The flood of 1998

Palo Alto has flooded before and since, but February 3, 1998, is the night locals mean when they say "the flood." San Francisquito Creek carried more water than at any time since measurements began in 1930. It spilled out at the worst possible moment, in the dark and at high tide. About 1,700 properties in three cities were damaged. The anger that followed changed how the region manages the creek.

This page tells the story of that night and its aftermath. For the creek's longer history, from Ohlone villages to Stanford's dams, see our page on San Francisquito Creek.

An El Niño winter and a perched creek

The winter of 1997 to 1998 brought one of the strongest El Niño patterns of the century. Storm after storm soaked the Santa Cruz Mountains. By early February the hills above Palo Alto could hold no more water and every new inch of rain ran straight into the creeks.

San Francisquito Creek drains roughly 45 square miles of hills, from Skyline Boulevard down through Portola Valley and Woodside. Below Interstate 280 it crosses a fan of sediment it built itself. The channel sits high on that fan. When water tops its banks, it does not drain back. It flows downhill and away across streets and yards. Undersized bridges make it worse. The Pope-Chaucer Street bridge between Palo Alto and Menlo Park has a small opening that catches debris and backs water up.

The creek had flooded seriously before. In the Christmas Eve flood of December 1955, a levee failure damaged about 650 homes, with losses then estimated at $1.1 million.

The night of February 2 to 3

The first calls came just before midnight from Stanford Weekend Acres, a small neighborhood on Alpine Road above the flats. Menlo Park firefighters used ropes and water rescue gear there to reach a woman trapped in her house. Responders later called that neighborhood the "trigger." When it flooded, trouble reached the lower creek 30 to 45 minutes later.

At about 1 a.m. on February 3 the creek overflowed its banks downstream, just as the bay reached high tide. With the tide high, water near the mouth had nowhere to go. The peak flow at the Stanford gauge reached about 7,200 cubic feet per second, still the flood of record.

• Crescent Park and Duveneck/St. Francis. Water broke out near the Pope-Chaucer bridge and ran downhill through Palo Alto neighborhoods, well beyond the creekside blocks. Residents of Sierra Court, a cul-de-sac 47 feet below the breach, found 2 feet of water inside their homes and 4 feet outside by about 3:30 a.m. One resident used his family's aluminum boat to ferry neighbors to fire engines that could not get in.
• East Palo Alto. Water poured down the 1900 block of University Avenue and across West Bayshore Road, where sound walls along the freeway trapped it. Firefighters pulled drivers from stranded cars and used a ladder truck to bring people out of apartment buildings in chest-deep water.
• Menlo Park. Creekside streets such as Woodland Avenue flooded and water crossed El Camino Real toward the car dealerships.
• Highway 101 and the airport. Both were closed. Intersections near the freeway turned into lakes.

Palo Alto's fire department sent a boat down city streets in 3 to 4 feet of water. Its chief at the time, Ruben Grijalva, later said it was the largest emergency he had worked. About 500 residents were evacuated across the area. School buses carried evacuees to a shelter at the Cubberley Community Center before dawn. Remarkably, no one died and no serious injuries were reported.

Counting the damage

The figures vary by source and by date, so here is how they are usually attributed:

Most of the damage was to homes: soaked floors and walls, ruined furniture, flooded basements and cars. Mud coated houses along University Avenue in East Palo Alto for days afterward.

Anger at City Hall

The political fallout in Palo Alto was swift. At the February 10 City Council meeting, City Manager June Fleming opened by praising police and firefighters. Residents in the audience were furious. Speakers complained that the city's warning had come too late and that its response had been slow.

Two weeks later officials confirmed that firefighters and police had been sent to sandbag the city manager's own house during the flood while neighbors fended for themselves. The local papers called it "sandbag-gate." An outside attorney investigated and no one was disciplined. In June a self-critique by city officials conceded that the city had been caught off guard by the intensity and pace of the storm.

Residents also went to court. On June 10, 1999, a group led by Crescent Park attorney John Hanna sued Palo Alto and Menlo Park, arguing that both cities had known for years that the Pope-Chaucer and Middlefield Road bridges would make a flood worse. In January 2004 the cities agreed to pay $3.5 million to settle the suit brought by 27 families. The settlement did not require them to fix either bridge.

The creek authority, 1999

The flood broke a long stalemate. Because the creek divides Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, neither county's flood agency had wanted to pay to rebuild it alone. On May 14, 1999, five agencies formed the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority, known as the SFCJPA: the cities of Palo Alto, Menlo Park and East Palo Alto, the Santa Clara Valley Water District (now Valley Water) and the San Mateo County Flood Control District, whose role has since passed to OneShoreline.

Progress was slow at first. The authority hired its first executive director in August 2000. In December 2005 it agreed with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on a reconnaissance study to establish a federal interest in the creek. In July 2009 it added rain gauges in the upper watershed and adopted a plan to start with a project between the bay and Highway 101.

Projects since the flood

1. 2014: On November 12 the Palo Alto City Council voted 8 to 0 for the authority's plan for levees and floodwalls at the mouth of the creek. The authority launched its own flood warning website that month.
2. 2015: Caltrans began building a new Highway 101 bridge over the creek with a larger opening, the most visible flood project since 1998.
3. 2016: After years of permitting, crews broke ground on August 5 on the bay to Highway 101 project, which widened the channel into the city golf course and replaced old berms with taller levees and floodwalls.
4. 2019: The bay to Highway 101 reach was completed, protecting more than 1,700 properties from a 100-year creek flow during a king tide, according to the authority.
5. 2022: The New Year's Eve storm brought the second-highest flow on record. The creek overtopped above and below the Pope-Chaucer bridge but caused far less damage than in 1998.
6. 2026: Hoodline reported in October that Palo Alto broke ground in May on a $16.12 million replacement of the 1911 Newell Road bridge. Caltrain finished stabilizing the creek bank by its railroad bridge and El Palo Alto. In August the authority dropped a study of a high-flow bypass tunnel. Valley Water's board also voted that month to discuss taking a larger role in the creek's flood work.

The Pope-Chaucer bridge still has not been replaced. State law bars a project from shifting flood risk onto someone else, so the channel below it must carry more water first. Our creek history page follows those reach-by-reach plans in more detail.

Living with the creek today

For homeowners, the 1998 flood still shapes flood maps, insurance bills and remodeling rules near the creek. Our guide to flood zones and insurance explains how that works. Creekside neighborhoods such as Crescent Park and Duveneck/St. Francis watch the gauges closely every winter.

The neighbors across the creek share the same risk. Our pages on East Palo Alto and Menlo Park cover those cities.

Frequently asked questions