The Carmel River overflowed its banks during the night of 9 January 1995. There were no deaths or injuries. Some upriver residents who lived near the river were evacuated by firefighters and Sheriff's deputies. However, several hundred residents who lived14 miles downriver were very angry that they received no alerting, no warning, and no evacuation by public safety agencies. Some were awakened by neighbors to find river water three feet deep in their living rooms. Firefighters and volunteers evacuated many of them by boat.

The Monterey County Board of Supervisors established a Carmel River Flood Task Force to investigate what had happened and determine what went wrong so that corrective actions could be taken. This paper discusses the work of the committees of the task force with particular attention to the Neighborhood Preparedness Committee. This was a small disaster, but from a research viewpoint it provided useful lessons-learned type information. This information was examined in order to determine if the disaster planning and the standard operating procedures for emergency operations centers of neighboring cities needed to be revised.