Eight years ago this week, after a series of drenching atmospheric river storms, Coyote Creek, the longest creek in Santa Clara County, flooded, forcing the emergency evacuation of 14,000 people in neighborhoods around downtown San Jose and causing $100 million in damage in a torrent of muddy water. On Thursday, the Santa Clara Valley Water District finished a project aimed at reducing the chances of serious flooding in the area in the future. The $117 million project from the district, a government agency based in San Jose, constructed flood walls and other features along 8,500 feet of Coyote Creek in a 4-mile stretch of the waterway between Interstate 280 and Old Oakland Road in some of the areas that suffered the worst.

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