I feel like this story needs to be taught in engineering classes, if it's not already. I remember my older brother saying someone at his school put up posters saying something like "If you cheat or cliff notes through your classes here, people die." And it's true.
Xandra Garrison I learned about the failures in the Challenger disaster in my tech writing class. The general idea being that how you present information influences how readers respond to it. So, a failure in communication
I particularly like it for teaching purposes, because the engineering concepts that were flubbed are very simple and easy to understand. Bernoulli's Principle is fluids 101, and any engineering freshman will understand why increasing the height of the dam without other changes is just a horrible idea.
My S.O.’s grandfather was a survivor of this disaster. Oliver Crocker. He was deaf in one ear for the remainder of his life after being thrown about underwater from the flood. He spoke a lot about the horror of it all. He lost many friends in this catastrophe and the images stayed with him for the remainder of his life. We inherited his photo albums, memoirs, and newspaper clippings regarding the Francisco Dam disaster after his death in 1990. An amazing man. We miss you, Ollie!
The reason I've heard of this is because as students of applied maths and physics, we all bitched that our mechs professor was obsessing over hydrostatics and safety coefficients. After he had us google pictures of the diagrams and the disaster, we all stf up. Because that's exactly the reason massive projects should be overengineered.
My uncle's college gives all engineering graduates an iron ring (there were rumors that some are made from the metal of a collapsed bridge). They're meant to be a "reminder of the obligations and ethics associated with" being an engineer: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring
As a retired engineer, these are the things of my nightmares. My boss has a chunk of, now epoxy coated, failed col in his office. (Not our doing, or design, just found during a contracted inspection.) “Upon inspection, I observed a deformed column, I immediately had the superintendent notify the authorities, and instructed the facility administrator to begin evacuation. I remained on-site until completed”. He’s my hero. We had lunch after Surfside, things will certainly change. Unfortunately not everyone is as commanding of remedial action as they are.
@@thecraziestofalldave vertical steel col, with significant section loss. It had collapsed on itself by about 6”. The building’s facilities manager had noted cracks on an interior wall several stories up, when they removed a dryvit skirt, to visually inspect, the SE’s first words were, “Holy Mother of Pearl! Begin evacuation immediately.”
California routinely cuts farners from their water supplies. The Governor is doing it right now, by turning-off irrigation to northern farms. The Democrat-run government claims it has eminent domain over all water .
Dude, that guy that lost his wife and five of his children, I'm glad that at least his oldest survived and they had each other. I did some research and they both lived long lives.
KEY FACT: The collapsed dam has a twin dam called Mulholland Dam overlooking downtown LA. Fearing this dam would fail too, the city dumped tons of dirt in front of the dam to reinforce it. The dam is still there .
California routinely cuts farners from their water supplies. The Governor is doing it right now, by turning-off irrigation to northern farms. The Democrat-run government claims it has eminent domain over all water .
Watching this was kind of surreal because My grandmother and mom lived through this. They lived in santa Paula and just made it out on time. My mom told me the stories my whole life. My grandmother must have gotten a warning because she told my mom to put her clothes on the bed. My mom was picking outfits and laying them on the bed cause she didnt know what was happening she was 12 or 13 year old kid. So mom says grandma comes in lifts all the clothes and throws them on the bed and then ties the four corners of the bedspread together takes it and mom out to the street. There were lots of unsung heroes that day and one of them was driving a truck around picking people up and getting them to safety. In my mom's case the man driving the truck was the first African American she had ever seen. It was a red letter day for mom. It affected her the rest of her life. She was a tremendously strong woman and didn't show any emotions but there were little clues that it still affected her. The big one being we had to have all the hangers in our closet facing in to make it easier to get them out, just in case of an emergency. When they went back to their house it was gone. My mom found one of her dolls in the mud and my grandmother found her sewing machine. Neither The family moved to Santa Paula from Arkansas when my mom was a baby and a lot of the other relatives eventually moved there too. There was only one of their houses still standing when it was over and the rest of the family had to move in there. There were tents in the backyard and the house was packed with people. It was the same all over town. At that time my grandmother was working at the Sunkist lemon packing house as a supervisor. With the crop damage and loss of workforce and housing shortage she said it was just chaos there for months. Sorry I'm writing so much. I havn't thought about this in years. We have quite a tragic family background and the flood isn't even close to the top of our tragedy scale. Thanks again for the video
Thanks for sharing. I had read a book on this disaster a while back. I grew up in Santa Paula and still live here. It’s crazy that this story was not very well known when I was a kid growing up here in the 80s
WoW! If you wrote more I think I would have read it all! Bob is right! We All learn from stories like yours! Guess What? I am literally employing one of your lessons for the rest of my life! All my hangers Will Be facing inwards from this day forward. Thank You
@@hopefletcher7420 We'll take responsibility for current actions in about 100 years after everyone it affected at the time are long dead and nobody cares anymore.
I've been aware of this disaster since I was a small child. My great grandfather was a carpenter for DWP then, My grandmother did some sort of clerical work for DWP and her desk was a couple of desks away from Mulholland's office door. My grandfather was a "Corker & Repairman" for DWP at the time and was one of thousands sent to work on emergency repairs to repair the water system so that water to LA was not cut off for long. He told me of being inside the water tunnel in the canyon wall downstream of the dam which was for water to bypass the dam or carry it out of the dam and toward the San Fernando Valley. The rushing water had torn out the side of the tunnel and it needed repair to pass water. So he was on the crew that repaired it. When they were done, the water valves up the canyon were opened to let water flow. Someone got in too big of a hurry and communications were almost non-existent. So he and a couple other guys were still in the tunnel when water was rushing past them. It was almost up to his knees before they got to where they could get out. Grandma said that Mulholland had been a cheerful guy before, but from that day on, he walked around with his shoulders slumped and a sad look on his face. Not greeting anyone . Looking down at the floor as he walked. Clearly a crushed man. A year and a half later grandma left DWP to give birth to my mom. Grandpa around the same time switched jobs to become a "Sanjero" or "Keeper of the Ditch" in English. His job then and until he retired in 1964 was to control irrigation water for farmers in the San Fernando Valley. When he retired, they retired his job with him.
KEY FACT: The collapsed dam has a twin dam called Mulholland Dam overlooking downtown LA. Fearing this dam would fail too, the city dumped tons of dirt to reinforce it. The dam is still there (until the Big One hits) .
A dear friend of mine is the only person still living that was in the disaster. He still lives in Franklin, CA and he's a citrus farmer to this day, 96 years old.
@@stepawayful He has been. I mis-spoke in my earlier comment, he lives in Santa Paula, CA. I talk to him quite a bit actually and he's still sharp as a tac. I'd love to get you in touch with him. Send me your email.
Eh, nowadays regulations are written by whichever lobbyist gave the politician the most money under the table or they are written to make the sponsor sound good.
@@marksmith4346 Consider Flint. The problem is that most people can't tell which regulations have a very serious justification and which ones are payoffs.
@@ktpinnacle There's an easy way to tell the difference. It's just like with the COVID crisis: listen to the scientists. The scientists and the engineers. They still might be wrong, but if it's a choice between them or politicians and pencil-pushers and bean-counters, I'll go with the scientists and the engineers every time.
@@AlbertaGeek Being a scientist, I agree. But there are an awful lot of people that don't seem to understand the world we live in. To them, science is magic. And they reserve their faith for others.
This is one of the saddest chapters in California history. When I studied California history in college, my professor referred to this incident as "the rape of the Owen's valley." It truly was a violent act, and totally unnecessary. Good video, Caitlin. Well done.
@@c.l.1820 It's also how I've heard the entire land/water grab and disaster called. It's used correctly. I learned about it in an immigrant stories/studies course.
I lived in LA from 1947-1983, graduated from UCLA with a history minor, and NEVER heard of the disaster. I recognized the name Mullholland from the road named after him and now I can't imagine why that famous road is named after a failed self-taught engineer!!
Native Iowan here! Thank you for donating to victims of the derecho. So many friends whose lives were literally torn apart... and because of many other (equally important) things in the news- many people don't even know of the destruction. Thank you for using your platform for so much good!!
Same here! I live about an hour east of Cedar Rapids and we got hit hard. We pulled together to help ourselves because no one else was coming. FEMA and the Red Cross are just now working their way through places that got hit. Like, thanks, but you're a little late. We got this. #IowaStrong
Another Iowan here! The aftermath of the storm was surreal. I never imagined we'd see anything like that here. I'm glad this is getting attention. There's so much going on in 2020 that I understand why so many people haven't heard about the derecho, but so many people still need help.
The fact that all this happened in the middle of the night when everyone was asleep makes this all the more terrifying to me. Those poor people were doomed.
Having grown up in Santa Clarita I learned all about this disaster and have even hiked the dam site. This video is, by far, the best account of the St Francis Dam disaster that I have ever seen. Thank you for bringing this "forgotten" Chapter of California history back into the light.
KEY FACT: The collapsed dam has a twin dam called Mulholland Dam overlooking downtown LA. Fearing this dam would fail too, the city dumped tons of dirt to reinforce it. The dam is still there (until the Big One hits) .
If I believed in ghosts, That entire canyon could be regarded as a condemned haunted region by the spirits of those never recovered… or even those who were! 👻😱
A couple months ago, I was talking to my husband and a friend and I said “slower than molasses in January!” It soon became obvious that I was the only one in the room who knew about the Great Molasses Disaster of 1919. It’s a morbid, ridiculous, story! I would love if you made a video about it!
@@celestialstarchild Where I'm from we say the same thing. My husbands favorite saying is "Sh*t fire save matches f*ck a duck and see what hatches. Anybody else heard that one.
So he likely knew people who died there ? I'm very sorry for his family, friends , coworkers etc .... Greetings and a probably quite meaningless "I'm sorry" from Vienna/ Austria. (The tiny state in Europe, not the continent)
@@eduardoa3165 They also keep telling you ever year that climate change is a problem. That doesn't mean it's not happening. Los Angeles has a storm water system that dumps huge amounts of fresh water into the ocean while it literally steals water from the Colorado river. It doesn't matter if "they" (whoever that is) tell you every year. The situation is getting worse by any valid measure. Feel free to look it up on your own. Having a random bureaucrat telling you not to water your lawn too much in no way conveys the seriousness of the situation
I mean it's a fascinating topic EVERYWHERE. Can you imagine what'll happen if the SE/Midwest start going into drought and eyeing the Great Lakes? CHAOS CHAOS
“I live in LA and I don’t even care about that.” The way things are going, people living in Southern California had better start caring. And soon. Water rights are going to become a big deal again .
I was thinking the same, but more globally. If the predictions about climate change are correct we will have a lot more Owens valley type szenarios all over the world. Scary thought.
@@lisamo1013 most water in the hot states wont be effected by the climate as most of the water is from underground aquafiers dont look to the sky in fear look to the soil california never stopped its ownes valley stratagy and there draining dry any water source in there reach without letting them refill or caring about eco damage unless california changes the owens valley staragy of f k small towns and farms as long as megacitys in deserts get there water the west coast will be a new sahara desert within 50 years
@@wilmagregg3131 oh, I didn't realise that. I assumed the droughts California was experiencing were exacerbated by climate change more than current actions. I'm not from the states though so I guess my lack of knowledge isn't surprising.
@@lisamo1013 yeah it looks better on californias part if they blame the droughts on climate change basically saying its EVERYONES fault when really its THERE fault aka the officals in charge of water in california. a big example of how incopentent or corrupt the califronia water officals are is residents in la are allowed only a certain amount of water before they get fined or it shut of to the point you can wash your cloths once and take a couple showers while all the luxury hotels golf courses and entrepunial areas get unlimited water access at all times unless a emergency occurs. and the worst thing is how common this is in california i mean just look up how californias power system has tons of blackouts despite producing nearly 5 TIMES the amount of power the state needs to not blackout
@@wilmagregg3131 to be honest, I'm amazed anyway how common blackouts seem to be in the US. I'm sure that's one of those very regionally different problems but still. Somehow your description of the water issue doesn't surprise me, I'm sure it would be the same thing where I'm from.
I did a report on this in college. It was a very haunting tale. The Mulholland Reservoir/ Hollywood Reservoir was of the same construction as the Saint Francis, and the city filled the front of the damn with tons of dirt, and planted trees to reduce the appearance of it's size and reduce the possibility of a similar failure.
Hay, what an amazing story, so glad you took us on this very interesting journey back in time, the landscape really gave me incite like you opened a door and I was there with you, it was truly a wow video and I love the chook, great work 😘
One important thing I learned in my youth from my grandfather was "When you live near or are going to where there is a body of water, especially a river always check the weather upstream of the river your visiting. When your there if you hear rumbling or vibrations underneath your feet run to a high place asap, aka uphill away from the nearest water source as those are the first signs before you might get hit by rushing waters". His story came from experience as one day he was upstream & heard rumbling, felt vibrations & than saw bird fly like crazy. He said he ran like the devil was at his feet down river scream for everyone to run to higher land as his whole family & friends were having a picnic down river. He saved a bunch of people that day. Now I pay attention to the weather & for noises when im near a water source.
