So 8 am this morning there's a knock at my door and a woman outside telling me to move my car out of the lot cause the lot is gonna flood in the current storm. She says the creek is 2/3 up the drain and that last time it rained this much some of the streets flooded--and yep, I'm in a flood zone (arrgh) that overflowed in 1998.
The city web site says:

"There have been major floods, though, with the 1950s being noteworthy: once, Baylands levees failed and a large area extending into Louis Road was flooded; another time the entire area from Middlefield Road at San Francisquito Creek to the Oregon Avenue/Bayshore area and beyond was flooded, with water flowing over the Bayshore Highway; this event was largely repeated in the disastrous flood of February 1998, considered roughtly to have been a 70 or 80-year flood. "