at the bottom of Folsom Lake, Mormon Island and Red Bank. During one severe drought, Red Bank did surface and I did go to see it. Mormon Island was still many feet below water. I've never heard anything about the great floods being caused by heavy snow pack in the mountains, though I won't deny that that could have been a contributing factor. The only real serious threat that California faces is from our arrogant State legislature and our governor.

[@raquelnunes9793]

In portugal theres a sunken village that now is under the lake created by the alqueva dam. They literally built an exact copy a few km over for its residents. Lol

[@AmaraJordanMusic]

As a Tennessean, I’m used to hearing Tennessee come up in random videos and it being negative. 🙃 Some of the places that *aren’t* sunk and flooded are absolutely lovely, though. 😅

[@midman112]

Went fishing on Lake Guntersville in northern Alabama this past weekend which is a TVA lake. Stopped on one spot that you could clearly see what was left of a little over a dozen graves and their headstones on the sonar downscan and side imaging. Very cool and also a bit creepy to be fishing where someone is/was buried at one point in time.

[@Portablesounds]

Obviously not the same scale as an arkstorm, but the over double historical average snow pack in the Sierras right now has already and will continue to cause a lot of flooding in the Central Valley for months to come. Even our reservoir's are full (Hope Oroville's new emergency spillway works this time 😅)

[@annec781]

Amazing that so many reservoirs are full, and the runoff has barely started…

[@Geoplanetjane]

Spillway is working

[@ThisIsTheWay05]

Hey, Coastal Californian here. We've just had an epic winter. Not only did we have torrential rains and flooding, but many of our levies have broken apart and flooded our local towns. Our coastal town and our famous pier (yes I'm from the Santa Cruz area) was completely destroyed from the last major storm. We even received a bout of snow down here. Snow! Our mountains got so much that many ski resorts are open for skiing past their closure dates. (spring skiing is fun) but in all seriousness, every year the winters get more intense. Whether it be torrential rains or no rains at all!

[@claytonschaechtel2936]

It’s crazy how popular your channel has gotten. Sending love from Texas. I wish I could contribute financially, but I try to like every video. Great job Joe.

[@aurelias9539]

I think joe’s Uber rich by now 1000 likes =$7 multiply by Millions and joes doing just fine plus all the patreons donating by regular monthly payment yup joe’s made for life by now

[@aurelias9539]

700k likes equals $4900 income for one video I think Joe is sorted financially I’m a fan I’m just saying he’s sorted

[@joeyhernandez3925]

As a resident of Utah, and a non-mormon, your Provo Utah joke made me outwardly laugh while alone. Great writing Joe lol keep it up.

[@ibex_capri4514]

I was looking for this comment 😂. I'm in Cali now but I miss Utah. I lived in SLC. I laughed so hard and then my dumb self thought it was true 😂😂😂

[@jmitterii2]

@@ibex_capri4514 It is. Them Provo pirates are scurvy in all, but their nave! And I'm outta here before you think about what that even means.

[@craigb8228]

KEEP 'EM GUESSING

[@dragonprincess2925]

I'm confused. Am I missing something important?

[@JimmyMon666]

As someone from Las Vegas I fully expected my city to be displayed.

[@trevinbeattie4888]

I love the clever quips in this video, and the Pythonesque baptismal scene! 😂 Intellectually I understand that the Earth’s topography is continually changing on a geologic time scale. It’s odd though to see such drastic changes taking place on a human time scale.

[@jevinday]

That's how I was baptized 😂

[@mattcero1]

Dude! You should have also mentioned at 10:15 that the Three Gorges Dam also slowed the rotation of the Earth as it stopped such a massive amount of water. They actually measured the rotation before and after and the difference was measurable.

[@seasidescott]

Lots of rain here in Southern Oregon and the problem has been that old ditches were not maintained after several years of less rain. Some had been filled or paved over as well. Well, we hopefully learned a lesson but memory fades quickly when it mean lots of work for "what if" scenarios even if they are really "when" situations. You said we need to be adaptable and ready to move but lots of buying and selling, changing ownership, has hastened poor management in many cases; people not willing to invest in the long term. Buildings that have been there for a hundred years were being undermined by a few years neglect to runoff and nobody asking why that old dry ditch was there?

[@4dirt2racer0]

u seem like somebody i could sit around smoke a bunch n talk with for hours its genuinely kinda hard to find good conversation

[@sleepyraffi]

I actually live close to a flooded town here in germany and was thinking about this Topic just the other day. It truly looks beautiful there but to think that there was a town once is fascinating. There is nothing left but a Hilltop that is now the single Island of the lake.

