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Nervous Palo Alto, Menlo Park and East Palo Alto residents gathered at the historically troublesome San Francisquito Creek on Saturday morning as the heavy rains of the most recent storm caused water levels to rise rapidly and threaten to overflow the creek’s banks. Some neighbors kept a close eye on data from online creek monitoring systems, trying to predict what might happen, while others hurriedly placed sandbags near their doors.
In the end, San Francisquito Creek overflowed in multiple locations, flooding streets and closing some roads in Palo Alto, East Palo Alto and Menlo Park — but the significant damage to local homes that occurred in 1998 was averted as waters began to recede in the early afternoon.
The Pope-Chaucer Bridge, which spans the San Francisquito Creek between Palo Alto and Menlo Park, was of particular concern Saturday.
According to Palo Alto’s creek monitor, the water levels at the creek were exceeding 21 feet at about 10:40 a.m., nearing the bridge’s 24-foot capacity. City officials issued a warning shortly after 10 a.m. that flooding at the bridge was likely within 30 minutes. They also noted that minor flooding was occurring at Seneca and Hale Streets near the creek.
The city’s announcement urged residents near the creek to take protective actions, including placing sandbags near the entrances to their homes, raising valuables from low to high places in their homes and making sure vehicles are ready for possible evacuation.
By 10:48 a.m., the roiling, muddy water escaped the creekbed in some spots, rushing down the side streets onto University Avenue and crossing onto Crescent Drive in Crescent Park. The water reached the top of the curbs and approached the sidewalks as it rose up driveway aprons.
Roads flood in Menlo Park
SLIDESHOW: Traffic is detoured away from the flooded section of Middlefield Road at Ravenswood Avenue across from Menlo-Atherton High School in Atherton on Dec. 31, 2022. Photo by Andrea Gemmet. 
The duck pond near the Menlo Park City Council Chambers spilled out onto the grassy banks at Burgess Park, across from City Hall, on Saturday morning, Dec. 31, 2022. Photo by Andrea Gemmet. 
The San Francisquito Creek is swift, muddy and full of debris late Saturday morning, as seen from the bridge on the Menlo Park and Palo Alto border at Alma Street, looking toward El Camino Real and the rail bridge on Dec. 31, 2022. Photo by Andrea Gemmet. 
A small section of the waterlogged creek bank crumbled into the San Francisquito Creek outside the Stanford Medicine Planning, Design and Construction office building at 2 Willow Place in Menlo Park, around 11:10 a.m. on Dec. 31, 2022. Photo by Andrea Gemmet.
Menlo Park officials also sent out a warning Saturday morning, and water-logged streets caused driving hazards.
Intersections throughout Menlo Park and Atherton were flooded. Middlefield Road between Ravenswood and Oak Grove avenues, by the Menlo-Atherton High School campus on the border of Atherton and Menlo Park, was closed to traffic in the morning and by afternoon, it was closed from Oak Grove to Survey Lane. Middlefield Road at Linfield Drive in Menlo Park, across from the main fire station, had a growing area of standing water just before noon, as did intersections along Waverly Street in the Linfield Oaks neighborhood.
At Burgess Park, the duck pond had spilled over its banks and flooded areas of the surrounding lawn. The fountain outside of Menlo Park City Hall was surrounded by a growing pond of water before 11 a.m.
In Atherton around 10:30 a.m., swiftly flowing muddy water rushed through the Atherton Channel at the intersection of Middlefield and Marsh Roads but hadn’t risen to the level of the roadway.
The Menlo Park side of Woodland Avenue was without flooding near the Pope-Chaucer Bridge, but residents said the creek flooded streets in spots just upstream of the bridge.
Hedeff Essaid said the water ran down Pope Street and drained down to Laurel Avenue. The water had retreated by 11:30 a.m. and the level had receded by about a foot. Still, an enormous debris field of logs, branches, trash and even a kitchen sink had gotten jammed up at the bridge.
Essaid, a hydrologist, was philosophical: “We have dry years and we have wet years. We have to be prepared for both,” she said.
Palo Alto homes spared
Palo Alto Mayor Pat Burt visited the areas around the creek Saturday and said the water went over the banks at numerous places. These breaches, however, were part of the reason the creek did not overflow at the bridge.
One house, at the corner of Chaucer Street and Palo Alto Avenue, had water pouring into its garage and backyard, he said. Otherwise, the properties in the area had generally avoided damage, he said.
“It looks like we had significant street flooding but limited impact on homes,” Burt said.
When he returned to the Pope-Chaucer Bridge later in the morning, the water levels had dropped somewhat. By 12:30 p.m., the creek waters around the bridge had receded by about 18 inches, Burt said. He noted, however, that water levels were also high near the Woodland Avenue area in East Palo Alto.
Crews pull debris from San Francisquito Creek in Palo Alto, California, on Dec. 31, 2022, as water levels threatened to overflow the creek bank. Courtesy Webster Lincoln.
“Downstream, it’s still running really heavily and also still overtopping some places, even as it has receded at Pope-Chaucer,” he said at around noon.
At the Newell Bridge, which is downstream from the Pope-Chaucer near the Palo Alto and East Palo Alto border, fast-moving water rose to within a foot of the bottom of the bridge. Emergency crews blocked Woodland Avenue at University and removed large chunks of debris with grappling hooks that threatened to dam up the University Avenue Bridge.
Those efforts didn’t stop the creek from overflowing in spots in the section between the Newell and University bridges. Parts of Woodland Avenue flooded, inundating yards.
