Signs Warning of Risk of Death Suggested Around the County's Flood-Control Channels

Two days after Walnut Creek learned that Matt Miller and Gavin Powell died while rafting trip along the city's waterways on a storm-soaked Saturday afternoon, some sixth graders at Walnut Creek Intermediate stood staring down into the canal. The Las Lomas High teens may have passed this way on their ill-fated journey.  

The flood-control canal passes right through the heart of Walnut Creek's downtown middle school. Students cross two bridges daily while going back and forth between classes. Tall cyclone fences would prevent students from getting down into the canal from campus.

But students still stopped, look down at the water flowing beneath and wondered why it was really all that dangerous. It's likely that the water in the canal that day was not flowing as fast and deep as it was on the day of Matt and Gavin's Feb. 19 raft trip.

"It must be a blast to raft down that," a WCI student said to his friends. 

That's the sort of thinking among some tweens and teens in Walnut Creek, especially among boys, according to this boy's mother. Lauren Henry is a 13-year resident of Walnut Creek and is the mother of three boys.

She was sharing the allure that the creeks and canals hold for the community's youth at a special meeting Tuesday night held by the Contra Costa County Flood Conrol District and the city of Walnut Creek.

"My son and his friends didn't think it looked that dangerous," she said, before acknowledging that she could see why they would be intrigued by such an adventure.

She also pointed out that local Boy Scout troops participate in creek clean-up days. So, they do get down into the creeks, she said. "It's something we want them to love, but we also want them to understand the dangers."

This mother was one of dozens of people at the special community meeting in the Walnut Creek Library. They were there to give the flood-control district, city, county, school and police officials ideas on how to improve safety around the 1,300 miles of waterways in Contra Costa County. 

The Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors has asked the county's Flood Control District to devise a strategy to make the public, especially kids and teens, more aware of how dangerous these waterways can be.  

The district's focus is not on putting up more fences around creeks, said Mitch Avalon, deputy public works director. Doing so would mean putting fences around miles of small natural creeks that run through neighborhoods and through people's private property--and that's not feasible. The county's strategy focuses on increasing public awareness, either by putting up bigger or better signs around creeks and canals or creating education programs that would be provided in schools. 

For example, several speakers suggested putting up signs that directly say that if you enter the flood control channels, especially during a storm, that you will probably die.  

"A 'No Trespassing' sign: That doesn't mean a lot to a teenager," said Michael Franet, who was good friends with two other Las Lomas students who died in the flood-control canal in 1972.  He mentioned the signs at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, telling people that others have died while swimming at the beach.

Others in the audience, such as Linda Meneken, mentioned the signs posted at seemingly placid pools at the top of waterfalls at Yosemite National Park.  A sign at the top of Nevada Falls puts it bluntly: "Stay out of the water! Powerful hidden currents will carry you over the fall. ... If you go over the fall, you will die."

"I don't think those boys realized the danger," said Linda Meneken. She and her husband live one block from the "drop structure" near the channel's crossing beneath Bancroft Road. Twenty years ago, a 14-year-old neighbor boy drowned at that drop structure. 

Avalon explained that those drop structures, like waterfalls, are engineered to move water quickly through the canal. The structure at Bancroft Road has a 12-foot drop. Not visible beneath the water, especially on stormy days when the water level is high, are eight-foot-tall pylons, designed to keep the water moving. "They use up a lot of energy so the water doesn't erode the canal," Avalon said. 

Avalon explained that this meeting, to hear such community's input, was one step in this process. Avalon has also been visiting Las Lomas High and Walnut Creek Intermediate to learn what students at those schools hear about the creeks and canals, what their perceptions are of the dangers. 

Twenty-two miles of waterways run through the Walnut Creek watershed, Avalon said. During storms, Avalon has said, the flood-control system is designed to move the water very fast and with a tremendous amount of force away from people's homes and downtowns, out of Contra Costa County and into Suisun Bay. 

The water was moving fast and furious on Feb. 19. Las Lomas juniors Miller and Powell are believed to have set off on a rafting trip on Sans Crainte Creek, a tributary that passes through the neighborhood around Murwood Elementary School.

They entered the creek where it passes beneath Vanderslice Avenue. There are no fences around the creek until it reaches Vanderslice Avenue. The creek passes south of the Murwood campus then drops down into a tunnel where it joins San Ramon Creek. At that location, San Ramon Creek does not have the appearance of a natural creek but of a flood-control channel with a concrete bottom and high concrete walls. 

"Once you enter the channels there is no way out," said Henry Miller, who lives along Sans Crainte Creek and whose daughter was friends with Gavin Powell. Those walls, unlike natural creek banks, don't have trees or shrubs, to grab onto. 

This Powell family friend said Matt's father walked the entire length of the channel after his son's body was found and realized: "There was no way out."

This riend also conceded: "You can never stop kids from getting in there. I have a 14-year-old son and his friend said to him, a few days before Matt and Gavin's deaths: 'Wouldn't it be fun to ride the creek.'"

Audience members seemed to agree that more fences or taller fences were not the answer. Educating kids was. They agreed that creeks like Sans Crainte are part of our natural environment. When it's not storming and the water in such a creek is lower and more calm, kids should have the opportunity to be able to get into it, get in the mud, splash in its water, learn about what lives in and around the creek. 

Kids should also learn that these creeks, which can seem placid and benign in the dry season, have their own dangers. Such messages could be conveyed in a variety of ways, via public access television, YouTube videos, or school programs, or during daily announcements at school, especially in the winter or during a storm.