I can't understand why people wish to live by the sea,all you need is an earthquake and you have a tsunami,also the sea reclaims the earth as we have seen home's falling into the sea when the cliffs crumble.
I live in Arizona but i was taught much the same thing. Flash floods are a major thing here. A lot of our "rivers'(washes) are dry most of the time and its easy to find yourself in one when walking around its an easy flat path usually to follow. i was taught if there's a storm even if it isn't overhead even if it seems miles away you never go in a wash, the water comes and goes fast and is devastating. unfortunately a lot of people who live here never think a lot of water is never going to be a problem .....
I found your channel by mistake and now, I can't get enough. I love how informative you are and how you tell the story (voices, enthusiasm, etc.). Thank you.
@@Marthitaandsunflowers you will find that the Deathling community (Ask a Mortician fans) are really nice. There is a ton of cool videos to watch, I recommend the trio about death and Disney
California routinely cuts farners from their water supplies. The Governor is doing it right now, by turning-off irrigation to northern farms. The Democrat-run government claims it has eminent domain over all water .
"Hey! Let's build a metropolis in a desert! What could go wrong?" Lake Mead is turning into a pond. Las Vegas is living on borrowed time. When the water runs out, the party will be over.
Growing up San Diego in the 70's, I was taught in school,t that the natural water table could only support about 700,000 people and before the California aqueduct was built the Russian river flowed 15' higher than it did in the 70's and that we took so much water out of the colorado river that it no longer flowed over the Mexican border upsetting Mexico. Building in a desert was not so bright is a correct statement!
You know, 50% of the water in Lake Mead goes to California. Las Vegas is only entitled to an extremely small portion of the water from lake mead because when it was built, Las Vegas and Nevada as a whole was sparse in population and didn't need the vast amounts of water that California was demanding. Las Vegas has worked extremely well to conserve water and in the past 10 years Las Vegas' population has doubled but their water demand has not increased. That is not a feat any other city in the southwest can boast. Las Vegas native here.
The fact that Mulholland was warned by the dam keeper that it was becoming unsafe and then he basically told the guy to can it or he’d be canned makes him absolutely responsible for the tragedy.
Yeah, it's a shitty response to give. I wonder if by that point it was unfixable. The town could have been evacuated if they took it seriously and understood how bad the structure was. At least he took full responsibility, as he should of.
Yes. He was responsible. But he was NOT the first one to blame. He was a SELF TAUGHT ENGINEER. Like, wtf. Who would give such a job to someone with no studies/degree?? You don't put a self taught pilot piloting a Boeing. Would you like to go on that plane? You don't go to a self taught doctor either. There are such cases and have sometimes ended deadly (because they forge the degrees). It's not that he didn't pay attention in college, he did what he thought/learnt was right. Apparently it was made to fail, but he thought it was good. And he did take full responsibility after and also look at his eyes after the tragedy, he looked really broken. The main culprits are the ones who let him build the dam. His deputy? The mayor? Again, why the F would you give such an important and potentially dangerous task to someone with no degree? Those people are the first ones to blame.
I am from South Africa but absolutely LOVE your posts and have learned so much about America. Thank you. Please don't ever stop making posts, you have such talent! As a tsunami survivor, I could particularly relate to the horror of this post. 😢
They should've kept 'the tombstone' as a sombre national monument, lit up, and fenced securely off so that future generations could come and safely see the place and learn about what happened. Morbid as it is, it'd also be a small financial boost to the local economy, which would be a tiny bit of compensation for the surviving communities
Antifa would come in with accusations of the water being racist (mostly immigrants killed) and it would have to come down. Which the ppl in charge would immediately agree to since they are spineless idiots.
@@kdogrock77 Why did you come here starting sh*t about people against fascism and calling people names? This woman is a mortician who takes the time to teach people about the realities of death. And real life causes of deaths. This isn't a channel to dispute political issues or disrespect strangers. Be kind. Drop the politics. Or just don't bother commenting and ruining the experience for those of us that come here for honest conversations.
This was so rad to learn about, but also reminded me uncomfortably of the Boston Molasses Flood. Specifically the part where a gentleman went to check on the structure the day before and spent a lot of time talking to superiors about how it seemed problematic, and being continuously told off for doing so. If you've not done a video about that, and I know you're probably super busy, but I'd love to see one about it.
California routinely cuts farners from their water supplies. The Governor is doing it right now, by turning-off irrigation to northern farms. The Democrat-run government claims it has eminent domain over all water .
I'd love a more in-depth look at this disaster. I only know about it because Sam O'Nella mentioned it in a video, but a more serious exploration of it would be enjoyable.
I would also love to see Caitlin do a video on this topic! For anyone wanting to learn more about the molasses flood, the channel Watcher has an episode of their show Puppet History that covers it. It's much more comedic and goofy than Ask a Mortician, but is a very fascinating video that covers this topic well
@@BooksRebound The capitalists decided to build a dam to bring more people and more $$$, stealing the water from its original source and workers community. This, which as the video said, ended up killing hundreds workers and immigrants. So in response, Question Everything posted that quote about the sin of the misery of the poor being caused by institutions. Please pay attention
There are other videos on this tragedy which actually point out that much of the things that would have prevented this were actually just unknown to engineers of the time. Mulholland actually could not have been expected to know some of the issues inherent in the dam even if he had studied. Self-taught engineers were common, and this incident actually led to mandatory certification of engineers. I think this is pretty important to put in this video.
I'm glad you made this point; it seems multiple leaks had occurred in the same area as the muddy leak--Mulholland was troubled and knew it had to be fixed but he thought he had more time. However, it's still bothersome that no one was warned that a dam designed to keep water in was, in fact, letting it out, but I understand not wanting to cause widespread panic for something you think can be fixed...decisions like that are difficult.
@@danitza02125 Panic is so easy to spread. Three Mile Island comes to mind. An overall contained radiation leak blown to such out of scale proportions, by catastrophic mismanagement of the public relations side of things.
puts on tinfoil hat to share conspiracy theory: Roman Polanksi paid Charles Manson to kill his wife, Sharon Tate, and her lover. The others were innocent by-standers. I could be very biased against RP, though.
History teacher - actually just finished teaching my students about this. We're doing a unit on engineering disasters, and the students were quite fascinated with the notion that engineers could be self taught. It's so radically different to how the industry operates today, and even how they thought that it was back then
Did you happen through the Oroville Dam that basically wipe Johnstown, PA off the map in 1889? 2,209 were confirmed dead in that one! AND it's arguably purely on the negligence of the thing... though courts considered it "An act of God" as it had been unusually rainy around the time. Just in case you're interested in international fails, Banqiao Reservoir Dam in 1975 kill upwards of 171,000 in Henan, China... ...Vajont, Italy was a "fluke" stemming from a landslide that sent nearly a 100' wave over the top of the dam (rather than an actual breech) killing 2,000. ...AND Morbi, India saw Intense Rains stress the Machchu-2 more than 3 TIMES the amount of water-flow/fill that it was designed to sustain... In 1979, it failed, killing 5,000. No, I'm not trying to tell you what to do... Far from it. Just asking (1)... AND in case you hadn't run across them in your list, it might be fun to "test" your class on their researching abilities and group projects to "compare notes" when they get back to class with finished presentations... or something. ;o)
Italian Hall Tragedy in Calmer, MI. Multiple causes, definitely not just engineering, but really interesting, and sad to see all those little caskets for the massive funerals. Great way to spend Christmas.
Your team has become my daily time for introspection and prayer . Your combination of humor with sincere compassion and empathy makes me in quiet awe . The stories provide education and factual depth I have not been able to compare. Again Please accept our family’s thank you
Historically, the Boy Scouts have helped in a lot of disaster relief situations. Years ago, Boy Scouts actually were taught to do things - like make splints and stretchers from tree branches, all kinds of First Aid, make rope slings to carry injured folks, etc. Not like today. Since they forced the Boy Scouts to take in girls, they concentrate more on empathy and cooking. No wonder the country is a mess! The Liberals have broadened our horizons, and made us nonfunctional!
I've seen other documentaries about the Saint Francis Dam, but as far as I know, this is the most informative and comprehensive of them all, and Catlin Doughty has such a darling personality.
I can’t believe TH-cam doesn’t monetize this woman! I mean I’m not mad i don’t have to see ads! But man she is doing a practically free public service educating people! It’s amazing
She will never be monetized because her show is about the worst of all taboos: The D-word, that we may never speak of, or type! We must NEVER recognize D***h, in any way! And, if for some reason we are forced to think of it, we must spit between our fingers, stand in a bucket, and think Lovely Thoughts.
I don't see how 'puttting strawberries into bleach and poisoning some kid' or 'dripping crazy hot caramel onto egg beaters and causing third degree burns' is 'family friendly'. It's just TH-cam algorithm. Ann Reardon from @HowtoCookThatwith AnnReardon has debunked that.
If you visit the Hoover Dam, they tell you that the cement is still drying - that it will take 200 years to fully dry. I wonder if the amateur engineer knew that.
You want to keep concrete wet as long as possible. Water is necessary for the curing process. There are samples over a hundred years old that continue to gain strength.
@@Egypt_Cat_Of_Denial EDIT He didn't use barbital but Methaqualone, aka quaaludes and alcohol. Still massive risk of accidentally killing the 13 year old child that he anally raped. ffs I wouldn't call "drugging with phenobarbital and anally raping a 13 y child" messing around, but you do you pal. far far away from me pls
OMG I LIVE IN CR I HAD NO IDEA you were going to be supporting our recovery! It's 2022 and there is still obvious signs of the derecho. Thank you, Caitlin.
I think I'm gonna cry! No one ever talks about, let alone reaches out to help Iowa. We're usually brushed aside because we're a "fly over state." Even after the storm happened many people didn't hear about it. It was basically a hurricane, which NEVER happens here. We were in a statewide blackout for days and my friend went into labor that night. I was fortunate enough to be on one of the first streets that got power in my town so I housed my friend and her newborn for about a week. It was still so scary and stressful. Multiple businesses were shut down for weeks, so people were without work and didn't have access to things like food, gas, and cell reception to contact loved ones. But at the same time I have never seen a small community come together so fast and with such force. Immediately everyone was coming together to help others move debris, offer food and services for free, and communicate with the community any updates that had happened. It was crazy, but that's just what you do in a tragedy. Thank you so much for talking about this and supporting our humble state 😊
@MsBizzyGurl watch the full video. Iowa was destroyed. They are our main source of crops and so many homes and fields were demolished by this hurricane like storm.
People come together in a storm, and Iowa was blindsided by how bad that event really was going to be. A derecho is like a tornado on its side moving along the ground, and this was huge!
I had the same thought! I live about an hour east of Cedar Rapids and we got hit HARD. It was terrible and I hope to never experience anything like this again!
The derecho was devastating. I'm fortunate to live in a community that wasn't severely impacted, but so many people lost everything. The damage was so widespread. I used to think that, as long as a thunderstorm wasn't spawning tornadoes, we didn't have much to worry about. I never imagined we'd be hit by a storm like that, and I hope we never see it again.
This one really touched me. I'm brazillian and in the last 10 years many mining dams have collapsed, most recently early 2019. Different dams, different decades same sad history.
Guess Caitlyn can't blame racism in Brazil, unless they're black Brazilians maybe.. She forgets the white, and other immigrants who died under the mud from that disaster. It was workers, poor people. Immigrants who come to a new country with nothing often find themselves suffering more, in order to provide a future for their children. I've heard this story many times as a native Angeleno. The tragedy is for poor workers, and those who get away without accountability.
And this is a perfect example of what happens when you try and erase history , Terrible things have happened but destroying it only makes it easier to repeat one day .
My dad used to tell me about the LA newspaper reported his family wiped out in a flood. The story didn’t show up in a family history written by a cousin, so upon research, I found the story of the St Francis dam flood, which happened when my father was 17. His uncles at that time owned a homestead on the LA river, but we’re actually vacationing in the mountains at the time the dam broke, so of course there was no trace of them after the flood!
LA: “shhh we don’t really want anyone talking about that big disaster, let’s just keep that hush hush...” Halifax, my home city; “HEY DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE TIME TWO SHIPS BLEW UP AND EXPLODED THE WHOLE CITY?!?!? JUST GOES TA SHOW YA, EH?”
