Why California's Mega-Dam Collapsed
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The collapse of California's St. Francis Dam stands as a tragic reminder of the devastating power of engineering failures. On March 12, 1928, the dam catastrophically failed, sending billions of gallons of water rushing through the Santa Clara River Valley. The colossal wave of destruction claimed the lives of over 400 people and caused extensive damage to property and infrastructure downstream. The disaster exposed flaws in design and construction, highlighting the importance of rigorous engineering standards and thorough safety inspections in large-scale infrastructure projects. The aftermath of the St. Francis Dam collapse spurred advancements in dam engineering and safety regulations, shaping the practices that govern modern-day water management systems.
IT’S HISTORY - Weekly Tales of American Urban Decay as presented by your host Ryan Socash.
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Scriptwriter - Ryan Socash,
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My mother-in-law, Dee, was a survivor of this disaster. She was 20 months old. They lived between the Santa Clara River and Bardsdale, one of the towns wiped out by the flood. As the wall of water hit the back of their house her Dad grabbed her and escaped out the front. Her mother and 4 siblings perished. As the water rose they got caught up in the branches of a large tree that had been uprooted from behind their house. Holding onto the tree they were swept 20 miles downstream. Most of the people that had managed to grab and use debris to stay afloat were eventually swept out into the Pacific Ocean and perished. The tree Dee and her father were riding came close to the to the north side of the river and the tree grounded for a moment, just long enough for her father to free them from the branches and swim/wade to shore.
My 3rd great grandfather (yes, my grandfathers great-grandfather) mentioned this (and his first great-grandchild being born) disaster in his 1928 diary. (My grandad still owns it.) The family (during the depression) were normally produce (fruit&veg) haulers in the San Fernando Valley, but that week, they (he, his 2 sons and one grandson) made a little extra cash with thier jalopy pickup- truck by hauling the victims from the dam disaster to cemeteries and mortuaries etc down in the Valley. Nowadays the FDA would not have approved of that.
Please email me, I’d love to ask some questions about this story!
So sorry they lost their family in the disaster.
Thank you for sharing such an incredible story, and so eloquently too - sending love to your mother in law ❤
Amazing story!
My grandfather, who passed this last January, told me stories about this. He lived in Santa Paula and was almost 6 when this happened. Even though he was so young when it occurred, the events were very clear in his mind 95 years later. I currently live in the Bardsdale area just south of the Santa Clara river and have a hard time believing how much water came down through the valley that night.
I live about 10 minutes away from the old dam site. You can still see old rusted cars embedded halfway up the mountains and huge slabs of concrete in the wash/storm drainage system. I used to do ranch work at a neighbors house and there’s an old graveyard where a family whom are victims of the flood are buried. Very interesting stuff!
The sad part is that very few people, even locals, are fully aware of what happened here, when driving, literally, right through it these days. You see the remains if you look closely enough. They say that many of the people are still buried under the path of the flood.
My Great Uncle Paul Gregson was killed in the event. My Grandmother told me that her Brother had a Trucking Company and that he had a fleet of Autocar Dump Trucks and that they were in a Camp below the Dam as they were working I believe on a Power Station. They were all washed away along with the fleet of trucks and his body was recovered and is buried in Sebastopol, CA. I have visited the Dam Site on the anniversary and found it quite interesting. Thank you for the story, Don
0:11 LOOK how cleanly the dam cracked. You can't tell me that there wasn't some fatal flaw at exactly those points. Those are pretty straight up and down fractures.
Perhaps failing to cool the concrete as they did at the Hoover Dam was a large contributing factor
the wall of debris and water made it all the way to the ocean. which is an hour drive from santa clarita
The numbers are insane, I think the wave was something like 100 ft high at the time it exited into the ocean
Mulholland wasn't really an engineer, only self-taught and he ordered the increase in the height of the dam which it wasn't in the original design of it
He built the dam near the Hollywood sign also.
I’ve read about William Mulholland and I’m glad you mentioned his lack of education - being only self-taught! That right there would have scared the whatever out of me. I wonder if people now living on or near Mulholland Drive know what damage this guy is responsible for!!!
And he has street named after him even though he was a criminally negligent.