East Palo Alto apartment inundated
At one East Palo Alto residence, water threatened to enter a home. The residents moved a car out of the garage to higher ground and were piling sandbags at the front door. The water was flooding the rear yard where several cars were parked under a carport.
“This hasn’t happened for years. The landlord is bringing more sandbags,” Juan Cuevas said, as he stood in the flooding yard.
Nearby, a driver in a red pickup truck stopped in the road, tentative about driving through water that had covered the roadway on Woodland. Eventually, the truck driver and others slowly made their way across the streaming current.
Orange caution cones blocked University Avenue at Woodland to prevent drivers heading west from entering the area. Cars traveling east were allowed to pass through to clear the roadway, an East Palo Alto police officer said.
At Manhattan Avenue in East Palo Alto, the road was well flooded, as were several side streets all the way to the West Bayshore Road at the U.S. Highway 101 sound wall.
East Palo Alto resident Webster Lincoln reported that an underground parking structure at the Woodland Apartments had flooded, where cars were up to their wheel wells in water. Photographs that he took showed a foot or more of water lapping at the fronts of a bank of washing machines and filling them halfway inside.
Work is planned on two bridges
The neighborhoods around the Pope-Chaucer Bridge experienced severe flooding in February 1998, when a storm caused the creek to overflow and water to inundate area homes. Since then, the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority, which includes elected officials from Palo Alto, East Palo Alto, Menlo Park and the two water districts on either side of the county line, has been working on plans to improve flood protection.
These include replacing both the flood-prone Pope-Chaucer Bridge and the Newell Street Bridge, which is further downstream.
The agency’s current plans call for replacing the Newell Street Bridge in 2024 and the Pope-Chaucer Bridge in 2025.
The San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority has completed Phase 1 of the flood protection project, which widened the West Bayshore overpass at Highway 101, added flood walls, a reconfigured channel and protective berms in the creek and flood channel east of the freeway, held up well as the water shot down the creek past East Palo Alto’s Gardens neighborhood. The work likely preserved an entire neighborhood that would likely have experienced serious flooding in the current storm.
The Gardens neighborhood has experienced significant flooding in the past, when city officials feared that a major storm could cause a Hurricane Katrina-like disaster event with loss of life. In 2012, the earthen levees were undermined in spots, which could have caused a failure. On Saturday afternoon, the neighborhood remained dry.
Saturday’s storm led to numerous street closures. Palo Alto officials said the El Camino Real underpass at University Avenue was flooded and not passable.
The city also closed off sections of Palo Alto Avenue, between Chaucer and Seneca and a section of Quarry Avenue near El Camino Real. It had also temporarily closed off sections of University Avenue, between Middlefield Road and Woodland Avenue, and of Palo Alto Avenue, between Chaucer and Seneca Streets, but reopened them shortly before 1 p.m., according to an announcement from the city.
Minor flooding was also reported at 11:45 a.m. at portions of Hamilton Avenue, Guinda Street, Pitman Avenue and Martin Avenue.
Menlo Park police issued an advisory at 4:21 p.m. warning that southbound Middlefield Road at Survey Lane was completely flooded and shut down. Eastbound Marsh Road was reported closed at Haven Avenue.
The city of Palo Alto has sandbags available at the Palo Alto Airport, 1925 Embarcadero Road; the Rinconada Tennis Courts at the corner of Newell Road and Hopkins Avenue; and at Mitchell Park, 600 East Meadow Drive. East Palo Alto has sandbags available for pickup at 1925 Embarcadero Road, located in Palo Alto at the airport.
Menlo Park has sandbags available at the Burgess Park parking lot at Alma Street and Burgess Drive, as well as Menlo Park Fire Station No. 77, located at 1467 Chilco Street.
Almanac Editor Andrea Gemmet and Six Fifty Associate Editor Kate Bradshaw contributed to this report.
Almanac Editor Andrea Gemmet and Six Fifty Associate Editor Kate Bradshaw contributed to this report.
Almanac Editor Andrea Gemmet and Six Fifty Associate Editor Kate Bradshaw contributed to this report.
The 1998 flooding also wiped out 101 for several days with overflow and silt. As I recall this was due to conditions of the Bay — high tides or storm surge– that impeded creek flow into the Bay during peak runoff.
There were many lawsuits over flooding liability.
One interesting suit was waged by PA residents against “the Pope-Chaucer” bridge. PA, had a nice insurance policy and settled, giving the litigants the cash they needed to persist against MP. MP agreed to settle on advice of the city attorney. I was concerned about setting a precedent for future litigation. During that conversation the City Attorney noted that litigation risk would persist with or without fixing the Chaucer St bridge since flood modeling showed different victims in either scenario. Keep the existing bridge, this group (PA) was vulnerable. Raise the bridge this other group (EPA) was vulnerable.
I trust the decision by the joint powers authority to raise the bridge was approved by the EPA rep. I wonder now if our city attorney had the modeling right and if they EPA rep was made aware of the data. Perhaps other improvements since that time have invalidated the 1998 results.
Was there flood modeling done for the Joint Powers decisions. Does anyone know?
The Chaucer/Pop street bridge has been redesigned (or still in design?)
The proposal will make the channel deeper on the downstream bridges to avoid floods downstream.
The JPA worked with Palo Alto, MP,East Palo Alto, Santa Clara, and San Mateo County to get the project designed to satisfy all 3 cities and the 2 counties.
I hope this gets done as scheduled with no further complaints from the community.
Some info:
https://menlopark.org/DocumentCenter/View/24713/H1-20200414-CC-SFCJPA-101-Pope-Chaucer-Bridge