I heard of this when it was randomly included in a novel I read. It had literally nothing to do with the novel, but one of the characters was writing a story about it so they included the story that the character wrote. It was a terrible book but I researched that disaster afterwards and dang, that was crazy.
electricia yup! That’s how not secretive about it we are. Something completely unrelated- “OH BY THE WAY HALIFAX EXPLODED ONE TIME!” Two ships got in a “it’s my turn, no, it’s my go” trying to get past one another. One was loaded with explosives. And so, to this day, residents of Nova Scotia become stuck in doorways, insisting the other goes first. 😂🤣
Lmao!!!! My 14 year old walked in the room as you were saying " From death enthusiasts just like you." He stopped and looked at me and said " What the hell are you watching!?!?"
For those asking about Mulholland Drive: Yes, it was named after William Mulholland. It was opened and named in 1924, four years prior to the disaster.
@@MissLilyputt I mean, great enough to unashamedly own up to culpability in this disaster even if he and other engineers couldn't see it coming Literally saying in court "if there was an error in human judgment, I was the human, I won't try to fasten it on anyone else" then retiring once the court case is done is basically the Most Honorable reaction you can do as an engineer whose project catastrophically failed.
Here's another one you've never heard of: Johnstown, Dam disaster in 1889. Deaths - 2,208. A disaster ostensibly caused for some fishing and huntin' buddies. Really well documented as one of the first industrial disasters recorded with photography of the aftermath, and integral to defining the American Red Cross mission from thereafter. This damn dam-disaster might have actually been worse if not for the suffering of nearly fourfold more forty years earlier.
KEY FACT: The collapsed dam has a twin dam called Mulholland Dam overlooking downtown LA. Fearing this dam would fail too, the city dumped tons of dirt in front of the dam to reinforce it. The dam is still there .
California routinely cuts farners from their water supplies. The Governor is doing it right now, by turning-off irrigation to northern farms. The Democrat-run government claims it has eminent domain over all water .
My mom's cousin lived in the Owens Valley. I never knew that the water was stolen from that valley and I'm 3rd generation Californian. Now I know why it's a desert in spite of being surrounded by mountains with huge amounts of snow.
I suspect you're all still drinking and using water if you live in the LA area. Otherwise you would be, well, dead. If you have such a big problem please leave. My people were here before most of you and you parents showed up. We won't hardly miss you. In any case, if any of you have been in the Owens Valkey in the last 25 years, there's been a huge reclamation project by LA DWP and the locals to divert some aqueduct water and use it to restore local habitats. It has made a difference, despite the droughts. The west side of the valley, being next to the Sierra Nevada has always been more well watered and comparatively fertile. Even when there was no water project the land was better suited for pastoral herding than intense agriculture. The San Joaquin Valley, on the west side of the Sierra, in contrast is some of the best agricultural land on earth when properly irrigated, and it feeds a large part of North America. Funny that nobody in the Democrat Party complains when Sacramento diverts the water from the vital San Joaquin, and dessicates it, for specious, and so far (after decades) unsuccessful "environmental" projects pushed by San Francisco leftists and Hollywood. Oh well, as one well foreign California politician said only a few years ago, we can just buy food from other countries even if it costs more and may be unsafe.
@@brianmccarthy5557 1. Since when is moving from one state to another cheap? “Just leave” is a ridiculous statement. Besides, people are leaving. Tons of California residents are fleeing your shitty and glorified L.A. to move somewhere else. 2. Who the fuck mentioned politics? Being against stripping resources from ranchers land isn’t a political issue, it’s common sense that it’s wrong to do so.
I'm from Santa Paula, we all grew up hearing the "dam disaster". There is a also a statue (across the railroad station) from two brave heroes on motorcycles who warned inhabitants of the dam failure to near by communities, they perished.
Thornton Edwards did NOT die in the disaster; he lived to be 93 years old, dying in 1988. Stanley Baker (the second officer depicted) also survived, as did two other officers--Lee Shephard and John Messer--who gave similar warnings.
Thanks so much for this video! My late grandfather worked for LA water and power for 46 years. He would take me with him to work occasionally in the summertime and told me the story of the dam and the towns along the flood path. He started with LA county in 1951 and the story was still fresh and active on the job at that time. I have been to a lot of the places you have shown while with him and it brought back great memories. Thank you again!
KEY FACT: The collapsed dam has a twin dam called Mulholland Dam overlooking downtown LA. Fearing this dam would fail too, the city dumped tons of dirt in front of the dam to reinforce it. The dam is still there (so far ) .
Caitlin is charismatic talking about disaster, in the same way reggae singers are. "Well it seems like... total destruction... is the only solution!" :D
”The real story was so much worse.” Just like with the Donner party and Moby Dick. I sense a theme here. It’s weird how we humans love gory history and fiction, but somehow the legends tone stuff down. Wouldn’t it make more sense if the legends were exaggerated?
What happens is that we look for a story and for heroes and villains of the old-fashioned variety. We also want a beginning, middle, and end, not examinations of difficult questions.
I think it's because people want a story, not an account. It's hard to remember every detail so the stories just get stripped down to a few really lurid details, and the rest is forgotten
I appreciate that Mulholland took responsibility... nowadays something way smaller than this and I would expect him to have fleen immediately and deny any responsibility
Mulholland would never have been able to escape the infamy. The dam was already a massive controversy with ongoing lawsuits before the failure. There had been other engineers who had questioned the dam’s soundness. This wasn’t the first dam failure he was involved in, in 1918 another dam he built, the Calaveras dam, suffered a partial failure but disaster was averted because the water level was quite low at the time.
I just found your channel and even though it's 2 years later... THANK YOU for donating to the Cedar Rapids area! I was driving in CR when the Derecho storm hit. Genuinely thought I was about to die. It was a scary time for everyone.
My uncle was the water commissioner in my county up until he passed away so I grew up knowing all about how dramatic and confusing water rights can be. Oh, the stories he told... I still miss him. He was a wonderful person.
@@Ali-mv3jc Sadly, I don't really remember them anymore. One detail I do remember is that he'd have to go on private property sometimes to do his job, and the owners would confront him angrily until he mentioned he was the water commissioner. Turns out most people don't want to mess with the guy who's there to solve their water disputes. One thing I learned after he died, though - not related to him being water commissioner, but to kind of give an idea of the kind of man he was - when we had gatherings at his and my aunt's place, he'd drink one beer, then refill the bottle or can with root beer because he didn't actually like beer that much but he wanted to preserve his image.
So glad you took such pleasure on the back of completely disgusting and heinous acts on children. It was all for you. Geezus, can we start thinking before we decide to make such idiotic comments simply to get attention? Please.
@@moirawhite6960 I don't want to ignore or downplay your point, you are on to something, but I think you are overlooking the point she is making and that is to call out and not gloss over the bad things people have done by acknowledging how some of the people involved in some of these stories, like Polanski, have a dark side and complicated history that is probably worth it's own video, but is beyond the scope of the video here. Basically, to me, she's suggesting people go look into some of this on there own.
It reminds me of the Johnstown, PA flood. My grandmother talked about family members who were survivors of that event. The stories of that day are haunting.
This makes me think of the Vajont disaster here in Italy: there, the dam actually held but a massive landslide dropped so much stone and debris into the lake that the water jumped over the dam itself, erasing villages in its path. Almost 2000 people died.
Yeah I didn’t go to school for 4 full years and in my 5 year, just to be insulted by this baboonery. Do not trust anyone who says they are a self taught engineer
@@AskAMortician IMO this is your best yet. Interesting, informative, and obscure. I had never before heard about this disaster. You made me laugh a few times too! I enjoy the documentary-style long format videos. rock on!
Being from the Northeast I loved flying out to Los Angeles as an older teenager exploring Las Angeles and Southern California. On one of these ventures to California our car rented from LAX broke down in New Hall, CA mentioned in this video. I had absolutely no idea what had happened there until I saw this video. Thank you so much for making this videos and teaching us history we knew nothing about before you. Please keep up you tremendously interesting and important video's.
My ex-wife's cousin lived in Memphis, TN years ago. There was a severe drought and you could actually walk across the riverbank near the Memphis bridges. He and a friend were amateur paleontologists and anthropologists, they wanted to walk around and see what they could find. They found a human skull. It had fillings, so they knew it wasn't a Native American, so they got to the nearest payphone and called the police. A detective showed up and they showed him where they recovered the skull. The detective told them to stick around town for any other questions and called the lab guys to extract the rest of the skeleton. As it turns out, it was the remains of a man buried in Missouri. There was a flood some years back that washed out a cemetary and people had been finding remains wash up on shore up and down the river from there.
Witt Sullivan Gracious! Studying what they did, that must have been exciting for them! Thanks for sharing this! My family is from Memphis, so they’ll get a kick out of this. Have a lovely one ✌️
Hold on, us indigenous people aren't allowed to get fillings for our teeth now? I didn't know I wasn't allowed to, need to brush up on special laws for Indians again, just to make sure I'm not breaking the law.
KEY FACT: The collapsed dam has a twin dam called Mulholland Dam overlooking downtown LA. Fearing this dam would fail too, the city dumped tons of dirt in front of the dam to reinforce it. The dam is still there (so far ) .
@@janedunlap6879I think he just meant that it was from a more modern time period. I'm not sure when fillings became the norm, but that certainly would help in the dating of the artifact.
Caitlin, you are absolutely the best story teller. Previous to the LA Dam story I watched the sinking of the Eastland in Chicago, another must listen to event. Thank you for the wonderful time given us listening and watching.
I know quite a bit about the history of LA. Other disasters include the floods of the 1930s and the 1933 Long Beach earthquake. The 1930s were not great especially for LA.
Actually, it is a double edged sword. Sometimes the rarified air of academia and the lofty letters after people's names can be just as much of a problem as the guy who started with a shovel in his hand and knows each and every aspect of a job from the ground up being in charge. This is the end result of one edge of the sword... I bet there were engineers telling Mulholland the problem... But he had moved on to Godhood in his own mind and felt no need to listen to lesser creatures. The lesson is to never forget where you came from. There was a reason the Romans had a slave next to a great generals reminding him of his frailty while he went down the forum in a parade to his greatness... There is the other edge of the blade though where Mr. PhD is in charge and does his thing while the guy below him says it won't work and specifically why... Oh, that guy without the letters usually ends up being the scapegoat when something goes wrong under that scenario and in these days..., unless he understands these dynamics and cover's his azz. Then they gotta go look elsewhere. I can give you numerous examples of engineers and architects and Doctors and other "lettered" individuals who failed to listen to the lesser creatures and having failed... seek to project their guilt. Oh, I was one of the ones smart enough to cover my azz and stick it in their faces with the honor of telling them what they could do to themselves (graphically) for trying to make me a scapegoat. It seemed they had never seen a person act in such a way. They were offended... In the end, they had only an elected offical to go after... Guess how that turned out and you never heard about it... The world is a complex place... If you truly compehend it, you can learn to not be a victim is all I can say... But I digress.
you know, you gotta give caitlin doughty credit wheres credit: she always teach people about things that nobody teaches about, she makes those tragedy human. give this lady an award, damn. edit: oops pun
I like it, she even managed to keep it on the Mortician topic, its important not to just become a history channel because their are already some good ones 'The History Guy: History Deserves to be Remembered' is a good rabbit hole for that...but he won't be talking about the mortuary affairs part of it by any means. I have long been waiting for Caitlin to do a crosscountry trip to the Mortuary Affairs Unit at Dover AFB. It is an entire multi-service unit where the DoD trains people to do everything from the recovery of remains, repatriation, handling, processing, and internment of all US Military and most civilian remains from abroad. Pretty sure they'd allow more than just a tour for such an established professional as Caitlin
Go through a hydrology engineering or civil engineering class and its studied. A lot was learned from this disaster that applies to dam building. Like the 1919 molasses flood in Boston. Out of that disaster, American Water Works and American Petroleum Institute tank building standards were developed. And the safety of airplanes and flying come from studies of crashes.
@@fortusvictus8297 I just like the way she humanizes death and the tragedy. it isn't just some numbers, she puts faces on these people. I don't know, shes just great ya know
Thank you so much for sharing stories like this. I found this heartbreaking and once more disgusted by the arrogance of the people that caused this to happen.
You nailed this one Caitlyn. The stories of California’s water wars are filled with intrigue, greed and poor judgement at every bend. These stories traumatized me all the way through my years as a student in the LA County unified school district.
James, thanks that’s thoughtful. The damming of Hetch Hetchy, a canyon considered the more beautiful of two sisters, is the worst example. The sister canyon’s name? Yosemite national Park. It still make me sad.
I’ve lived in Los Angeles for 26 years, my entire life thus far, and I’ve never heard about this disaster. I have actually hiked around the dam site and never knew what the debris was from. My dad used to catch rattle snakes in the area to safe harvest venom for anti venom. On another note, have you already done a video on the 1980’s floods that washed out the Native American burial grounds? My parents have photos someplace of cemeteries and native burial grounds washed out onto Mount Gleason road and into the high school football fields, and other road ways. Schools were closed for weeks, because of casket and body recovery.
