For every inch that the water rose at the gauge, another inch spilled over the weir. By mid-afternoon a depth of two feet was pouring over the quarter-mile length of Colusa Weir; that flow itself already equaled a large river. But from the other weirs also great streams poured out. Over Fremont the flow was twenty inches deep and nearly two miles wide. Peering out through rain-sluiced windows, the people in cars crossing the long viaduct on U.S. 40 looked out to see Yolo By-Pass, a mighty river three miles wide of swiftly flowing flood water.

Sacramento gauge, close to the point where the American flowed into the main stream, stood in early afternoon at twenty-one-point-five. It was rising slowly, but as at Colusa the city would not be endangered until the water rose seven and a half feet more, and touched twenty-nine. Before that happened, the weir-gates could be opened.

In the General’s outer office three assistants had been kept busy all day. Each had a telephone, and all three lines were busy most of the time.

One of the assistants flipped the switch for the General’s private telephone.

“Yes?” said the General from the inner office.

“Folsom reports seven-point-eight, up nine-tenths in an hour. I thought you’d like to know it right away.”

“Yes, thanks. We’re in for some trouble with the American, I think.”

“And, General, Oroville wants you—Mr. L. D. Jackson. He wants you personally.”

“Put him on,” said the General with resignation. He had never heard of L. D. Jackson, but felt that he had been talking to him under different names and in different towns all day.

“Yes, General,” said the long-distance operator. “And when you’re through talking to Oroville, would you mind not hanging up? I’ve three more long-distance calls waiting for you.”

The General talked with Mr. Jackson, giving him information and reassurance. Then he talked to Red Bluff, Redding, and some ranch-house out of Marysville. It was the same story with slight variations; each man had his worries which in his own mind loomed larger than the possible flooding of all the rest of the valley.

Fortunately at this stage the General could usually quiet people’s fears very quickly. The water was flowing over the weirs and flooding through the by-passes on a much greater scale but with the same simplicity that water spills from one basin of a fountain into the next. Everywhere the gauges stood several feet below the critical point. With the rain still continuing, there was no telling what height the flood crest would finally reach, but as yet the tremendous capacity of the by-passes was not even severely taxed.