[@Bugg...0_o]

I'm surprised that, considering @Joe Scott is from Texas, he left out Broken Bow Lake. It's in McCurtain County (yes that one, that's made international news recently 😞) which is on the border of Texas. (We get a ton of tourism from Texas, for obvs reasons.) Growing up near the lake, I was always frightened by the knowledge that "Old Hochatown" was still down there, lying somewhat intact below the surface of the lake. Tons of legends about it circulate because we don't have anything better to do than talk, with one of the more common ones being that they didn't actually move the bodies from the graveyard, just the headstones. Add that to the yearly downings makes for some creepy tales. For all I know there isn't even a cemetery down there, but just the thought of it is enough to keep the story going from generation to generation, plus the image of empty ice-water buildings, waiting silently for you to join them in the twilight below the waves.

[@Ryne918]

Oklahoma has over 200 man-made lakes thanks to WPA funding post WW2. Doubt they removed everything. In NE Oklahoma there are tons of sporadic single-grave and small cemeteries from the Trail of Tears and some of the biggest of said lakes. Probably not just a legend.

[@fathergillis]

loved the man-on-the-scene portions of the video! was a refreshing switch up to see you out in the wild joe! :)

[@aliensoup2420]

A possible big difference between today and 150 years ago in Los Angeles is that today we have numerous flood control canals throughout the city and suburbs. Phoenix, AZ has them as well to deal with the August monsoon season.

[@par.boe619]

Have you heard of Tulare Lake? It used to be the largest lake east of the Mississippi at times. It was drained for agriculture in the early 1900s (very simplified version). It’s kind of coming back to life right now, it’s crazy. Google it

[@Baurge]

*west

[@bonnielbailey]

I spent a lot of time at my grandparent’s resort in TN. The area they lived in was flooded by the TVA. There are islands that used to be hill tops, submerged railroad tracks, and the top of an old mill. Apparently there was an attempt to blast the mill and destroy it, but it was a solid build so it was left alone. Pretty cool all around.

[@pablotroncosounwin2917]

Very good video as always, Joe. Take a good look to the building of the Aswan damm and the awesome efforts to save 6.000 years old temples and cities in Upper Egipt.

[@rontonkin7751]

I grew up in North Bonneville, Washington in the 60's. The town appeared while the Bonneville dam was being constructed on the Columbia River... in, ah... I don't know, a long time ago. Later they decided they wanted to expand the dam and needed MORE river to build it on, and that new river channel was going down Main Street of my hometown. First they bulldozed it, then they dug a really big hole where it had been, and then, just to make absolutely sure there was no trace at all of my childhood left, they ran one of the biggest rivers on earth over it. They built a "new" North Bonneville down the river a bit, but it wasn't - couldn't be - the same. I spent some of the best years of my life in that dumpy little town. I checked around, and apparently 7 year olds freely roaming and exploring an entire town isn't much of a thing anymore. Too bad. It was glorious.

[@Fruitcupper]

Live in the mountains, eventually we'll have waterfront property, and hike Everest in summer.

[@misskrissie9893]

This actually reminds me of a video posted by Geography Geek about a month ago. His video was covering many maps from the 17th and 18th centuries with a giant sea covering portions of where Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming are now. This flooding along with the original Lake Bonneville.

[@Mackeroni7]

Great video! That map of the natural lakes in America is so interesting. I never knew how few of the lakes in the South were natural

[@owlivdejong5086]

Not fun fact is 23 of the US lakes are on top of black towns. It was cheaper than paying to buy out white towns because the land was simply stolen.

[@michaelmcbride809]

Excellent video. Makes me wonder if there are plans in the works to start capturing some of this flood water. And, the new set is working very well from our side of the cameras.

[@kissthesky40]

Yeah, right after they pay out $34T in reparations. Sure.

[@themollerz]

In California they capture massive amounts of snow melt. This is, indeed, California's water supply. The thing people don't realize is the sheer scale of the amount of water that can flow through California (or not), and they capture basically as much water as is possible. Their reservoir and dam systems are massive and even carry water down to the desert that is SoCal.