What is the rattlesnake anti venom used for? Is it in case you are bitten or does it have any other use?Sorry for my ignorance We don’t really have snakes in England.
If you hike in the area, then you should've seen the giant plaque and brick pumphouse that's on your right as you head up San Francisquito Road. It's worth stopping.
katrina taylor anti venom is used to reverse the effects of the venom from a snake bite. Rattlesnake bites are relatively common in the US as well as other venomous snake bites.
artisticwife I honestly never have noticed them before. I’ll be sure to pay attention next time. Typically We are out looking for debris and abandoned junk to flip over for snake searching. Or trudging through any brush or rocky alcoves.
Last thing I read, Owens Valley was getting water back but some environmentalists were upset because the trees, bushes and wild life were being flooded as the waters raised. Remember reading about it like 4-5 years ago.
I lived in Saticoy right by Ventura and never heard about this, I'm pretty sure I know exactly the spot it flooded through town as well. How heartbreaking! Thanks for bringing light to this.
Hey, let’s build a major metropolitan site in an area with questionable water supplies and what geologically shows as an area that historically is considered to be in a state of drought. This will never become a problem.
The story of the inter mountain west, which will now become incredibly worse as the California diaspora increasingly sees former urbanites moving to ecologically marginal areas of the intermountain west and demanding urban services and hedonistic, non land based culture.
@shane kearsley Well, Vegas made sense. Vegas was built by the mafia because it was so incredibly cheap in that barren desert wasteland that they could build ostentatious stuff and lure people into visiting with cheap costs & then con them out of all of their money with corrupt gambling procedures.
To be fair, LA was built on lush, beautiful land bordering the coast (good for import/export), with a ton of surrounding rivers and natural sources of water. As she mentioned in the video, the issue wasn’t lack of water so much as it was overpopulation. Every water table has its limits and when you overpopulate to the extent that LA did - especially with so many immigrants provided with terrible living conditions without toilets or electricity - you start to get a lot of pollution. The pollution contaminates the water table, which is already made shallow by overuse, and what little water people have left is unusable. When you talk about “droughts” - these aren’t coming from a natural lack of water. CA has a lot of natural water. They come from there being way too many people, far too much pollution, and a total failure on behalf of the government. The same thing is happening where I live, now, and nobody can do anything about it. Our water quality is a lot worse than it used to be, but our local political officials think that installing more affordable housing is the popular thing to do. So they destroy nature preserves and build poorly constructed affordable housing that ignores fire safety and water safety codes - endangering the lives of everyone in the town, including the poor people trapped in the death trap “affordable housing” units...that will probably mostly burn to death if that place ever catches on fire (but it’s okay because they “installed sprinklers”)...and we all just have to accept that this is the future. The worst part is that if you say anything you will be dismissed as classist - because you’re against affordable housing. 🙄 We live on a very narrow peninsula. The problem is not socioeconomic class. The problem is just a complete lack of space and natural resources for the people that are trying to move here. You can even reliably get cell service anymore because Verizon and AT&T can’t handle our rapid population boom. Okay that’s the extent of my rant. You didn’t read it but I still got to say it so that works for me. Lol.
This is exactly why I'm an engineer. There's so many tragedies that have occurred because of greed, lack of caring for communities, and gross negligence. Especially with dams. I hope that the current & next generation of engineers is continuously better than the past ones. This is why so many of us are in the field- to put people first.
@@timevans9529 very true! Although plenty of other disasters or issues occurred because of well educated, certified engineers too! A case study I find a really interesting example of moral issues/greed and engineering is the Cahora Bassa dam in Mozambique.
I met the great grandson of Mulholland on several occasions as he bought nursery plants where I worked. The first time I met this guy, I had to special order some things he was looking for and had to take his name for the order. When He said Mulholland, I had to ask "as in related to whoever the street Mulholland Dr. That I see in movies was named after? " He sort of sheepishly said yeah, but that was several generations ago. I never knew him." I thought it was a little strange he almost seemed to try to disassociate himself from his last name. He made many return trips to the nursery and I eventually got him to say that his great grandfather was , as he said, 'a city planner or something like that' but he pretended to be not completely sure. Anyhow, I never really understood why he didn't seem to want to claim whoever it was that the street was named after, I think he assumed I knew the story and was maybe ashamed. But I had never heard the story until now. He was a nice enough person and had nothing to do with it. But I do wish I could run into him again And see if I could find out more of his story now that I know this. He looked just like the guy in the picture.
Honestly, he's trying to get away from a very tragic legacy that probably still comes with a lot of misplaced blame on the family. Perhaps, have a heart and DON'T pester him about such a difficult bit of family history.
@@LadyVineXIII you do realize his comment was based on the past, correct? And you do realize he didn't know the story at the time he met the person, right? And I take it you also realize the comment wasn't meant as anything derogatory towards the individual either, right?
After hearing the history of LA water many years ago I often wonder why LA still honors Mulholland in nameing streets, statues, etc. It's a bit like honoring Hitler for the Autobahn. And of course why no reparations have been made to those who had their water stolen. Of course the fact that we treat water as an extractable saleable resource much like oil or gold is just so badly broken. Even today LA pay private entities to buy access to aquifer rights and then drain them - permanently. Soon LA will be surrounded by a man made sunken wasteland. And then it too will go.
That is the bit that blows me away. I studied engineering to learn drafting, so basic stuff. When dams are discussed how leaks lead to catastrophic failure is the one thing you can't help but learn. A cadet engineer would have been freaking out at those leaks, like the dam keeper was. Perhaps this was perception bias, why Republicans see a rigged election and Democrats say it was fair?
@@shondralyon-brown1603 To the ruling elite his color would not have been a mitigating factor though. He would have been "Irish" and "Catholic" both marking him as a lesser "other" in the WASP acronym. The KKK targeted Catholics as recently as the 1980s (they're still targets in the Deep South, both the Catholic and Episcopalian churches in Meridian, MS had their windows shot out for having the word "saint" as part of their names a few years ago) and just google "Irish need not apply" to find out about THAT chunk of history....
I'm a Santa Paula native. My grandfather told me about the disaster when I was a child. When I used to walk around the river just south of town, I'd see twisted pipes sticking out of the ground. Also when I was down there, I got the feeling I was stepping on someone's grave.
@@toad762002 Japanese Americans were removed from the area to internment camps. Only found out about this in high school, when a teacher mentioned that his folks had been forced into the camps. (Not sure which one.) There was a large, vibrant Japanese American population in Oxnard when I was a kid.
Great video, I'm in San Diego now but I lived in Santa Clarita for a year and didn't know about this. Maybe I'm just a dumb ass but you make these stories very interesting to watch. Thanks for everything you do.
KEY FACT: The collapsed dam has a twin dam called Mulholland Dam overlooking downtown LA. Fearing this dam would fail too, the city dumped tons of dirt in front of the dam to reinforce it. The dam is still there (until the Big One hits) .
Maybe someone concluded there was no way to keep them from seeing the tragedy and thought they could feel less helpless and like they were helping and making a difference by combing for the deceased
@Straight Razor Daddy i said it in a shocking way lmao im not sheltered im just not old and born back then where this was common or even heard of since ya know the boy scouts are doing camping and building these days not helping find dead bodies from freak events....
@@Miraclelittlepie Scouts still help with search and rescue if needed. It's not just camping and building things. My daughter is training for Eagle scout. She recently completed her CPR training before Covid. I was CPR trained in girl scouts at the same age and while I never did a human search and rescue as a kid, I did plenty of livestock search and rescues. Sometimes we don't give our kids enough credit.
Great grandpa complaining about kids these days, "Always playin' their video games, and cryin' at that deer cartoon! When I was a boy scout we were out markin' the locations of flood corpses!"
Well, it is more specific than that. We still do this in our very age. IF someone is not capable of expressing things clearly or having a high enough command of language to give a story any different than the 20 people next to them, why bother? I mean, maybe later in life as they can articulate it better, but in that moment its not useful.
@@fortusvictus8297 I don't think that's the reason why they weren't listened to. This place had their own proud KKK chapter, which leads me to believe that they just didn't think them human enough to matter. Jmo.
My Dad is a Hydrologist/Dam Engineer and I grew up on horror stories like this. He would have a lot to say about people cutting corners and not understanding the physics/geometry. I have heard him berate - and even go to court - against fellow "engineers" that are quite content making poor decisions as long as they get paid. It's so sad when selfishness costs people their homes and lives. Edit: I remember standing on top of one of the dams he was overseeing as a kid during a full flood. The water was near the top and there was all sorts of debris in it - trees and so forth - but he was on top of which gates needed to be opened/closed and when based on his calculations. If he had been off? I shudder to think of how many people would've lost their homes or died.
How incredible. I grew up in the shadow of the Grand Coulee dam, Dry falls and the Scablands... I can well imagine what your father knew was at stake as our cliffs and ravaged landscape fascinated me.
@@cottoncandie761 They are amazing structures when designed and kept in working order. I can't tell you how many times I walked on top of the dams around Texas. He always liked to have a clear view of what the water was doing against the flood gates.
This reminded me of Brumadinho Tragedy, that happened here in Brazil. A billionaire mining company stored its debree and mining residue behind a massive dam, that cointained all the junk, stones, muddy waters, heavy metals and chemicals. One day, engineers said that the dam was well over its capacity, and would soon collapse. They were obviously ignored. The dam broke, and over 300 people died and many more were missing. The city nearby was completely destroyed; houses, buildings, they were all completely covered with mud. The mud and rock and heavy metals reached a river, killing millions of fishes and species unique to this ecossystem, turning the water undrinkable, eventually reaching the ocean, in a nursery beach to sea turtles. Nobody was punished. The company (Vale) never paid for it. Never compensated the damage, never rebuilt the city or gave any money to treat the river. The families were never taken care of. This was January 2019. We don't talk about it anymore. It seems like we've grown so unsensitive to tragedy lately.
It immediately reminded me of the Mariana tragedy as well! The entire city was wiped away and covered in toxic mud, all because the higher ups turned a blind eye to the safety regulations as long as it could keep making them money. And yet, no one talks about it anymore, even though it still affects the place to this very day.
i was curious if there'd be fellow brazilians here talking abt this. we had already dealt with a very similar thing just a few years prior. in that same region, there were and still are several dams like that, basically just full of mud that can't just be released into nature because of harmful stuff resulting from mining. the one near the town of Mariana broke in 2015. luckily, way fewer people died, 18 confirmed. i've heard some people talk about there having been an employee from the dam who had to go down to the nearby town and she heard it breaking through her walkie-talkie and warned people or something like that, but i'm not sure if that's true. apparently, there weren't really any plans for dealing with an emergency of that sort, which is something you'd expect to have when living close to a dam. the mud caused damage to other places as well, but luckily the people elsewhere had more time to get out. but of course there were many people who lost homes, farms, livestock, water supply, some amount of food supply, etc. and of course it did eventually end in the ocean. the river that the mud eventually got to, Rio Doce, is a very important one in that region. it was used a lot for water supply for a lot of people, and also for fishing and just basically everything you use water for. completely poisoned now. ironically enough, one of the companies involved in it, Vale, which was also involved in Brumadinho in 2019, had been named after the important river that got destroyed because of that. the companies involved are basically paying fines that would be huge if that company didn't already have as much money as they do. they were supposedly looking at other dams of that sort as well to see if there were any issues, and found out that a lot of them were not as safe as they should be. i don't know what's been done to end that risk, if they're getting rid of those damns or strengthening them or something else. there was a lot of discussion about who was to blame and who should be legally punished, how much of that was on engineers or people who had inspected the dam and said it was ok versus higher-ups from the company. that also made the whole thing take very long to start.
I've lived in LA my whole life. Been to Santa Paula, Castaic, Newhall, etc. NEVER heard of this incident. Caitlin you're the best for telling us all these great stories about history.
Very interesting indeed. I never have lived in California, but I heard of the disaster in a Frank Black and the Catholics song St. Francis Dam Disaster. I didn't realize how much of what was in the song was historical.
Then you weren't paying attention. I grew up in LA and heard about this, as well as the "romantic" angle taught in schools regarding the Spanish mission system, which brutalized the indigenous peoples. Be curious.
Same! I was just telling my boyfriend about it, both of us born and raised in SoCal, and he hadn't heard of it either. I literally took 2 California history classes in high school and college and never heard of it.
I'm a 4th generation Californian and NEVER heard about this disaster! The California water wars and the sleazy politicians still run this state. It turns my stomach how people really don't matter to these corrupt psychopaths. Thanks for doing such a great job telling this story.
