To visit Old Sacramento is an experience but to visit while the rain is pouring down and a guide with a Scottish brogue is telling you about the floods of the 1860s is a treat. Last Saturday, I showed up at the History Museum and was issued a head set that let me hear all the trivia and facts that our personable guide shared. We walked throughout the old town and entered through locked doors into a world that was largely unseen until three years ago when the tours began. Archaeologists are still excavating some of the sites and since the space below the building served as a dumping area, there is a lot of "treasure" to find. Our guide shared the facts about Sacramento's water troubles: flooding, rain, breeched levees, and rivers that overflow. He also shared the government's solutions: rerouting the rivers, reinforcing the levees and raising the buildings in the central city by fourteen feet. All of these solutions sound implausible but all of them happened. We toured the spaces under some of the buildings that were raised and learned that the tenants did not leave their comfortable accommodations during this time but rather stayed put while the building went up 1/4 turn at a time. Only two buildings did not remain intact and they were soon rebuild. The first project of these engineers was to raise the streets by ten feet. It was not until later that CAL Trans added rebar. They filled in the space with mud, again, one wheel barrel at a time. Go and see for yourself. It is impressive.
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