The State : Rain Swamps N. Calif. Town

Drought doesn’t mean much in Quincy. The small Sierra Nevada city in northeast California is practically awash in water. Just days ago, the Plumas County seat was inundated with rain and heavily saturated snow that caused scores of power failures and minor flooding. Tributaries to the nearby Feather River swelled ominously. Some local people say the culprit is a state Department of Water Resources cloud-seeding project that covers much of this 2,618-square-mile county, whose livelihood is rooted in recreation and logging. Two major March storms in as many weeks have dumped nearly nine inches of rain and snow in an area that normally gets five inches for the month.