In East of Eden, John Steinbeck described the Salinas river:
"In the winter of wet years the streams ran full-freshet, and they swelled the river until it somtimes raged and boiled bank full, and then it was a destroyer. The river tore the edges of the farm lands and washed whole acres down; it toppled barns and houses into itself, to go floating and bobbing away. It trapped cows and pigs and sheep and drowned them in its muddy brown water and carried them to the sea. Then when the late spring came the river drew from its edges and the sand banks appeared. And in the summer the river didn't at all run above ground.