Remembering the Great Flood of 1938, Donald Duck Style

Kind of like the editorial cartoon, except it was an old-school Donald, with a fatter bottom and bigger bill...

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One more storm to go, and Southern California has largely weathered what we'd consider monsoon weather but Floridians would laugh off as a sprinkle. Maybe we worry because of the history lurking within the Orange County experience--might not rain much, but when it does, ya better get to higher ground fast.

On that note, read here for my 2005 story on Orange County's worst natural disaster, the Great Flood of 1938. The flood is why the Santa Ana River is now usually a concrete gulch and was the inspiration for one of the most bizarre editorial cartoons I've seen: a Los Angeles Times drawing of a smiling Donald Duck standing on top of a fire hydrant while it poured (I have a copy of it in my cubicle but can't share it due to copyright reasons). Considering at least 38 drowned in Orange County because of the cataclysm, and dozens more throughout Southern California, its publication during the flood would be like having a cartoonist draw a laughing voodoo dancer a couple of days after the recent Haiti earthquake. But no records exist of sensitive liberals writing in to complain...