A flood of cactus defeats a young Gardner

ROBERT GARDNER

* EDITOR’S NOTE: The Daily Pilot has agreed to republish The Verdict,

the ever popular column written for many years by retired Corona Del

Mar jurist and historian Robert Gardner, in exchange for donations to

the Surfrider Foundation

They don’t make floods the way they used to. The recent heavy

rains caused a lot of problems, but they are small potatoes compared

with the flood of 1938.

That was one humongous flood. There was a solid wall of brown

water from Huntington Beach to Costa Mesa. Much of Anaheim, Placentia

and what is now Fountain Valley was under water. The Santa Ana River,

which drains the whole Inland Empire area, came roaring through Santa

Ana Canyon. The village of Atwood was in its path. Nineteen people in

that area drowned. People in the lowlands sat on their roofs waiting

for help. Too bad we didn’t have TV in those days. Orange County

would have been on nationwide prime time.

All this led to the building of the Prado Dam in 1941 which, so

far at least, has effectively curbed the Santa Ana River. However,

whenever I drive through the Santa Ana Canyon and see all those

subdivisions built practically on the river bottom, I wonder how

anyone can have that much faith in any dam, even the Prado Dam.

After the flood, the driftwood was piled up on the beaches as high

as a man’s head. These piles contained driftwood, branches, trees,

millions of oranges, a few dead chickens, rabbits, ground squirrels,

snakes -- and a lot of cactus.

People today have trouble understanding the amount of cactus there

was in Southern California in those days. Acres and acres of cactus

covered the foothills and canyons. When I was a child, all of Buck

Gully was covered with cactus.

All of this brings up the great fete of derring-do by the Oxarart

brothers and Bob Gardner.

Charley Oxarart, Sam Oxarart and I had gone from Balboa to the

river mouth to watch the Santa Ana river debouch into the ocean. It

was quite a sight.

When a river overflows its banks, that part of the water usually

spreads out in a relatively calm manner. However, in the river

channel itself, the river is a raging torrent with rolling waves

several feet high. I guess it works on the same principle as waves in

the ocean. Swells come miles and miles across the ocean. Then, when

they approach the shore, they contact the bottom and build up into

waves and eventually breakers. So too, the water racing down the

channel causes these waves to build up.

So, as we saw this river with those big waves, we got the

brilliant idea of riding down the river on our surfboards. While many

roads were out, somehow we were able to drive to the Olive area,

where the river makes a left turn on its way to the ocean. The waves

were big, 4 to 6 feet in height. We could visualize ourselves riding

those waves all the way to the ocean.

The arrangement was that Charley and I would ride our boards; Sam,

being younger, would have to drive back and pick us up at the ocean.

It didn’t quite work out that way.

Our first shock was the water temperature. This was before wet

suits. As we set foot in the water, our enthusiasm chilled. The water

was like ice. The big rain storm that caused the flood had melted the

snow in the San Bernardino mountains. We were going to ride in melted

snow water.

Undeterred, Charley and I launched our boards. Almost immediately

we paddled ashore. The damned river was a floating nest of cactus.

Since the water was so dirty, you couldn’t see it until it popped to

the surface, but it was there, acres and acres of cactus. So, as I

say, we paddled ashore and spent a couple of hours pulling cactus

spines out of our bodies.

Enough of historic trivia. Another failure of Gardner in his

constant effort to do something sensational. Shot down by cactus.

I still don’t think I am about to buy a house in the bottom of

Santa Ana Canyon.

* ROBERT GARDNER, a Corona del Mar residents, is a retired judge

and a longtime observer of life in Newport Beach.