The voters don't matter to any politician , except when it comes to getting their snouts in the gravy train again . "Money , more money , more money" still is a mantra often heard in the corridors of power , no matter where one lives . The involvement of WEF and freinds , doesn't help one iota .
As an Iowan who’s family was directly impacted by the Derecho, thank you for choosing this foundation. The storm is either equivalent to a category three hurricane with only 30 mins warning (and it was still much worse than anyone could imagine) or a 40 mile wide F3-F4 tornado. Either way, 7 weeks later, people are still rebuilding and without.
Thankyou for takeing your time to research and make those who never heard of this disaster aware. By doing so u keep the memmories of those lost alive and remembered. You are a great human being. And your show is very interesting. Thanks for everything u do!
KEY FACT: The collapsed dam has a twin dam called Mulholland Dam overlooking downtown LA. Fearing this dam would fail too, the city dumped tons of dirt in front of the dam to reinforce it. The dam is still there (until the Big One hits) .
I feel like this story needs to be taught in engineering classes, if it's not already. I remember my older brother saying someone at his school put up posters saying something like "If you cheat or cliff notes through your classes here, people die." And it's true.
Xandra Garrison I learned about the failures in the Challenger disaster in my tech writing class. The general idea being that how you present information influences how readers respond to it. So, a failure in communication
We learned about it in a few of my classes! Especially in my ethics and safety course.
I know it was "a different time" but I think hiring someone who was self-taught for something this important was careless on everybody's part.
I heard about this is various engineering classes.
I particularly like it for teaching purposes, because the engineering concepts that were flubbed are very simple and easy to understand. Bernoulli's Principle is fluids 101, and any engineering freshman will understand why increasing the height of the dam without other changes is just a horrible idea.
My S.O.’s grandfather was a survivor of this disaster. Oliver Crocker. He was deaf in one ear for the remainder of his life after being thrown about underwater from the flood. He spoke a lot about the horror of it all. He lost many friends in this catastrophe and the images stayed with him for the remainder of his life. We inherited his photo albums, memoirs, and newspaper clippings regarding the Francisco Dam disaster after his death in 1990. An amazing man. We miss you, Ollie!
Andy Otten You should put his pictures and story online!
very tragic
Wow maybe you share his stuff via online about this disaster, and I think you should share
Great horror story, Caitlin. I was just about to go to bed !! Thanks 🤔😲😵😰😱🐔🐓
Wow thanks for sharing your story
The reason I've heard of this is because as students of applied maths and physics, we all bitched that our mechs professor was obsessing over hydrostatics and safety coefficients. After he had us google pictures of the diagrams and the disaster, we all stf up. Because that's exactly the reason massive projects should be overengineered.
Honestly, that's a great professor. I wish more engineering profs would do shit like that.
My uncle's college gives all engineering graduates an iron ring (there were rumors that some are made from the metal of a collapsed bridge). They're meant to be a "reminder of the obligations and ethics associated with" being an engineer: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring
@Nicole S That’s a powerful, heavy reminder, and an excellent practice.
I agree about overengineering these structures.
The reason I have heard of this is Tom Scott 😉
@@classicambo9781 Same!
As a retired engineer, these are the things of my nightmares. My boss has a chunk of, now epoxy coated, failed col in his office. (Not our doing, or design, just found during a contracted inspection.)
“Upon inspection, I observed a deformed column, I immediately had the superintendent notify the authorities, and instructed the facility administrator to begin evacuation. I remained on-site until completed”. He’s my hero.
We had lunch after Surfside, things will certainly change. Unfortunately not everyone is as commanding of remedial action as they are.
what kind of column of of what kind of application?
@@thecraziestofalldave vertical steel col, with significant section loss. It had collapsed on itself by about 6”. The building’s facilities manager had noted cracks on an interior wall several stories up, when they removed a dryvit skirt, to visually inspect, the SE’s first words were, “Holy Mother of Pearl! Begin evacuation immediately.”
California routinely cuts farners from their water supplies. The Governor is doing it right now, by turning-off irrigation to northern farms. The Democrat-run government claims it has eminent domain over all water
.
Dude, that guy that lost his wife and five of his children, I'm glad that at least his oldest survived and they had each other. I did some research and they both lived long lives.
At least it was quick. They were probably asleep. Just thwackDONE.
The Irish guy?
KEY FACT: The collapsed dam has a twin dam called Mulholland Dam overlooking downtown LA. Fearing this dam would fail too, the city dumped tons of dirt in front of the dam to reinforce it. The dam is still there
.
California routinely cuts farners from their water supplies. The Governor is doing it right now, by turning-off irrigation to northern farms. The Democrat-run government claims it has eminent domain over all water
.
@@electrictroy2010 if it's still there it's probably fine
Watching this was kind of surreal because My grandmother and mom lived through this. They lived in santa Paula and just made it out on time. My mom told me the stories my whole life. My grandmother must have gotten a warning because she told my mom to put her clothes on the bed. My mom was picking outfits and laying them on the bed cause she didnt know what was happening she was 12 or 13 year old kid. So mom says grandma comes in lifts all the clothes and throws them on the bed and then ties the four corners of the bedspread together takes it and mom out to the street. There were lots of unsung heroes that day and one of them was driving a truck around picking people up and getting them to safety. In my mom's case the man driving the truck was the first African American she had ever seen. It was a red letter day for mom. It affected her the rest of her life. She was a tremendously strong woman and didn't show any emotions but there were little clues that it still affected her. The big one being we had to have all the hangers in our closet facing in to make it easier to get them out, just in case of an emergency. When they went back to their house it was gone. My mom found one of her dolls in the mud and my grandmother found her sewing machine. Neither The family moved to Santa Paula from Arkansas when my mom was a baby and a lot of the other relatives eventually moved there too. There was only one of their houses still standing when it was over and the rest of the family had to move in there. There were tents in the backyard and the house was packed with people. It was the same all over town. At that time my grandmother was working at the Sunkist lemon packing house as a supervisor. With the crop damage and loss of workforce and housing shortage she said it was just chaos there for months. Sorry I'm writing so much. I havn't thought about this in years. We have quite a tragic family background and the flood isn't even close to the top of our tragedy scale. Thanks again for the video
Thanks so much for sharing.
Nancy,
Stories like yours are important reminders of real people dealing with unimaginable tragedy. You made it real, Nancy...Thank you.
Thanks for sharing. I had read a book on this disaster a while back. I grew up in Santa Paula and still live here. It’s crazy that this story was not very well known when I was a kid growing up here in the 80s
WoW! If you wrote more I think I would have read it all! Bob is right! We All learn from stories like yours!
Guess What? I am literally employing one of your lessons for the rest of my life!
All my hangers Will Be facing inwards from this day forward.
Thank You
I found it very interesting, thank you for sharing your story:)
I would not expect a single leader in this day and age to admit they were responsible.
Some things will never change.
Not in the US anyway. Always quick to take credit, always slow to take responsibility.
.
Lawsuits ... that's what people are afraid of.
@@hopefletcher7420 We'll take responsibility for current actions in about 100 years after everyone it affected at the time are long dead and nobody cares anymore.
I've been aware of this disaster since I was a small child. My great grandfather was a carpenter for DWP then, My grandmother did some sort of clerical work for DWP and her desk was a couple of desks away from Mulholland's office door. My grandfather was a "Corker & Repairman" for DWP at the time and was one of thousands sent to work on emergency repairs to repair the water system so that water to LA was not cut off for long. He told me of being inside the water tunnel in the canyon wall downstream of the dam which was for water to bypass the dam or carry it out of the dam and toward the San Fernando Valley. The rushing water had torn out the side of the tunnel and it needed repair to pass water. So he was on the crew that repaired it. When they were done, the water valves up the canyon were opened to let water flow. Someone got in too big of a hurry and communications were almost non-existent. So he and a couple other guys were still in the tunnel when water was rushing past them. It was almost up to his knees before they got to where they could get out. Grandma said that Mulholland had been a cheerful guy before, but from that day on, he walked around with his shoulders slumped and a sad look on his face. Not greeting anyone . Looking down at the floor as he walked. Clearly a crushed man. A year and a half later grandma left DWP to give birth to my mom. Grandpa around the same time switched jobs to become a "Sanjero" or "Keeper of the Ditch" in English. His job then and until he retired in 1964 was to control irrigation water for farmers in the San Fernando Valley. When he retired, they retired his job with him.
KEY FACT: The collapsed dam has a twin dam called Mulholland Dam overlooking downtown LA. Fearing this dam would fail too, the city dumped tons of dirt to reinforce it. The dam is still there (until the Big One hits)
.
A dear friend of mine is the only person still living that was in the disaster. He still lives in Franklin, CA and he's a citrus farmer to this day, 96 years old.
Really? Do you know if he has been interviewed? Can you get a journalist in contact with him?
@@stepawayful He has been. I mis-spoke in my earlier comment, he lives in Santa Paula, CA. I talk to him quite a bit actually and he's still sharp as a tac. I'd love to get you in touch with him. Send me your email.
Damn😃this is the best comment here! That's awesome, 96 & sharp as a tack💕
See if he'd let you make a video to upload
@@definitiveenergy1 stepaway
Remember everyone: Regulations are written in blood.
Sandy Hook Shooting, Titanic, 9/11, Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, Numerous Car Defects throughout the decades, Hurricane Katrina, and tons more.
Eh, nowadays regulations are written by whichever lobbyist gave the politician the most money under the table or they are written to make the sponsor sound good.
@@marksmith4346 Consider Flint. The problem is that most people can't tell which regulations have a very serious justification and which ones are payoffs.
@@ktpinnacle There's an easy way to tell the difference. It's just like with the COVID crisis: listen to the scientists. The scientists and the engineers. They still might be wrong, but if it's a choice between them or politicians and pencil-pushers and bean-counters, I'll go with the scientists and the engineers every time.
@@AlbertaGeek Being a scientist, I agree. But there are an awful lot of people that don't seem to understand the world we live in. To them, science is magic. And they reserve their faith for others.
This is one of the saddest chapters in California history. When I studied California history in college, my professor referred to this incident as "the rape of the Owen's valley." It truly was a violent act, and totally unnecessary. Good video, Caitlin. Well done.
I think the saddest chapter of California's history is happening and will happen in the very near future.
Your professor doesn't seem like they know how to use words right.
@@c.l.1820 yeah, he does. They raped, and ruined that valley. It's never fully recovered.
@@c.l.1820 It's also how I've heard the entire land/water grab and disaster called. It's used correctly. I learned about it in an immigrant stories/studies course.
I lived in LA from 1947-1983, graduated from UCLA with a history minor, and NEVER heard of the disaster. I recognized the name Mullholland from the road named after him and now I can't imagine why that famous road is named after a failed self-taught engineer!!
Native Iowan here! Thank you for donating to victims of the derecho. So many friends whose lives were literally torn apart... and because of many other (equally important) things in the news- many people don't even know of the destruction. Thank you for using your platform for so much good!!
Same here! I live about an hour east of Cedar Rapids and we got hit hard. We pulled together to help ourselves because no one else was coming. FEMA and the Red Cross are just now working their way through places that got hit. Like, thanks, but you're a little late. We got this. #IowaStrong
Another Iowan here! The aftermath of the storm was surreal. I never imagined we'd see anything like that here. I'm glad this is getting attention. There's so much going on in 2020 that I understand why so many people haven't heard about the derecho, but so many people still need help.
The disaster got little more news media coverage in Minnesota than an ordinary Chicago weekend gang shooting tally
"Self-taught engineer," is now a contender for my favorite 3 word horror story
What are your favorite ones?
As a university-taught engineer who barely feels qualified… yes.
self-taught potus?
Have you ever heard of Action Park cause they had a few self taught engineers making watersides
@@alim5451 As a university-taught engineer who makes waterslides… yes (and YIKES)
The fact that all this happened in the middle of the night when everyone was asleep makes this all the more terrifying to me. Those poor people were doomed.
This is SOOO much like the Johnstown Flood, in PA, about 20-40 years earlier.
And drowning is such a painful death too! 😔
Same thing happened in Indonesia in 2009. In a dam called Situ Gintung. The dam broke at 2 am in the morning resulting 100 people died.
I have a hard enough time sleeping at night. If this happened to me I'd never sleep at night again.
And suspect
Having grown up in Santa Clarita I learned all about this disaster and have even hiked the dam site. This video is, by far, the best account of the St Francis Dam disaster that I have ever seen. Thank you for bringing this "forgotten" Chapter of California history back into the light.
KEY FACT: The collapsed dam has a twin dam called Mulholland Dam overlooking downtown LA. Fearing this dam would fail too, the city dumped tons of dirt to reinforce it. The dam is still there (until the Big One hits)
.
