In the Christmas flood of 1964 , heavy rains washed enormous amounts of silt and debris from clear-cut lands into the river , and killing entire fish and amphibian populations . The flood peaked on 22 December at . It was said that the " South Fork is a lost cause , a ' dead river ' which will never recover from the devastation of the 1964 storms . " Even decades after the flooding , erosion rates in the watershed remain much higher than the pre-1964 average . By the 1970s , anadromous fish populations saw a significant decline as a direct result of siltation
Christmas flood of 1964
Christmas flood of 1964
South Fork Trinity River