FEATURED STORY: Climate change is increasing the strength of Sacramento’s winter storms. Higher temperatures allow atmospheric rivers to carry more water, research shows. Climate change is also jacking up other flood risks, such as sea rise and snowmelt. All this is raising the chances of catastrophic flooding in Sacramento.

Most Sacramentans have forgotten their city’s flooded past.

Before the state Capitol, much of the region was marshland that flooded annually, and this continued as the city began to develop, with Gov. Leland Stanford famously boating across town to his inauguration in 1862.

Today, the reminders are there, if you know where to look: sunken courtyards in Old Sac exposing the elevated street level; the Poverty Ridge neighborhood, where it is said locals used to find high ground before levees were built. The many miles of levees, which we now enjoy for recreation, protect Sacramento and require constant maintenance. 

I wrote about the Central Valley’s history of drought and deluge back in 2023 and how climate shifts are increasing the risk of catastrophic flooding. 

Experts are working with limited historical data and a slew of unknowns to predict the future. Thanks to advocates like Congresswoman Doris Matsui (profiled in our upcoming Women in Leadership issue), billions of dollars have been invested into Sacramento’s flood protection, and many of these projects are ongoing.

This should not be taken for granted. Stockton, another Central Valley city at high risk of flood catastrophe, is behind on flood control.

And most Californians don’t have flood insurance. It’s not included in a typical homeowner’s policy, as many Southern Californians learned in February of last year when storms caused widespread property damage. In the more recent flooding in North Carolina, we saw how devastating this kind of natural disaster can be, especially when communities are unprepared.  

Is your home in a flood plain? If you live in Sacramento, you can view this map to assess your risk. 

- Dakota Morlan, Managing Editor 

Other stories you may have missed: Stockton Is Behind in Flood Control

Stockton’s levees haven’t received a major overhaul since the 1990s, while Sacramento’s have received widespread upgrades in the last 20 years. Central Valley Flood Protection Board Chair Jane Dolan says, “We think they’re in danger.”

Dilemma of the Month: How Do I Give an Employee a Religious Accommodation?

An employee requests religious accommodation for prayer time, but the manager says it would interfere with the restaurant’s lunchtime rush. Can they work it out? Evil HR Lady weighs in. 

Startup of the Month: Alter Learning

As an Albanian immigrant who grew up poor, Aldi Agaj dreamed for his children to have the access and opportunities he didn’t have. When his daughter was 4, he had an idea to create an edtech company that gives kids free access to innovative games.

Braving the ‘Dog Days’ of Retirement

From financial advisor and news anchor Kelly Brothers: In my 30-plus years providing financial advice, I’ve worked with many people who have reframed retirement in order to make it work for them. Here’s what I’ve learned.

Recommendations from our staff:

Jennifer: After years of peer pressure, I’m still staunchly anti-Spotify (not really for any reason more serious than that I don’t like the interface) and do most of my music streaming and downloading on Bandcamp. But I’m also indebted to an overlooked font of music: the impenetrable machinations of the YouTube algorithm. After listening to a few Brian Eno albums, I’ve started being recommended to all kinds of esoteric ambient mixes on the platform. My latest favorite is ”Structures Without Rooms” by Adam Bosarge. Top comment: “An alternative timeline where the internet never happened and all culture happens via multimedia CD-rom. This disk is everything you need to know about keeping birds, with an interactive low-poly VR tour.”

Judy: I just finished my first good book of 2025: “Demon Copperhead” by Barbara Kingsolver. This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is a modern retelling of the classic “David Copperfield.” It tells the gut-wrenching story of a young red-haired orphan named Demon who struggles to make it out of the grips of poverty and drug addiction in Appalachia. Kingsolver is a brilliant writer with clever phrasing in almost every sentence she writes, which makes you want to hope Demon gets the escape he deserves. 

“All through the dog-breath air of late summer and fall, cast an eye up the mountain and there she’d be, little bleach-blonde smoking her Pall Malls, hanging on that railing like she’s captain of her ship up there and now might be the hour it’s going down.”

Odds and Ends

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