That was surprisingly common in that era. An awful lot of aeronautical engineers came up by sweeping the shop floor and if they were liked, maybe the engineers would teach them how to draft. If they were good at that they would start teaching them engineering. A friend's father got his start at Supermarine Aircraft in the UK that way, sweeping the shop floor followed by becoming a draftsman. Ed Heinemann, the famous aeronautical engineer at Douglas Aircraft who designed many of the US Navy's combat aircraft including the SBD dive bomber, the A-1 Skyraider, the big A-3 Skywarrior, A-4 Skyhawk (aka Heinemann's Hot Rod) and the F-16 among others was likewise a self taught engineer. Very few people had rich parents to pay for their kids to attend a university 120 years ago. A good many engineers were self taught in that era out of necessity.
I lived in what is now Santa Clarita, near San Francisquito Cyn in the 1980s and visited the dam site many times. Most recently just last year. It's a spectacular and emotional hike. Driving from there west on CA126, close to where the flood waters traveled, it's almost unbelievable how far the wall of water traveled. The book Water for Angels by Lee Standiford is recommended reading for those interested in this event, its background and resulting impact.
The Teton Dam is another example of engineering failure which happened in eastern Idaho. I was not yet born, but my parents lived through it.
Never knew about that one
LADWP lowered the water level in lake hollywood behind the Mulholland dam and over the next years built up 350,000 cubic yards of dirt in front of Mulholland dam they have never brought it to full pool.
My 3rd great grandfather (yes, my grandfathers great-grandfather) mentioned this (and his first great-grandchild being born) disaster in his 1928 diary. (My grandad still owns it.) The family (during the depression) were normally produce (fruit&veg) haulers in the San Fernando Valley, but that week, they (he, his 2 sons and one grandson) made a little extra cash with thier jalopy pickup- truck by hauling the victims from the dam disaster to cemeteries and mortuaries etc down in the Valley. Nowadays the FDA would not have approved of that.
Titanic syndrome: Man says, "We got this." Nature says, "Hold my Beer."
You forgot to mention that William Mulholland had no professional engineering training or education
That likely wasn’t unusual in those days, disasters like these were one of the many reasons they professionalized engineering. There was no formal training for being a lawyer in the 1800s and probably into the 1900s as well, you apprenticed.
And a “criminal negligent” person has a street named after him.
@@frankchan4272His aquaduct is still working and bringing water to LA
That's not true I was in an engineering class with him
SO
I have visited the site several times and it is chilling. You can still see small memorial crosses left by family and friends of the dead. My father worked for the LA DWP and was a surveyor around the time of the later Bouquet Canyon dam project. This subject also worked its way into the movie "Chinatown" which has the mystery around the murder of a character based upon Mulholland. This is not the only great dam disaster and it is worth noting that civil engineering society notices have warned the inadquate maintenance of our existing dams risks some future dam failure.
There was the walnut Grove dam break in prescott az, late late 1800s
Sad thing is most damns around these days are never %100 they're always leaking...
Based on what I wread
Mulholland was not an engineer and the dam was not big enough at the base
The top was widened without considering the mass by volume
It never worked it was constantly leaking
The only reason more people didn't die was the failure occurred at 2:30 in the morning
Well that explains the obsession with Mid 20th century cartoons with dam accidents. Next, I need to find the origin of their obsession with quicksands.
But do you? Really? I personally like sleeping at night lol
I was stationed in San Fran Cyn at a USFS Fire Engine company. Just above the old dam site and below the aqueduct crossing off San Fran Cyn hwy. The FS was located within a LACo. Juvenile Detention Camp. Thank you for this content & research.
“The dam keeps cracking”
This guy: “totally fine”
He was also the guy that plotted the fastest course for the Titanic and told Captain Smith the icebergs would just bounce off the Titanic hull.
California got close to another dam collapse in 2017 when the Oroville Dam spillway failed. But Oroville is not some small dam, which is the tallest in the US. That dam failure would have impacted millions of people who live down stream in the Sacramento valley.
I still follow the time bomb channel that gives updates on Orville dam
As a california citizen south of the Shasta Dam, we worry about every small earthquake here. The Oroville Dam incident was to close to home
The main dam was never in jeopardy of failing. The worst case scenario in that incident was the auxiliary spillway failing allowing the top fifty or so feet of the reservoir to spill out. That is no small amount of water and it would have done huge damage downstream, but the main dam would have been unaffected and most of the reservoir retained.
@@philsalvatore3902 Then why were they ready to evacuate everyone down to Sacramento.
The author has it backwards. The Mulholland Dam was a copy of the original San Francisquito Canyon Dam. Aside from the serious problems with the site the San Francisquito Dam was built on, the dam was raised during construction but the width was not increased to match the increase in height. The resulting dam was unstable. There was minimal documentation of the raise in height and a question remains why William Mulholland did that.
