Chris Smith: Son of Sebastopol who water-skied 1964 flood tells all

The statute of limitations must have run out by now, Harvey Henningsen figures.

The Sebastopol native and retired studio photographer looked out over all the water that's standing about, took stock of the fact that he's about to turn 72 years old and decided it's time he come clean about what he and two buddies from SRJC did back during the historic flood of 1964.

It began with a white lie of omission to his late father, James E. Henningsen.

_____

THEN 19, Harvey mentioned casually to his dad, who'd for decades been beyond-busy sawing timber at Sturgeon's Mill, that he'd like to take out the fishing boat. Maybe James Henningsen grunted approval.

The boat was a 14-foot fiberglass runabout. “It had 10-horsepower Johnson motor on it,” Harvey shared.

Several times previously, the Analy High grad, Class of '63, had told his dad he and his pals were going fishing. This particular day, in December of 1964, there's no telling what Henningsen senior thought Henningsen junior planned to do with the putt-putt.

It was not a day for angling: “Atmospheric river” conditions like those soaking us now had ravaged a vast swath of northern California and the Pacific Northwest. Chocolate-colored floodwater was everywhere.

As Harvey pulled away with the trailered boat, he knew precisely what he and Guy Davis and Phil Morgan were up to.

They were going water skiing.

_____

WITH THAT PUNY motor? Hardly.

Harvey and his buddies had a drill down: At Guy's place, they removed the little motor and replaced it with a 50-horsepower Mercury that Guy used to race hydroplane boats.

The teens had never before skied a flood, but in summertime they'd put into the Russian River at Monte Rio. Guy would tow both of the others at the same time. Harvey still awes at how the incredibly agile Phil would leap across his tow line.

No, they were not supposed to be going that fast on the river. Harvey remembers a deputy sheriff on a bridge ordering them through a megaphone to pull over, and a CHP officer chasing them up on River Road.

“We never did anything intentionally to hurt anyone,” Harvey pleads. If the trio came onto a fisherman they'd certainly rooster-tail him, but what was the harm in that?

_____

THAT DAY IN '64, the trio put into the vastly flooded Arroyo de Santa Rosa near Occidental Road.

They brought along one wet suit. Harvey and Phil took turns wearing it and skiing while the other held tight in the boat with Guy.

Harvey will never forget screaming past the Sebastopol sewer plant on Morris Street.

“There were turds floating everywhere,” he said. “There were rats on boards.”

The thrill-seekers sailed across Highway 12 before heading back to trailer the runabout-turned-ski boat and then re-switch the motors.

Harvey admits there was one disappointment. He and Guy and Phil had figured that when they were on the Laguna a PD photographer would naturally show up to capture the exploits by three surely unidentifiable daredevils.

How sad to pick up the next day's paper and see that the best Sonoma County flood photo ever wasn't there.

Chris Smith is at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.