If I believed in ghosts, That entire canyon could be regarded as a condemned haunted region by the spirits of those never recovered… or even those who were! 👻😱
I remember the Hansen dam episode that took place in San Fernando valley 1960
Me growing up in San Jose back in the seventies left in 95 glad I left
Question: is there a historical marker there at least signifying what happened there?
A couple months ago, I was talking to my husband and a friend and I said “slower than molasses in January!” It soon became obvious that I was the only one in the room who knew about the Great Molasses Disaster of 1919. It’s a morbid, ridiculous, story! I would love if you made a video about it!
The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets did a song on it.
Don’t worry, you’re not alone! I’ve said this before as well.
It so ridiculous it sounds like a joke. And yet it really happened and people died.
I always say people that take forever to do things “move like molasses”
@@celestialstarchild Where I'm from we say the same thing. My husbands favorite saying is "Sh*t fire save matches f*ck a duck and see what hatches. Anybody else heard that one.
An interesting pivot from marine mammals - maybe a new theme - 'humans make obviously dumb choices that lead to terrible consequences.'
Lord knows we've got enough examples to fill an infinitely long series.
@@AxxLAfriku You're "funny" all right.
@Ric Goesinya Wasn't talking about looks.
Oh, do you mean 'Darwin Awards'?
@@Digitalhunny but isn't the darwins awarded to people who die from their mistakes? This man didn't die ( Mr. Mulholland)
La empatia con la que narras estos eventos es extraordinaria. Mis reconocimientos a tu trabajo.
This story is known among some immigrant communities in Los Angeles. I know my dad has told be about it repeatedly
Oh wow, that's amazing... I've lived in LA all my life and never heard about this!
My family told this story as a lesson to never trust someone willing to buy shit land and as a lesson that the government puts money over people
So he likely knew people who died there ? I'm very sorry for his family, friends , coworkers etc ....
Greetings and a probably quite meaningless "I'm sorry" from Vienna/ Austria.
(The tiny state in Europe, not the continent)
Jane Doe X There’s not a continent of Austria...
@@BeeWhistler I know. But a lot of people mix up Australia and Austria, believe it or not. So i join the sometimes deliberately made joke.
Everyone in Los Angeles should be concerned about water use and land rights. You live in a watered desert.
lmao we know that they been telling us that since elementary school 😂
Absolutely. They’re about a year from disaster. I was dumbstruck by that comment.
@@l33td00d17 they keep telling us that every year.. sadly LA county will find a new source of water from up north..
@@eduardoa3165 They also keep telling you ever year that climate change is a problem. That doesn't mean it's not happening. Los Angeles has a storm water system that dumps huge amounts of fresh water into the ocean while it literally steals water from the Colorado river. It doesn't matter if "they" (whoever that is) tell you every year. The situation is getting worse by any valid measure. Feel free to look it up on your own. Having a random bureaucrat telling you not to water your lawn too much in no way conveys the seriousness of the situation
I mean it's a fascinating topic EVERYWHERE. Can you imagine what'll happen if the SE/Midwest start going into drought and eyeing the Great Lakes? CHAOS CHAOS
“I live in LA and I don’t even care about that.”
The way things are going, people living in Southern California had better start caring. And soon.
Water rights are going to become a big deal again .
I was thinking the same, but more globally. If the predictions about climate change are correct we will have a lot more Owens valley type szenarios all over the world. Scary thought.
@@lisamo1013 most water in the hot states wont be effected by the climate as most of the water is from underground aquafiers dont look to the sky in fear look to the soil california never stopped its ownes valley stratagy and there draining dry any water source in there reach without letting them refill or caring about eco damage unless california changes the owens valley staragy of f k small towns and farms as long as megacitys in deserts get there water the west coast will be a new sahara desert within 50 years
@@wilmagregg3131 oh, I didn't realise that. I assumed the droughts California was experiencing were exacerbated by climate change more than current actions. I'm not from the states though so I guess my lack of knowledge isn't surprising.
@@lisamo1013 yeah it looks better on californias part if they blame the droughts on climate change basically saying its EVERYONES fault when really its THERE fault aka the officals in charge of water in california.
a big example of how incopentent or corrupt the califronia water officals are is residents in la are allowed only a certain amount of water before they get fined or it shut of to the point you can wash your cloths once and take a couple showers while all the luxury hotels golf courses and entrepunial areas get unlimited water access at all times unless a emergency occurs.
and the worst thing is how common this is in california i mean just look up how californias power system has tons of blackouts despite producing nearly 5 TIMES the amount of power the state needs to not blackout
@@wilmagregg3131 to be honest, I'm amazed anyway how common blackouts seem to be in the US. I'm sure that's one of those very regionally different problems but still. Somehow your description of the water issue doesn't surprise me, I'm sure it would be the same thing where I'm from.
I did a report on this in college. It was a very haunting tale. The Mulholland Reservoir/ Hollywood Reservoir was of the same construction as the Saint Francis, and the city filled the front of the damn with tons of dirt, and planted trees to reduce the appearance of it's size and reduce the possibility of a similar failure.
Front of the damn?
I know dams are ugly, but they aren’t damned to hell
I'm surprised I've never heard of this. I grew up around LA and am a history buff. Thank you for this.
Same - transplant history buff here. This is wild.
Back when the History Channel was GOOD this dam collapse was briefly mentioned BUT Caitlyn is doing a MUCH better job!
Hay, what an amazing story, so glad you took us on this very interesting journey back in time, the landscape really gave me incite like you opened a door and I was there with you, it was truly a wow video and I love the chook, great work 😘
Really? I guess I learned about this because I am from a family of engineers. This is a cautionary tale at dinner tables.
I seen this on television...horrible
One important thing I learned in my youth from my grandfather was "When you live near or are going to where there is a body of water, especially a river always check the weather upstream of the river your visiting. When your there if you hear rumbling or vibrations underneath your feet run to a high place asap, aka uphill away from the nearest water source as those are the first signs before you might get hit by rushing waters". His story came from experience as one day he was upstream & heard rumbling, felt vibrations & than saw bird fly like crazy. He said he ran like the devil was at his feet down river scream for everyone to run to higher land as his whole family & friends were having a picnic down river. He saved a bunch of people that day. Now I pay attention to the weather & for noises when im near a water source.
Same, my great grandpa also told my grandpa about this and this knowledge just spread to the next generations. This is a life-saving knowledge.
I can't understand why people wish to live by the sea,all you need is an earthquake and you have a tsunami,also the sea reclaims the earth as we have seen home's falling into the sea when the cliffs crumble.
Good Advice, thank you!
Sage advice...
I live in Arizona but i was taught much the same thing. Flash floods are a major thing here. A lot of our "rivers'(washes) are dry most of the time and its easy to find yourself in one when walking around its an easy flat path usually to follow. i was taught if there's a storm even if it isn't overhead even if it seems miles away you never go in a wash, the water comes and goes fast and is devastating. unfortunately a lot of people who live here never think a lot of water is never going to be a problem .....
I think the lesson is: Listen to employees who point out problems instead of threatening to fire them.
But, money!
Especially when you aren't a qualified engineer!
cough NASA cough
Brilliant, I almost forgot that part!
This happens through out history any Era.. over and over..
I found your channel by mistake and now, I can't get enough. I love how informative you are and how you tell the story (voices, enthusiasm, etc.). Thank you.
I'm a newbie as well!!!
Welcome to the deathling community!!
@@Marthitaandsunflowers you will find that the Deathling community (Ask a Mortician fans) are really nice. There is a ton of cool videos to watch, I recommend the trio about death and Disney
California routinely cuts farners from their water supplies. The Governor is doing it right now, by turning-off irrigation to northern farms. The Democrat-run government claims it has eminent domain over all water
.
Imagine if Caitlin actually had a Netflix show and what she would be able to do with a bigger budget
It would do so much to educate so many more people about their nonprofit
I mean she voiced death on midnight gospel
Maybe not Netflix because y’know .. ew
Have you seen how many Patreons she has?! I saw at least 300 on the list at the end of the one video she posted.
I think to get a show onto Netflix nowadays you need to dumb down the info, and up the number of twerking 12 year olds.... 👀🤢
"Hey! Let's build a metropolis in a desert! What could go wrong?"
Lake Mead is turning into a pond.
Las Vegas is living on borrowed time. When the water runs out, the party will be over.
Growing up San Diego in the 70's, I was taught in school,t that the natural water table could only support about 700,000 people and before the California aqueduct was built the Russian river flowed 15' higher than it did in the 70's and that we took so much water out of the colorado river that it no longer flowed over the Mexican border upsetting Mexico. Building in a desert was not so bright is a correct statement!
Either that or the fault gives way.
"Whiskey is for drinking. Water is for fighting."
Mexico City too!
You know, 50% of the water in Lake Mead goes to California. Las Vegas is only entitled to an extremely small portion of the water from lake mead because when it was built, Las Vegas and Nevada as a whole was sparse in population and didn't need the vast amounts of water that California was demanding.
Las Vegas has worked extremely well to conserve water and in the past 10 years Las Vegas' population has doubled but their water demand has not increased. That is not a feat any other city in the southwest can boast.
Las Vegas native here.
The fact that Mulholland was warned by the dam keeper that it was becoming unsafe and then he basically told the guy to can it or he’d be canned makes him absolutely responsible for the tragedy.
Yeah, it's a shitty response to give. I wonder if by that point it was unfixable. The town could have been evacuated if they took it seriously and understood how bad the structure was. At least he took full responsibility, as he should of.
Classic stuff. Mon chere.
so many movies and geographical locations named for that guy. now I know who he was.
Not a whole lot you can do with multi billions of gallons of water safely.
Yes. He was responsible. But he was NOT the first one to blame. He was a SELF TAUGHT ENGINEER. Like, wtf. Who would give such a job to someone with no studies/degree??
You don't put a self taught pilot piloting a Boeing. Would you like to go on that plane? You don't go to a self taught doctor either. There are such cases and have sometimes ended deadly (because they forge the degrees).
It's not that he didn't pay attention in college, he did what he thought/learnt was right. Apparently it was made to fail, but he thought it was good. And he did take full responsibility after and also look at his eyes after the tragedy, he looked really broken.
The main culprits are the ones who let him build the dam. His deputy? The mayor? Again, why the F would you give such an important and potentially dangerous task to someone with no degree? Those people are the first ones to blame.
I am from South Africa but absolutely LOVE your posts and have learned so much about America. Thank you. Please don't ever stop making posts, you have such talent!
As a tsunami survivor, I could particularly relate to the horror of this post. 😢
They should've kept 'the tombstone' as a sombre national monument, lit up, and fenced securely off so that future generations could come and safely see the place and learn about what happened. Morbid as it is, it'd also be a small financial boost to the local economy, which would be a tiny bit of compensation for the surviving communities
Antifa would come in with accusations of the water being racist (mostly immigrants killed) and it would have to come down. Which the ppl in charge would immediately agree to since they are spineless idiots.
@@kdogrock77 Why did you come here starting sh*t about people against fascism and calling people names? This woman is a mortician who takes the time to teach people about the realities of death. And real life causes of deaths. This isn't a channel to dispute political issues or disrespect strangers. Be kind. Drop the politics. Or just don't bother commenting and ruining the experience for those of us that come here for honest conversations.
@@victoriawilliams2786 oh no someone made a joke about political group I support. 😱
@@kdogrock77 you're not wrong
Victoria Williams I don’t think they’ve been here very long.
This was so rad to learn about, but also reminded me uncomfortably of the Boston Molasses Flood. Specifically the part where a gentleman went to check on the structure the day before and spent a lot of time talking to superiors about how it seemed problematic, and being continuously told off for doing so. If you've not done a video about that, and I know you're probably super busy, but I'd love to see one about it.
A lot of disasters including factory deaths are caused by superiors refusing to listen and/or insisting everything is safe
.
California routinely cuts farners from their water supplies. The Governor is doing it right now, by turning-off irrigation to northern farms. The Democrat-run government claims it has eminent domain over all water
.
I'd love a more in-depth look at this disaster. I only know about it because Sam O'Nella mentioned it in a video, but a more serious exploration of it would be enjoyable.
I’ve heard about that but not in depth. It sounds horrifying.
I would also love to see Caitlin do a video on this topic! For anyone wanting to learn more about the molasses flood, the channel Watcher has an episode of their show Puppet History that covers it. It's much more comedic and goofy than Ask a Mortician, but is a very fascinating video that covers this topic well
"If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature but by our institutions , great is our sin ! "
-- Charles Darwin
Stop quote-spamming, please.
👏👏👏
Question Everything - Thought Provoking Ideas applies even today
@@BooksRebound It absolutely applies. What video were you watching?