Read the book Cadillac Desert, the story of water in the West.
Thanks. I wonder if walnut Grove dam was in there? That's up in my neck of the woods
Dam failing pics from back then are intense.
Still a marvel at how smart and hardworking the animal beavers are to be able to build something like this yet they always have more to learn….
They are definitely smart little guys. I've seen numerous dams .. They don't mess around...💕
Bolder/Hoover Dam a perfect example of "Do it right the first time."
St. Francis Dam a perfect example of "Quick and Cheap."
Hmmmm Just thinking here, how about a vid on Mulholland Drive in the hills above LA.
Yet William Mulholland was a consulting engineer on the Hoover Dam project.
4:40 I’ve never heard someone say the word “equipped” the way you say it: “equippeded”. I think it’s because usually we say the word equipped like “equipt”, but when you saw the word (as you’re recording the voiceover) you felt like the word needed its “ed” enunciated, even though you’d already said the word completely -hence the extra “ed”. This completes my English autopsy.
4:40--
When editing, it is very easy to be careless with an excision, which had a terrible effect on the dialogue.
The only thing more noticeable is a computer reading dialogue which is beyond its vocabulary.
Outstanding video! Very informative and interesting!
Beginning geology students are told this story as a cautionary tale. There were several problems with the bedrock under the dam, and it’s quite possible the dam would still be here if the rock had held.
(BTW, the rock under the eastern side is schist, not shale.)
Great Video!
There's a really good book on this called Floodpath by Jon Wilkman
A great book that really goes into the back story of Owen’s Valley. And the people involved in this tragedy. They were supposed to make a movie about that.
San Francisquito Canyon Dam was not the only reservoir holding water for Los Angeles. Some ten miles or so below Owens Lake is Haiwee Reservoir, a large body of water created by damming the old gorge below Owens Lake with a dam on the north and south ends. This reservoir regulates the flow of water into the aqueduct to LA and was no affected by the acts of sabotage to the north. There was also Fairmount Reservoir just north of the San Francisquito Canyon Dam that regulated water into that reservoir. Both of these facilities exist today. North Haiwee Dam is currently being rebuilt for seismic safety and Fairmount was rebuilt about a decade or so ago.
A tragedy for sure. At least the engineer claimed responsibility& didnt try to push it off to someone else. I think these days you would have multiple people blaming one or many others for it. Takes someone with some integrity to own up & put responsibility on themselves for something like that.
I think so too
Great job. I drive past this area to go hiking and have been waiting for a deep dive into what happened here. ❤
Just imagine an even more massive ice dam break that happened at the end of the ice age in Washington. Prof from University of Washington has videos on the amount of water and the miles of land effected.
Nick zenter? Hells ya
Reminds me A LOT of the Austin, PA dam failure.
Yo I love Dam videos of California..
This disaster is used as a major plot point in the movie "Chinatown"
Iconic film with a very iconic line...
Would you do a story on a tragic fire that changed the whole world? It happened in a small town call Boyertown. The tragic event happened at the Rhoads Opera House on January 13th, 1908. This story still haunts my town to this day, and the building still stands as a memorial. There is also a mass grave at the local cemetery for all who were not identified in the following days of the tragic fire.
Check out the movie Chinatown .
good movie
There are 4 reservoirs above the santa clara river within 20 miles of the san andreas fault what will happen to those during the expected mega quake
Castiac, Pyramid, both dams on Bouquet Canyon are modern zoned compacted earth dams. None of these are a seismic hazard. Not sure about Piru Dam. The old Van Norman Reservoirs are empty now and their 1976 replacement, the Los Angeles Reservoir, is a modern structure that easily withstood the Northridge quake with the only damage being to the bridge to the intake structure. The 1913 vintage South Haiwee Dam withstood the 2019 Ridgecrest Earthquakes (M6.4 followed the next day by a M7.1 quake) with apparently no damage, something that still amazes me as the M7.1 quake aimed its energy right towards that dam. The state of California is forcing dam owners to upgrade dams they judge to be seismic hazards. DWP is currently building a new North Haiwee Dam to replace the inadequate old dam, and the Santa Clara Water District was forced to replace the huge Anderson Dam, a project that is going to take 18 years to complete and leave the Santa Clara region (San Jose, Sunnyvale, etc.) with almost no back up water supply. The Army Corps of Engineers just finished reconstructing the dams on Lake Isabella as the old dams were judged inadequate, including adding a really huge new spillway,
Well presented video dude! I will ask if you could perhaps use both metric and imperial systems. No idea how tall 140 ft is for example. I know how long a foot roughly is but in working out 140 in comparison is meters I've missed 3-5 sentences of new information. I'm very sure I'm not alone. I like your demeanor throughout man and will check out more of your content 😊
Hey Ryan, It's not a California sotry, but the ''Dam-break in Georgia'' is interesting. I will send you the info. Great story on the Mega-Dam Catastrophe!
