California's failure to build reservoirs leads to flooding and then loss of water to the ocean while wasting money on 19th century transportation

Washington Post:

Catastrophic flooding has turned a California town into an island, and the worst is yet to come

“Good morning. Guerneville is officially an island,” the Sonoma sheriff’s office said in a Facebook post Wednesday.

Victor Davis Hanson recently wrote:

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During the 2011-16 California drought, politicians and experts claimed that global warming had permanently altered the climate, and that snow and rain would become increasingly rare in California. As a result, long-planned low-elevation reservoirs, designed to store water during exceptionally wet years, were considered all but useless and thus were never built.

Then, in 2016 and 2017, California received record snow and rainfall -- and the windfall of millions of acre-feet of runoff was mostly let out to sea. Nothing since has been learned.

California has again been experiencing rain and cold that could approach seasonal records. The state has been soaked by some 18 trillion gallons of rain in February alone. With still no effort to expand California's water-storage capacity, millions of acre-feet of runoff are once again cascading out to sea (and may be sorely missed next year)
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The failure to maintain the previous reservoirs nearly led to a catastrophe in the 2017-2017 rainfall as a dam nearly collapsed.  Meanwhile, they wasted billions on a bullet train to bankruptcy while ignoring infrastructure for water conservation and road maintenance.  The state is also wasting money it does not have on healthcare for illegal immigrants while its pensions are woefully underfunded.  Its officials over-promise and underperform as a matter of routine.