Fernley, Nevada
Nevada
A hundred-year-old irrigation canal broke one January morning and put six feet of water in Fernley's houses.
On the fifth of January, two thousand eight, a levee along the Truckee Canal gave way above Fernley. Water poured into the town. Three to six feet of it filled houses, and thirty-five hundred people had to be rescued and evacuated. The canal was part of a system that built this place. Farmland here was watered by the Newlands Irrigation Project, launched under a reclamation act passed in nineteen oh two. It carries water from Derby Dam on the Truckee River all the way to the Lahontan Reservoir near Fallon. Construction and expansion ran into the nineteen sixties. Many of the concrete headgates are still working, and they carry a stamp reading CCC, for the Civilian Conservation Corps, along with the date they were poured. Alongside the irrigation channels runs a second network, dug five to fifteen feet deep, to drain excess water and mineral salts off the fields. It empties into a sink northeast of town.
This is the first of 2 parts. The rest runs about 2 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.
On January 5, 2008, a levee along the Truckee Canal broke, forcing the rescue and evacuation of 3,500 people from the town as 3 to 6 feet (0.91 to 1.83 m) of water filled houses.
Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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