Suddenly, California Has Too Much Water

In the Talmudic parable of Honi the Circle Maker, the drought-stricken people of Jerusalem send up a prayer that God should deliver them rain. And sure enough, after a few false starts, he does. Except that once the rain begins, it won’t let up. It pours and pours until the people are forced to flee to higher ground, their homes flooded by the answer to their prayer.

That, minus the whole divine-intervention part, is roughly the situation that California currently a state of emergency, and by the next day, more than of the state’s residents were under flood watch. At least 17 people have died—that number is likely to rise—and tens of thousands more have been forced to evacuate. When the storms finally subside, the cost of the damage is expected to exceed $1 billion. But we still have a ways to go: Weather forecasters expect the heavy rain to continue for at least another week, along with lightning and hail. are not out of the question.