This was going normally at Christmas 1955 until that call came from Stockton. My Aunt Kaye called Mom and said Stockton had flooded, and her home was sitting in 7 feet of water from the overflow of the levee across the street! Aunt Kaye said everything was lost, including the Christmas presents for cousin Tom and Gayla.
Throughout its history, Stockton has been prone to periodic and often catastrophic floods. In 1955, the so-called “Christmas Eve Flood” inundated much of the city. It was caused by a series of “pineapple expresses” barreling in from Hawaii, by an early and rapid snow melt in the Sierra, by eight days of steady rainfall in San Joaquin County, and by a preventable human miscalculation.
Although Pacific Avenue was temporarily closed due to water sloshing into stores, South Stockton felt the brunt of the storm when Mormon Slough began to overflow. A year before, the Stockton City Council had decided, based on bad advice from the Army Corps of Engineers, that the slough was no longer needed for flood control and protection…