Don�t wish for too much of a good thing�

Maybe it is just my imagination, but there seems to be a drought every summer.  No matter how much it rains every fall, winter, and spring, those guys on the news are always declaring a water emergency within a couple of weeks of the onset of summer.

As taxpayers, we should demand that our politicians do something about this recurring problem.  Just spend the money and fix it.

You�re probably sitting there right now and scratching your head.  You are probably wondering how in the world could those guys in Washington ever solve the water problem?  Well, I am here to tell you that not only is a solution theoretically possible, but it has actually been done.

Take the case of a man named Charles Mallory Hatfield.  Charlie, who has long since passed on, was technically known as a pluviculturist. 

A pluvi� Who ?  What?

That�s just science speak for a rainmaker, although Hatfield preferred the term moisture accelerator.   Hatfield is perhaps the most famous of all of the rainmen that ever walked this blue planet that we call home. 

Born in Fort Scott, Kansas in 1875, the family eventually settled on a farm in Southern California in the 1880�s.  He quit school after the ninth grade to become a salesman for the New Home Sewing Machine Company.   Around this time, Hatfield began his first experiments in rainmaking.  By 1902 he had perfected his rainmaking techniques which involved a secret mixture of some twenty-three chemicals (some have reasoned that it was hydrogen and powdered zinc) and large galvanized evaporating tanks. 

In February of 1904, he promised to deliver the citizens of Los Angeles a whopping eighteen inches of rainfall between that December and the following April.  Perched up on a twenty foot tall wooden tower, Hatfield released plumes of his secret recipe into the air above La Crescenta.  Almost immediately, it started to rain.  The Weather Bureau claimed that Hatfield�s rain was really part of a much larger storm, but that didn�t stop Hatfield from taking claim.   This success allowed Hatfield to achieve folk hero status in the region and to pick up the nickname as the �Rainmaker�. 

He was hired back in December to bring more rain to the drought stricken region.  Hatfield guaranteed the people of Los Angeles that he could deliver at least eighteen inches of rain by late April.  By the middle of March he was only a fraction of an inch short of his goal.  For his efforts, Hatfield received $1,000 in cash plus even more priceless publicity.  Hatfield took to the lecture circuit and took on the misnomer of professor. 

In 1905, Alaska was suffering from a major summer drought and the miners were complaining.  Oddly, they were not upset because they were thirsty or because their crops wouldn�t grow.  No, it turns out that they needed the water to collect gold.  Since most of the gold in Alaska was in the form of placer deposits, the miners needed high running waters to separate the gold particles from the rest of the junk rock. 

There was obviously something wrong in this neighborhood.  So who were they going to call?

Ghostbusters, of course.

Oops... wrong story. 

Of course, the miners contacted America�s premier moisture accelerator � Charles Hatfield. 

The deal that Hatfield made with the Alaskans was actually quite simple.  A board of seven men would decide how much rainfall Hatfield would have to provide.  If he met their goal, then he would receive payment of ten thousand bucks.  If Hatfield failed, he would only receive enough money to cover his transportation and living expenses. 

Hatfield set up shop in early June of 1906.  Once again he set up the tall towers and mixed up large batches of his home brew.  Hatfield stirred and stirred this magic potion.  Boil, boil, toil and trouble.  Large clouds of smoke went soaring skyward.  Yet, by late July, Hatfield produced barely a drop of rain.  In fact, it was one of the driest Julys on record.  Alaskan residents grew increasingly impatient with this man.  Hatfield was basically driven out of town, but not before he secured about $1100 to cover his expenses. 

One would think that with Hatfield�s career ruined that this would have been the end of the story, but it was not.  Let�s face it, no one ever lists all of the jobs that they failed at on their resume.  Many people still believed in Hatfield�s abilities and the rainmaking jobs continued to pour (get it?) in. 