[@pizzas4breakfast]

All the dams and resistors in the world wouldn't make up for a 20 year drought

[@kevinouellette5316]

​@@pizzas4breakfastalmost true but creating tributaries from the Colorado River to different areas of known melt water from the Rockies would definitely help. Also there are plans being proposed to connect the Missouri River to the Colorado River. Also to connect thru a pipeline to the Mississippi but I think the Rockies have enough annual melt water if used correctly.

[@anydaynow01]

Yeah I thought this video was going to go in another direction, in that California will be a giant desert in a few decades with how little water they have in the dams now. I hope they have systems like Tokyo where they built massive underground caverns to capture flood waters.

[@wesleyvoth1076]

I grew up at a summer camp close to Buckhorn Lake in Kentucky. The property that the camp sits on was purchased by a church with the money they received after they and the rest of the town were submerged. Growing up hearing that story made this topic even more interesting. Great video!

[@extropiantranshuman]

well at least this explains the crazy weather in california that everyone ignores because they keep thinking about the 'wonderful weather' of california malibu and santa barbara beaches.

[@iosaturnalia]

People in the San Bernardino area are nervous about this happening to small towns near the mountains, since there’s still so much snow and if it gets as hot as it usually does this summer, that ice might all melt way too quickly.

[@phazerave]

How'd it go?

[@Anthony-c5w]

Where is this ice?

[@iosaturnalia]

@@Anthony-c5w in the mountains. San Bernardino is right next to Big Bear, which gets very snowy in the winter.

[@Sibyle79]

Joe! This was a totally awesome episode! Great work! 🎉❤

[@joescott]

Thanks!

[@markchip1]

I was curious to look at the Shi Cheng reservoir on Google Earth and after some degree of difficulty I did manage to locate it, about 150 miles to the South-West of Shanghai - if anyone's interested! This lands are pretty remarkable, just what you'd expect from a flooded, yet hilly area!

[@InaEsin]

We purchased this property 30yrs ago, mostly because it had a hidden lagoon with waterfalls and a small creek...about a foot wide, but all the way from there to off-property a little north of us. Adjacent to the creek and waterfalls was a much larger/wider creek, just not on our land. That creek was about 3y wide, much deeper. There's a lake back there, again, to the north-east. Fast forward to the now. There are now about 14 little creeks all over the land down there between the original little creek and the neighbor's bigger one. About half of them are now quite deep, 3ft deep in some areas I would say. I predict that the entire valley down there will be underwater in another 10-20yrs. My grandchildren will inherit all this land, so they will have a good knowledge of this property and all its changes.

[@ronjones-6977]

In Northern California, the two largest reservoirs in the state are 95% full and the snowpack is at a record 240% of normal. It might only be May, but we've already seen 93 degreees in NorCal. All I can say is I'm glad my home is on wheels. I live 30 miles below the Oroville Dam. (Remember that one? The one that almost failed just 6 years ago?)

[@matthewjohnson1891]

Same here, im in Chico and am watching this stuff closely. Im thinking of going uphill to cohassett if we get flooded since we live right off the road.

[@matthewjohnson1891]

Downpour and 60 yester, 95 expected on thursday.

[@bazoo513]

This was a _very_ good one, Joe!

[@pen7857]

Fun fact: the highway system didn't just kill small towns... the transit system kills the equivalent of a big town every year in real human toll.

[@sagetmaster4]

I learned about the ARKStorm last fall and it blew my mind...and then December was crazy in California and I was freaking out

[@Godspeedysick]

Been to Port Royal. Very long and rich history with the pirates. Seeing buildings propped up lopsided in person can sometimes be overwhelming. Definitely a worthy visit.

[@sailomb]

Watching the floods in southern cali Feb 2024 and realized how you did warn us.

[@teacher.will91]

Thanks for showcasing White Rock Lake! I grew up in Dallas and have lived in Mexico for 20 years now, but that lake is a few blocks from where my mom grew up, and I have very fond memories of it. So much so that after my mom passed aways unfortunately due to COVID in 2021 here in Mexico, it was one of the places I decided to spread her ashes, knowing that she had lived a happy life in her youth in the neighborhood of Forest Hills, Casa Linda and Lakewood. I had no idea it was the largest urban park in the country though, I've only been around the north shore, the dog park and of course the beautiful arboretum, which I must admit in my childhood I never went, but last May I was passing through again on a drive back down to Mexico all the way from Minneapolis, and I stayed in Dallas for 2 days to get some personal errands done, and since I was driving down with a Mexican friend, I said why dont we go to the Arboretum? I've never been. It was beautiful and I recommend it to any visitor in the Dallas area. All this to say White Rock Lake has a very large emotional and sentimental value for me, and it's not often to see it portrayed, and I thank you for that, even though I know all of this is completely off topic, I felt compelled to answer and share. Thank you for reminding me of a beautiful place I hope to return to in the future, and to Mom, well, I'll see you when I get there, maybe you'll even find a horse to ride around there still, as there used to be dozens or more 60 years ago in the area!