@@BooksRebound The capitalists decided to build a dam to bring more people and more $$$, stealing the water from its original source and workers community. This, which as the video said, ended up killing hundreds workers and immigrants. So in response, Question Everything posted that quote about the sin of the misery of the poor being caused by institutions. Please pay attention
There are other videos on this tragedy which actually point out that much of the things that would have prevented this were actually just unknown to engineers of the time. Mulholland actually could not have been expected to know some of the issues inherent in the dam even if he had studied. Self-taught engineers were common, and this incident actually led to mandatory certification of engineers. I think this is pretty important to put in this video.
I'm glad you made this point; it seems multiple leaks had occurred in the same area as the muddy leak--Mulholland was troubled and knew it had to be fixed but he thought he had more time. However, it's still bothersome that no one was warned that a dam designed to keep water in was, in fact, letting it out, but I understand not wanting to cause widespread panic for something you think can be fixed...decisions like that are difficult.
@@danitza02125 Panic is so easy to spread. Three Mile Island comes to mind. An overall contained radiation leak blown to such out of scale proportions, by catastrophic mismanagement of the public relations side of things.
"Long time fugitive of justice Roman Polanski" Caitlyn you are such a queen
What a life 😯
puts on tinfoil hat to share conspiracy theory: Roman Polanksi paid Charles Manson to kill his wife, Sharon Tate, and her lover. The others were innocent by-standers. I could be very biased against RP, though.
Alex Agree.
@@johanvajse8410 Naah, he is just cursed
/s
@@Gam3B0y23r0 the POS deserves whatever misfortune comes his way
History teacher - actually just finished teaching my students about this. We're doing a unit on engineering disasters, and the students were quite fascinated with the notion that engineers could be self taught. It's so radically different to how the industry operates today, and even how they thought that it was back then
Did the Tacoma Narrows bridge make the engineering unit?
Thank you for the work you do!
Did you happen through the Oroville Dam that basically wipe Johnstown, PA off the map in 1889? 2,209 were confirmed dead in that one! AND it's arguably purely on the negligence of the thing... though courts considered it "An act of God" as it had been unusually rainy around the time.
Just in case you're interested in international fails, Banqiao Reservoir Dam in 1975 kill upwards of 171,000 in Henan, China...
...Vajont, Italy was a "fluke" stemming from a landslide that sent nearly a 100' wave over the top of the dam (rather than an actual breech) killing 2,000.
...AND Morbi, India saw Intense Rains stress the Machchu-2 more than 3 TIMES the amount of water-flow/fill that it was designed to sustain... In 1979, it failed, killing 5,000.
No, I'm not trying to tell you what to do... Far from it. Just asking (1)... AND in case you hadn't run across them in your list, it might be fun to "test" your class on their researching abilities and group projects to "compare notes" when they get back to class with finished presentations... or something. ;o)
Italian Hall Tragedy in Calmer, MI. Multiple causes, definitely not just engineering, but really interesting, and sad to see all those little caskets for the massive funerals. Great way to spend Christmas.
*Calumet, MI
Your team has become my daily time for introspection and prayer . Your combination of humor with sincere compassion and empathy makes me in quiet awe . The stories provide education and factual depth I have not been able to compare. Again Please accept our family’s thank you
Okay... but could you imagine gathering your little troop of scouts and being like "okay, go find dead bodies, boys"
‘We’re here to make you man-scouts today...’
Tbh, a lot of Boy Scouts I know would say “ok, let’s do some good today”
Families deserve closure, no?
@@abortedphoenix Yes, it's just a sign of how bad things were that children had to be enlisted to help recover bodies.
Historically, the Boy Scouts have helped in a lot of disaster relief situations. Years ago, Boy Scouts actually were taught to do things - like make splints and stretchers from tree branches, all kinds of First Aid, make rope slings to carry injured folks, etc. Not like today. Since they forced the Boy Scouts to take in girls, they concentrate more on empathy and cooking. No wonder the country is a mess! The Liberals have broadened our horizons, and made us nonfunctional!
I've seen other documentaries about the Saint Francis Dam, but as far as I know, this is the most informative and comprehensive of them all, and Catlin Doughty has such a darling personality.
I can’t believe TH-cam doesn’t monetize this woman! I mean I’m not mad i don’t have to see ads! But man she is doing a practically free public service educating people! It’s amazing
Shawn Tippie YT stupid “family friendly” crappy guidelines.
From what I understand any money these videos make goes to charity.
Holly Snow ugh what does that have to do with TH-cam monetizing her?
She will never be monetized because her show is about the worst of all taboos: The D-word, that we may never speak of, or type! We must NEVER recognize D***h, in any way! And, if for some reason we are forced to think of it, we must spit between our fingers, stand in a bucket, and think Lovely Thoughts.
I don't see how 'puttting strawberries into bleach and poisoning some kid' or 'dripping crazy hot caramel onto egg beaters and causing third degree burns' is 'family friendly'.
It's just TH-cam algorithm.
Ann Reardon from @HowtoCookThatwith AnnReardon has debunked that.
If you visit the Hoover Dam, they tell you that the cement is still drying - that it will take 200 years to fully dry. I wonder if the amateur engineer knew that.
"Cement"?? You mean concrete. And it doesn't dry, it reacts chemically and goes from a liquid to a solid.
@@domesticterrorist483 it cures and Mike is correct.
@@domesticterrorist483 you’re on TH-cam arguing about cement and concrete. Get your life together
@@domesticterrorist483 I’m à architecture student, we learn that cement dries (water basically evaporates)
You want to keep concrete wet as long as possible. Water is necessary for the curing process. There are samples over a hundred years old that continue to gain strength.
Thank you for referring to Polanski as "fugitive from justice." Too many people don't take what he did to that child seriously. But, Hollywood.
Polanski had a lot more going on in his weird life than just messing around with teenage girls.
@@Egypt_Cat_Of_Denial People with issues usually have more than one issue.
@@Egypt_Cat_Of_Denial
EDIT He didn't use barbital but Methaqualone, aka quaaludes and alcohol. Still massive risk of accidentally killing the 13 year old child that he anally raped.
ffs
I wouldn't call "drugging with phenobarbital and anally raping a 13 y child" messing around, but you do you pal.
far far away from me pls
I wonder how many are just like him in Hollywood
@@seemoore57 not just hollywood.
everywhee.
min 70% of abusers are family, close friends, relatives.
but thats not a comfortable throught
OMG I LIVE IN CR I HAD NO IDEA you were going to be supporting our recovery! It's 2022 and there is still obvious signs of the derecho. Thank you, Caitlin.
I think I'm gonna cry! No one ever talks about, let alone reaches out to help Iowa. We're usually brushed aside because we're a "fly over state." Even after the storm happened many people didn't hear about it. It was basically a hurricane, which NEVER happens here. We were in a statewide blackout for days and my friend went into labor that night. I was fortunate enough to be on one of the first streets that got power in my town so I housed my friend and her newborn for about a week. It was still so scary and stressful. Multiple businesses were shut down for weeks, so people were without work and didn't have access to things like food, gas, and cell reception to contact loved ones. But at the same time I have never seen a small community come together so fast and with such force. Immediately everyone was coming together to help others move debris, offer food and services for free, and communicate with the community any updates that had happened. It was crazy, but that's just what you do in a tragedy.
Thank you so much for talking about this and supporting our humble state 😊
@MsBizzyGurl watch the full video. Iowa was destroyed. They are our main source of crops and so many homes and fields were demolished by this hurricane like storm.
People come together in a storm, and Iowa was blindsided by how bad that event really was going to be. A derecho is like a tornado on its side moving along the ground, and this was huge!
@@angelakim639 A derecho is more like a hurricane. Much more dangerous and deadly than a tornado.
I had the same thought! I live about an hour east of Cedar Rapids and we got hit HARD. It was terrible and I hope to never experience anything like this again!
The derecho was devastating. I'm fortunate to live in a community that wasn't severely impacted, but so many people lost everything. The damage was so widespread. I used to think that, as long as a thunderstorm wasn't spawning tornadoes, we didn't have much to worry about. I never imagined we'd be hit by a storm like that, and I hope we never see it again.
This one really touched me.
I'm brazillian and in the last 10 years many mining dams have collapsed, most recently early 2019.
Different dams, different decades same sad history.
Oh man... so many innocent lives😔
I hadnt heard about any of these, so terribly sad.
we already forgot about brumadinho, its shameful, those families are still suffering
Guess Caitlyn can't blame racism in Brazil, unless they're black Brazilians maybe.. She forgets the white, and other immigrants who died under the mud from that disaster. It was workers, poor people. Immigrants who come to a new country with nothing often find themselves suffering more, in order to provide a future for their children. I've heard this story many times as a native Angeleno. The tragedy is for poor workers, and those who get away without accountability.
And this is a perfect example of what happens when you try and erase history , Terrible things have happened but destroying it only makes it easier to repeat one day .
My dad used to tell me about the LA newspaper reported his family wiped out in a flood. The story didn’t show up in a family history written by a cousin, so upon research, I found the story of the St Francis dam flood, which happened when my father was 17. His uncles at that time owned a homestead on the LA river, but we’re actually vacationing in the mountains at the time the dam broke, so of course there was no trace of them after the flood!
LA: “shhh we don’t really want anyone talking about that big disaster, let’s just keep that hush hush...”
Halifax, my home city; “HEY DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE TIME TWO SHIPS BLEW UP AND EXPLODED THE WHOLE CITY?!?!? JUST GOES TA SHOW YA, EH?”
8 I (Mental note: new thing to research....DUDE. whoa.)
I heard of this when it was randomly included in a novel I read. It had literally nothing to do with the novel, but one of the characters was writing a story about it so they included the story that the character wrote. It was a terrible book but I researched that disaster afterwards and dang, that was crazy.
electricia yup! That’s how not secretive about it we are. Something completely unrelated- “OH BY THE WAY HALIFAX EXPLODED ONE TIME!”
Two ships got in a “it’s my turn, no, it’s my go” trying to get past one another. One was loaded with explosives. And so, to this day, residents of Nova Scotia become stuck in doorways, insisting the other goes first. 😂🤣
eyyy! Fellow Nova Scotian
As a Nova Scotian... yeah. There's like no one here that hasn't heard of the explosion.
But The Expulsion of the Acadians? Barely anyone...
Lmao!!!! My 14 year old walked in the room as you were saying " From death enthusiasts just like you." He stopped and looked at me and said " What the hell are you watching!?!?"
"Are ya winning dad?"
Lol
LOL!!!
lol
That’s too funny!
For those asking about Mulholland Drive:
Yes, it was named after William Mulholland. It was opened and named in 1924, four years prior to the disaster.
I wonder why they never renamed it since it turns out Mulholland isn’t that great of a man.
@@MissLilyputt That, I don't know. Too much red tape, maybe? Or maybe those with the power to make it happen just didn't care.
@@MissLilyputt I mean, great enough to unashamedly own up to culpability in this disaster even if he and other engineers couldn't see it coming
Literally saying in court "if there was an error in human judgment, I was the human, I won't try to fasten it on anyone else" then retiring once the court case is done is basically the Most Honorable reaction you can do as an engineer whose project catastrophically failed.
To be fair, Mullholland is a cool name, even if it belongs to such a crappy person
William Mulholland was from the town I’m from in Northern Ireland - we haven’t named anything after him 😬
Here's another one you've never heard of: Johnstown, Dam disaster in 1889. Deaths - 2,208. A disaster ostensibly caused for some fishing and huntin' buddies. Really well documented as one of the first industrial disasters recorded with photography of the aftermath, and integral to defining the American Red Cross mission from thereafter. This damn dam-disaster might have actually been worse if not for the suffering of nearly fourfold more forty years earlier.
Not unheard of. Actually fairly well known. I live in MO and was quite aware of this disaster in history.
KEY FACT: The collapsed dam has a twin dam called Mulholland Dam overlooking downtown LA. Fearing this dam would fail too, the city dumped tons of dirt in front of the dam to reinforce it. The dam is still there
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California routinely cuts farners from their water supplies. The Governor is doing it right now, by turning-off irrigation to northern farms. The Democrat-run government claims it has eminent domain over all water
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Dang, people really don't know about it?? I live in Pittsburgh PA and qe were taught about that in elementary school.
My grandparents are from Western PA. I grew up learning about it.
Kaitlin: "Grab your closest chicken and settle down on a mattress"
Me: * Is already sitting on my bed with a parrot on my shoulder * "Check ✔"
Awww Rainbow chicken!.... That talks 😂
My mom's cousin lived in the Owens Valley. I never knew that the water was stolen from that valley and I'm 3rd generation Californian. Now I know why it's a desert in spite of being surrounded by mountains with huge amounts of snow.
Owens Lake is so drained, that L.A. has to compensate the area from the air pollution the dry lake bed creates.
@@GreenJeepAdventures That is just awful. That valley would be so beautiful if it still had its water.