Is that the one that happened at Toccoa College? (Toccoa Falls)
@@jangles1839 Yes, my son in law went there 20 years after the flood. I sent you an email with 5 references.
@@jerrysinclair3771 yeah I live only around 30-40 minutes from there myself. I'll certainly look for that email. The email I use regularly is a Yahoo account but I'm sure I can find it. Thanks! ~ Scott 💙🙏🏻
I was there years ago when the Orville dam almost collapsed. At least we were able to stop that one, can't imagine what would have happened if it collapsed. I guess now we can with this vid.
It would be interesting to know if any specific lessons from the St. Francis Dam were applied to the construction of Hoover Dam, only about 300 miles away and begun just three years after the St. Francis collapse.
I actually visited this sight with ny second grade class. We also saw native american holes in rocks
LADWP has only done token acknowledgement of this disaster.
Either you bring the water to L.A. or you bring L.A. to the water
Damn.
Learning about water rights. "well, dam"
Today, all those involved at the top, would be sued out of everthing.
Go figure. In the LA area many things are named after Mulholland (sp).
That's a lot of cracks.
Makes me glad I've lived my entire life in the Great Lakes basin.
So the early cracks in the dam were wider at the bottom than at the top and it was determined that these were contraction cracks? Not that the foundation was under a force that was spreading the base. ???????
Damn
My god that guy was insane
Thanks Dam Daddy
It's Chinatown, Jake.
Forget it Jack, it's Waterworld.
4:04
I think they tried to design the dam to eventually look like the drawing at 404. In other words not found.
The only thing that destroys the environment more than building a dam is when one fails.
When I was a youngster my father had told me a story about that disaster he told me his aunt and uncle where on traveling on a bridge
when it was washed out there bodies or car where never found .
Towns swallowed whole and LIVES LOST ... remember that and the people who lost their lives when you drive down MULHOLLAND DRIVE named for the man who built the dam... Lives lost and he gets memorialized by naming a road in his honor.... That's California!
no, that's American sir there are countless street roads, buildings named after murders and traitors
The aqueduct he built is still bringing water to LA. And the Mulholland Dam he built is still standing, too. Mulholland Drive was named in 1924, before the St. Francis dam disaster.
19:15 Looks like they didn't use rebar.
They didn't. I've been exploring the dam for a few years. The only rebar I've found are the pieces of the spillway.
Gravity dams never use rebar. Even concrete gravity dams constructed today do not have rebar except for outlet structures, powerhouses or bridges over spillways. But the main structure of the dam is unreinforced concrete. The dam is poured in blocks and the blocks allowed to cure before the forms are removed and the next row poured. The sheer size and weight of the concrete is enough to make the dam stable, if it is designed right. What is really cool is how parabolic thin arch dams are built. The too are un-reinforced but their eggshell shape transmits the water loads to the canyon walls, allowing the dam to be very thin.
Rebar is put into concrete to take tension loads because concrete is far stronger in compression than tension. However a dam like this has all of its loads in compression so rebar isn't needed. What's more is that if rebar gets wet inside the concrete (from a tiny crack) it will "spall" that is it rusts and expands causing further failure of the concrete around it which actually makes steel rebar a liability in gravity dam contruction.
So much for "Self taught" engineering.
Yeah, self-taught only works in some professions... Not that. I think Mulholland built the dam near the Hollywood sign as well.
Sometimes self-taught ends in very strongly built structures, because someone puts in the extra time to make things right. Other times, it leaves room for overlooking obvious flaws that an educated engineer would foresee.
@@applegal3058 Educated engineers and geologists designed, built and fixed the location of both Vajont and Malpasset dams. Those tragedies were the fault of "educated" technicians.
@@765kvline oh ok...yeah, everyone makes mistakes and everyone can ignore warning signs for whatever reason.
Engineering and other careers weren’t professionalized in those days. Being self-taught or apprenticed was likely common in this period. In the 19th century you didn’t go to law school to become a lawyer either, you apprenticed
Mulholland has an important road named after him.
Not only a road. His Mulholland Dam is still standing.
