History Buffs
The Past Comes Full
Circle
History has an interesting way of repeating itself.
This year,
it came in the form of a makeshift drainage ditch that cut between Del
Monte Avenue and Monterey Bay, right through the former Cellular One
location.
The storms and rains of 1998 brought flooding and
inconvenience to many areas throughout the Peninsula, including our City.
On February 3, 1998, torrential rainfall overwhelmed Del Monte Lake.
The overflowing basin began to fill Lake El Estero as well as Monterey’s
main thoroughfare, Del Monte Avenue.
City Public Works crews dug a
6-foot-wide, 130-foot-long trench to the Bay and successfully reduced the
flooding along Del Monte Avenue.
It was not unlike the one that Walter
Colton dug in 1846, some 150 years ago.
In his diary, Three Years in
California, Mr. Colton wrote of his solution to his flood dilemma: "as its
shores swelled with rain water the lake began to threaten with inundation
the buildings upon its margin. With only an intervening ridge of sand
between the lagoon and the bay, it occurred to me that it would be a good
scheme to cut a channel between the two. The work was easily accomplished;
but my channel of two feet soon widened to forty, and the whole lake came
rushing down in a tremendous torrent. It swept everything before it, and
carried two boats, which lay on the shore, so far out to sea they have not
been seen or heard from since.”
Thanks to better equipment and,
perhaps, more planning, the trench we dug this year only funneled water
into the sea.
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