In a drought-hit region that typically begs for moisture, the arrival of too much water at once is a paradoxical, slow-moving disaster. In the mid-1800s, before canals diverted its water flow, the lake was a permanent feature of the San Joaquin Valley, covering nearly 800 square miles – about four times the size of Lake Tahoe. Tulare Lake was once the largest freshwater body west of the Mississippi.
“This is unprecedented – it’s new for all of us.”įarmland where Tulare Lake once was has been inundated by widespread flooding. “It’s hard to control bodies of water in times like this,” Kadara says.
Currently, the statewide snowpack holds the equivalent of more than 60in of rain, according to state data, which could be unlocked over the coming months and bring even more water gushing into the basin. Vast swaths of farmland have already been inundated, with scientists predicting the lake could exist for two years and continue to fill as runoff from an unprecedented amount of snow in the southern Sierra melts.Īllensworth’s 600 residents have been keeping the floods at bay by plugging culverts that could move water from the lake into their town with sandbags, gravel, plywood and large rocks. The rising waters now threaten tens of thousands of people in Kings county and the surrounding San Joaquin Valley, a huge agricultural area that grows nuts, fruit and vegetables. “We are surrounded by water,” Kadara says.įor places like Kadara’s home town of Allensworth, a historically Black community on the shores of Tulare Lake, the return has brought concerns about the future, and who will get flooded first.
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