All right this is somebody that does not want to waste his time talking about OJ Simpson 👍
Los Ángeles...? You show Puebla, Mexico, with the volcanos in the background. Shame on you!!!
The cause of failure is summed up in a single word: Arrogance.
Ah, yes - the notorious failure of the Vanderlip Dam…
Sympathy and Empathy!!
Well Dam.
Read the book Floodpath.
mulholland stole that water, flat out.
5:04
The movie chappie
AI drawings
dam(n)...
I assume that dam had a warning on it how the Dam might cause cancer lol.
Prop 65 covers all
Thereof, not therefore.
Based on your video one would assume the Bureau of Power and Light as well as personnel of the Burea of Water Works were, in the late 1920s, driving a 1930s era Citroen Traction Avant. Look at your video. That is the car you are showing, and the cars in the background are all 1950s and early 1960s American cars. D'oh. Head slap.
Dam
California’s Darn Failure.
Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown.
Looks like they used Zero rebar in the concrete….. that crazy
Old mega Dam*
Why the tall hair?
So there's that name. A drive was named after him. Somehow, I am disappointed knowing this history.
Mulholland Drive was named after him in 1924, after he had built the Los Angeles Aqueduct and the Mulholland Dam, but before the St Francis Dam disaster.
I helped build that dam? 🙄
Sounds like Mulholland dr should have been named for the road to prison.
He’s got more excuses then NASA
He took responsibility. Lack of knowledge is not criminal. Nobody had the engineering knowledge we have today. He was a product of his time. His aqueduct remains in service today largely as he designed it and I marvel at how water flows from the Owens Valley all the way to LA entirely by gravity. There are no pumps anywhere in his system. There are big siphons crossing canyons and many miles of tunneling to achieve this, all done at a time when they didn't have the modern equipment we have today. His intent wasn't evil or ciminal, but the profession as a whole lacked the knowledge we have today. I think it is interesting that the replacement for the San Francisquito Canyon Dam, the Bouquet Canyon Dam, was the worlds first compacted earth dam. That is the gold standard for embankment dams today, and LA DWP was the first to build one. But in 1910 when Mulholland was building the LA Aqueduct the machinery to build dams that way did not yet exist.
Interesting aside, when building the original aqueduct a prototype tracked bulldozer was brought to the Owens Valley to be tested. It was steam powered. Mulholland remarked that it reminded him of a caterpillar, and thus a name was born.
A tragic story of confirmation bias.
Climate change?
@29:25 Retired with salary of $500 per month.
Are you sure that is correct? In today's money that's about $12,000 per month or $144,000 per year!
Hardly a punishment for someone responsible for hundreds of deaths and millions in damage.
He was a pretty big celebrity from what I heard.
If anyone wonders if this could happen today go back a few years to study the planned failure of the Oroville Dam that had top Political figures planning on profiting on seaweed farms and other eminent domain grabs after the collapse. These Polititions had tried similar land grabs in other states and the land owners won against them and made it their mission to stop any other planned disasters.
It would take about 30 min to wash out Sacramento and every town on the way. They tried blasting nearby after their plan was discovered and getting irresponsible people at the top replaced took some months.
1/3 of the Produce in the World comes from the area downstream and it would wash out the direct trucking routes from CA ports, many have been sold to foreign interests. The most this observing YTers could do was spread the news and Pray.
The monsters failed and so far OrovilleDam has remained but it is tip topy full again with leaks and damaged spillwsys still unrepaired. CA left America decades ago. DC as well.
So freaking happy I caught this comment. Everything happens for a reason. If you get bored, you should look up the walnut Grove dam break in Arizona, yavapai county. The story is just...... baaaah! It's insulting, really. There were many native peoples that lived in the flood area. Also, the washes glowed after the flooding.....
Let's get real here. Oroville Dam was never in jeopardy of failing. Period, full stop. That dam is over 700 feet tall and impounds a reservoir over 600 feet deep at the upstream foot of the dam. What could have failed was the auxiliary spillway. That sits on a ridge north of the main dam and main concrete spillway. When the main spillway was closed the only way for water to escape was through the power plant or over top of the auxiliary spillway. The threat was the auxiliary spillway washing out, which would have released the upper 50 feet of water from the reservoir. Yes that would have let a lot of water downstream and done a lot of damage but there was never a chance of the main dam failing and releasing the entire reservoir.
How come you use such anachronistic measures like feet? Isn’t that something of the Middle Ages?
Mulholland the Mass Murderer
😡😢
Because it turned trans?