In December of 1915, members of the San Diego Wide Awake Improvement Club approached Hatfield.  You know exactly what they wanted � good old H-two-O.  It seems that San Diego had built their Morena Dam back in 1897, but due to low rainfall, it had never come close to reaching capacity.  City planners knew that the city�s growth hinged on an ample water supply. 

Hatfield offered the city a deal with the following stipulations. If he provided less than forty inches of rain, the city would owe him nothing.  The city would compensate Hatfield at the rate of $1,000 per inch between forty and fifty inches.  Any rainfall above fifty inches would also be free. 

The city seemed uninterested in Hatfield�s apparent quackery, so he modified the proposal.   He offered to fill the reservoir up to capacity for a flat $10,000.  If he failed to do so within one year�s time, the city would owe him absolutely nothing.  With nothing to lose, the city council desired to hire him.

Well, one should be very, very, very, very careful of what they ask for.

In early January of 1916, Hatfield and his brother Paul did their usual routine of setting up his evaporating tanks on high platforms near the Morena Dam.  Within days the clouds rolled in and it started to pour.

And it rained... 

And rained...

And rained...

Well, you get the idea. 

The sudden downpour flooded the region.  Homes and farms were flooded.   Roads in and out of the region were under many feet of water.  Getting supplies into the city became nearly impossible.  The rain stopped on January 20th, but the dry spell only lasted a few days.

And it rained...

So much water fell from the sky that both the Otay and Sweetwater reservoirs reached capacity and eventually overflowed.  On the evening of January 27, 1926, the Lower Otay dam gave way and approximately thirteen billion gallons of water rushed down the valley in its journey to the sea.  Nearly twenty people (the exact number varies with different sources) were killed by the water�s torment.  Houses were swept off their foundations.  Railroad service had to be discontinued to the region because long stretches of the track had been washed away.  All but two of the region�s 112 bridges were wiped out.  The destruction of telephone and telegraph lines assured a total lack of communication. 

Surprisingly, the Hatfield brothers had little clue that all of this damage had occurred.  They were oblivious to all the damage that they were causing further down the valley.  When the rain finally tapered off, the Morena reservoir was within inches of its capacity.  They had succeeded in fulfilling their contract.

While dismantling their equipment, the brothers learned that a group of angry farmers was coming after them.  Under the assumed name of the Benson brothers, they quickly packed up and fled to San Diego to get their money.

Of course, the city refused to pay Hatfield.  It seems that in all the excitement to start his rainmaking process, Charles apparently had never signed the contract.  Oops!  No contract meant that the city did not have to pay.  Hatfield threatened to sue, so the city offered him a deal that he had no choice but to refuse.  The city told Hatfield that they would pay him the $10,000 if he agreed to assume all liability for the estimated sixty deaths and $3.5 million in damages caused by the floods.  Hatfield wasn�t a fool, so he refused their offer and filed suit. 

Eventually, two different court decisions ruled that Hatfield�s great flood was an act of God.  This meant that since Hatfield did not cause the rain, he could receive no compensation for his efforts.  Finally, in 1938, the courts declared the lawsuit a dead issue and threw the case out.

Hatfield may have been denied payment, but word spread worldwide about his San Diego rainmaking success.   Queries for Hatfield�s services came from all over the world, although he continued to do the majority of his work in the California region.  A 1929 contract involved dousing a raging forest fire in Honduras in a mere ten days.  The onset of the depression forced Hatfield to retire from his life as a rainmaker.  He settled into the Eagle Rock suburb of Los Angeles and returned to his life as a sewing machine salesman.

During his lifetime, he had claimed to have had caused over 500 successful rainmaking events.  In 1956, Hatfield was invited to attend the Hollywood premiere of the movie The Rainmaker starring Burt Lancaster.  (Any guess as to whom the movie was inspired by?)  When Hatfield died on January 12, 1958 at the age of 82, he had taken his rainmaking secrets to the grave.  I guess that we will never know if he was a real rainmaker or just another quack.