[@LazyToad]

I lived there... went to White Rock Lake Elementary for 2 years.

[@seattlegrrlie]

As a geologist, it really bothers me when we call hydroelectric energy "green" It decimates upstream and downstream ecosystems. It displaces land that was used by small animals, plants, beetles, birds. It ruined the braided streams and marshland and floodplain downstream which are often very diverse ecosystems and absolutely necessary for birds. It stops natural erosion systems that move nutrients from mountains down into those floodplains

[@aserta]

Yeah, well the whole topic is mildly sideways because one has to consider only one subject before anything else: without a strong, forward looking political system no state in US will face the coming times. End of story. If the mathematical (in nature) predictions of the future are anything to look at, and an immediate future at that, no more talks of "in 100 years"... then stuff like this will be like a mild issue by comparison. Terra is so over us right now. Done and dusted are the days of "extraordinary storms" and earthquakes. Hundred year storms happen three times a year in some places, taking entire swaths of land with them, pollution rampant, ecosystems dying and we're happy when we find extinct moths that have found refuge and created an ecosystem inside... a Walmart. With all that and the whole country is dissonance, one side is still thinking that they can sit and another side of the country has decided to sniff soviet glue and have at it, the consequences seem larger than life when discussing tackling them. Remember when the world got together and decided to cut Ozone breaching chemicals? We can't even get together to decide the consistency of bat poop at this point, let alone bigger things. It's such a goddamned shame, because post WW2 everyone had great hopes for US as a leader, but with two stupid choices, the citizens squandered it. Ironically, both choices were celebrities, by stretch, actors at that. I concluded it was game over years ago when the report from NASA popped out on the topic of glaciers and the rate of their decay (as structures), the turning point announced, and let to pass, without a single country taking steps. To quote a line i like from a poorly rated movie "Eden's not burning, it's burnt."

[@sharonrose1226]

I’m trying to think of who the other “actor” as past president was? I know Ronald Reagan, of course; but who was the other?

[@randallparker8477]

Bass Lake in central CA, dam built 1901 across Crane Valley daming up Willow Creek, for hydroelectric power for San Joaquin Valley. Before the dam my grandfather used to cut the meadow grasses for feed for mule/horse teams hauling supplies and people up into the Sierras to several big timber logging operations. That was before the big water flumes were built to drop logs into the Fresno/Madera areas to saw mills. The flumes would also be an interesting story for your channel.

[@gusgreen3104]

How many historically repeating natural disasters are there? Tokyo Earthquake is another that I can think of.

[@lynnmccurdythehdmmrc2561]

California Flood of 1938 wasn't anything to sneer about.

[@ReasonedResponse]

Are people really sneering about that? I have my doubts...

[@DesiGalCrochet]

The one fact you forgot to mention is how many black towns were purposefully flooded. They made lakes to cover our towns. Two black towns are underneath Central Park's Lake right now.

[@Jane_8319]

And native communities too. It’s awful

[@TechW-MildlySerious]

I think we all know what communities they chose to flood. It's the same ones the choose to build toxic plants in today. I just don't think Joe wants to have that conversation in every video...because it sadly probably can be had in top many.

[@sharonrose1226]

That really sucks!

[@culturebreath369]

*There's "flooded" ghost towns everywhere! I know of one in a lake in my state. *If California goes before Florida does, I call BIG 🧢 on reality having any sense. 😂 The ocean wants to eat Florida as a snack. The insane pump system they have just to keep flooding down by a tiny bit. 😮

[@susansaoirse2797]

People don't stay in sinking homes because they're afraid of change. They stay because they have nowhere else to go.

[@zapfanzapfan]

Lesson, live on a hill... and not in an earthquake zone...

[@Knifymoloko]

What if that hill slides tho?

[@zapfanzapfan]

@@Knifymoloko I guess I should modify that to "a hill, but not a steep one"... one made of granite that doesn't erode.

[@bamcr1218]

0:02 and now your butt’s wet

[@tomkurowski8443]

Forget earthquakes. Forget all this too. Wokism is what will be California's demise.