I suspect you're all still drinking and using water if you live in the LA area. Otherwise you would be, well, dead. If you have such a big problem please leave. My people were here before most of you and you parents showed up. We won't hardly miss you.
In any case, if any of you have been in the Owens Valkey in the last 25 years, there's been a huge reclamation project by LA DWP and the locals to divert some aqueduct water and use it to restore local habitats. It has made a difference, despite the droughts. The west side of the valley, being next to the Sierra Nevada has always been more well watered and comparatively fertile. Even when there was no water project the land was better suited for pastoral herding than intense agriculture. The San Joaquin Valley, on the west side of the Sierra, in contrast is some of the best agricultural land on earth when properly irrigated, and it feeds a large part of North America.
Funny that nobody in the Democrat Party complains when Sacramento diverts the water from the vital San Joaquin, and dessicates it, for specious, and so far (after decades) unsuccessful "environmental" projects pushed by San Francisco leftists and Hollywood. Oh well, as one well foreign California politician said only a few years ago, we can just buy food from other countries even if it costs more and may be unsafe.
@@brianmccarthy5557 No one else was political here. You didn't have to bring in either of the parties. You're truly showing your ignorance.
@@brianmccarthy5557 1. Since when is moving from one state to another cheap? “Just leave” is a ridiculous statement. Besides, people are leaving. Tons of California residents are fleeing your shitty and glorified L.A. to move somewhere else. 2. Who the fuck mentioned politics? Being against stripping resources from ranchers land isn’t a political issue, it’s common sense that it’s wrong to do so.
I'm from Santa Paula, we all grew up hearing the "dam disaster". There is a also a statue (across the railroad station) from two brave heroes on motorcycles who warned inhabitants of the dam failure to near by communities, they perished.
Thornton Edwards did NOT die in the disaster; he lived to be 93 years old, dying in 1988. Stanley Baker (the second officer depicted) also survived, as did two other officers--Lee Shephard and John Messer--who gave similar warnings.
Hi neighbor.
Thanks so much for this video! My late grandfather worked for LA water and power for 46 years. He would take me with him to work occasionally in the summertime and told me the story of the dam and the towns along the flood path. He started with LA county in 1951 and the story was still fresh and active on the job at that time.
I have been to a lot of the places you have shown while with him and it brought back great memories.
Thank you again!
KEY FACT: The collapsed dam has a twin dam called Mulholland Dam overlooking downtown LA. Fearing this dam would fail too, the city dumped tons of dirt in front of the dam to reinforce it. The dam is still there (so far )
.
Caitlin is so charismatic
Even while talking about disaster
Too bad she's getting fat.
Caitlin is charismatic talking about disaster, in the same way reggae singers are. "Well it seems like... total destruction... is the only solution!" :D
Yes, she’s wonderful. You can feel her passion. It’s contagious.
@@chickenlover657 A bad attitude is much harder to lose than weight.
Ivana Plavsic You are shallow.
”The real story was so much worse.”
Just like with the Donner party and Moby Dick. I sense a theme here. It’s weird how we humans love gory history and fiction, but somehow the legends tone stuff down. Wouldn’t it make more sense if the legends were exaggerated?
tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealityIsUnrealistic
I can see what you mean. If my family had anything to do with repeating the story, that babies gonna grow .
What happens is that we look for a story and for heroes and villains of the old-fashioned variety. We also want a beginning, middle, and end, not examinations of difficult questions.
Sometimes, you just can't get together and make up fiction quite like the natural world can SMASH you right in the teeth with the truth. ;o)
I think it's because people want a story, not an account. It's hard to remember every detail so the stories just get stripped down to a few really lurid details, and the rest is forgotten
I appreciate that Mulholland took responsibility... nowadays something way smaller than this and I would expect him to have fleen immediately and deny any responsibility
Are you reading that comment, Mr. Polanski?
Mulholland would never have been able to escape the infamy. The dam was already a massive controversy with ongoing lawsuits before the failure. There had been other engineers who had questioned the dam’s soundness. This wasn’t the first dam failure he was involved in, in 1918 another dam he built, the Calaveras dam, suffered a partial failure but disaster was averted because the water level was quite low at the time.
Fleen?
Nancy Montgomery Fleed!
@@drewzero1 Fled!
I just found your channel and even though it's 2 years later... THANK YOU for donating to the Cedar Rapids area! I was driving in CR when the Derecho storm hit. Genuinely thought I was about to die. It was a scary time for everyone.
I’m so early rigor mortis hasn’t even set in
😲🤭😁😘
😁👏
or that you are a zombie .... 😆
😂
😂 good one
My uncle was the water commissioner in my county up until he passed away so I grew up knowing all about how dramatic and confusing water rights can be. Oh, the stories he told...
I still miss him. He was a wonderful person.
Would you be willing to share some of his wonderful stories? ☺️
@@Ali-mv3jc Sadly, I don't really remember them anymore. One detail I do remember is that he'd have to go on private property sometimes to do his job, and the owners would confront him angrily until he mentioned he was the water commissioner. Turns out most people don't want to mess with the guy who's there to solve their water disputes.
One thing I learned after he died, though - not related to him being water commissioner, but to kind of give an idea of the kind of man he was - when we had gatherings at his and my aunt's place, he'd drink one beer, then refill the bottle or can with root beer because he didn't actually like beer that much but he wanted to preserve his image.
@@TheOtherJunodog Thank you for sharing!
@@Ali-mv3jc I'd like to hear some of those stories too 💧it's a shame you can't remember them. Thanks for the share though. 💖
@@TheOtherJunodog Thank you for sharing what you remember. Have a wonderful day. ☺️
Longtime Futive From Justice: Roman Polanski killed me so accurate.
So glad you took such pleasure on the back of completely disgusting and heinous acts on children. It was all for you. Geezus, can we start thinking before we decide to make such idiotic comments simply to get attention? Please.
Ashamed to be Polish rn
@@moirawhite6960 You took that waaay too negative....no one's joking about the situation.
@@moirawhite6960 I don't want to ignore or downplay your point, you are on to something, but I think you are overlooking the point she is making and that is to call out and not gloss over the bad things people have done by acknowledging how some of the people involved in some of these stories, like Polanski, have a dark side and complicated history that is probably worth it's own video, but is beyond the scope of the video here. Basically, to me, she's suggesting people go look into some of this on there own.
@@moirawhite6960 wow, you must be so much fun at parties huh?
You're just being outraged for attention and nobody is falling for it.
It reminds me of the Johnstown, PA flood. My grandmother talked about family members who were survivors of that event. The stories of that day are haunting.
This makes me think of the Vajont disaster here in Italy: there, the dam actually held but a massive landslide dropped so much stone and debris into the lake that the water jumped over the dam itself, erasing villages in its path. Almost 2000 people died.
Stavo per scrivere la stessa cosa :(
Stavo leggendo i commenti per vedere se qualcuno l'aveva già citatoGrazie per avermi risparmiato la fatica di scriverlo in un inglese decente. :)
Prego! 😁
La similitudine mette abbastanza i brividi se si conosce la storia.
Guardando il lato positivo: deathlings italiani! Whoohoo 😎
@@ninilafara3293 sssiiiii :D l'ho scoperta da poco ma la amo fortissimo!
“Self taught engineer”
*excuse me, what?*
What could go wrong?🤷
they also said somthen bout a mentor
fr O_o
Yeah I didn’t go to school for 4 full years and in my 5 year, just to be insulted by this baboonery. Do not trust anyone who says they are a self taught engineer
Lol! My thoughts exactly!
I am a huge fan of these thirty minutes Dough-cumentaries
Omg that's very good 😂
@@AskAMortician IMO this is your best yet. Interesting, informative, and obscure. I had never before heard about this disaster. You made me laugh a few times too! I enjoy the documentary-style long format videos. rock on!
@@AskAMortician please do more of these. Please do one on Judy garland
@@AskAMortician check out the Johnstown Flood....this is like an American hometown need or something
Oooo that's clever! 😀
Being from the Northeast I loved flying out to Los Angeles as an older teenager exploring Las Angeles and Southern California.
On one of these ventures to California our car rented from LAX broke down in New Hall, CA mentioned in this video. I had absolutely no idea what had happened there until I saw this video.
Thank you so much for making this videos and teaching us history we knew nothing about before you.
Please keep up you tremendously interesting and important video's.
My ex-wife's cousin lived in Memphis, TN years ago. There was a severe drought and you could actually walk across the riverbank near the Memphis bridges. He and a friend were amateur paleontologists and anthropologists, they wanted to walk around and see what they could find. They found a human skull. It had fillings, so they knew it wasn't a Native American, so they got to the nearest payphone and called the police. A detective showed up and they showed him where they recovered the skull. The detective told them to stick around town for any other questions and called the lab guys to extract the rest of the skeleton. As it turns out, it was the remains of a man buried in Missouri. There was a flood some years back that washed out a cemetary and people had been finding remains wash up on shore up and down the river from there.
Witt Sullivan Gracious! Studying what they did, that must have been exciting for them! Thanks for sharing this! My family is from Memphis, so they’ll get a kick out of this. Have a lovely one ✌️
Rather that than a murder victim I guess
Hold on, us indigenous people aren't allowed to get fillings for our teeth now? I didn't know I wasn't allowed to, need to brush up on special laws for Indians again, just to make sure I'm not breaking the law.
KEY FACT: The collapsed dam has a twin dam called Mulholland Dam overlooking downtown LA. Fearing this dam would fail too, the city dumped tons of dirt in front of the dam to reinforce it. The dam is still there (so far )
.
@@janedunlap6879I think he just meant that it was from a more modern time period. I'm not sure when fillings became the norm, but that certainly would help in the dating of the artifact.
I can't believe no one else has called this a "damn tragedy."
this is a cool pun, i wont like it because it seems insentivite to me, but ill let u know i appreaciate ur talent sir
😎
I laughed. I wish I hadn't. I'm a little ashamed of myself. :-D
Yeah it's hard to _hold back_ the guffaws...😉
Hey you're getting into pretty murky waters there, but yeah they let that one slip through the cracks.. must be wet behind the ears
Why is there no memorial in the area where the dam once stood? RIP Tony the dam keeper, who was ignored & was taken by the flood, never found.
Caitlin, you are absolutely the best story teller. Previous to the LA Dam story I watched the sinking of the Eastland in Chicago, another must listen to event. Thank you for the wonderful time given us listening and watching.
I know quite a bit about the history of LA.
Other disasters include the floods of the 1930s and the 1933 Long Beach earthquake. The 1930s were not great especially for LA.
"Mulholland....a self taught engineer" Ahhh. There's the problem.
The 'Mulholland Drive' dude.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Ya think?
Yyyyep. There it is.
I’m in love with her.
Actually, it is a double edged sword. Sometimes the rarified air of academia and the lofty letters after people's names can be just as much of a problem as the guy who started with a shovel in his hand and knows each and every aspect of a job from the ground up being in charge. This is the end result of one edge of the sword... I bet there were engineers telling Mulholland the problem... But he had moved on to Godhood in his own mind and felt no need to listen to lesser creatures. The lesson is to never forget where you came from. There was a reason the Romans had a slave next to a great generals reminding him of his frailty while he went down the forum in a parade to his greatness...
There is the other edge of the blade though where Mr. PhD is in charge and does his thing while the guy below him says it won't work and specifically why... Oh, that guy without the letters usually ends up being the scapegoat when something goes wrong under that scenario and in these days..., unless he understands these dynamics and cover's his azz. Then they gotta go look elsewhere. I can give you numerous examples of engineers and architects and Doctors and other "lettered" individuals who failed to listen to the lesser creatures and having failed... seek to project their guilt. Oh, I was one of the ones smart enough to cover my azz and stick it in their faces with the honor of telling them what they could do to themselves (graphically) for trying to make me a scapegoat. It seemed they had never seen a person act in such a way. They were offended... In the end, they had only an elected offical to go after... Guess how that turned out and you never heard about it... The world is a complex place... If you truly compehend it, you can learn to not be a victim is all I can say... But I digress.
you know, you gotta give caitlin doughty credit wheres credit: she always teach people about things that nobody teaches about, she makes those tragedy human. give this lady an award, damn.
edit: oops pun
I like it, she even managed to keep it on the Mortician topic, its important not to just become a history channel because their are already some good ones 'The History Guy: History Deserves to be Remembered' is a good rabbit hole for that...but he won't be talking about the mortuary affairs part of it by any means.
I have long been waiting for Caitlin to do a crosscountry trip to the Mortuary Affairs Unit at Dover AFB. It is an entire multi-service unit where the DoD trains people to do everything from the recovery of remains, repatriation, handling, processing, and internment of all US Military and most civilian remains from abroad. Pretty sure they'd allow more than just a tour for such an established professional as Caitlin
Go through a hydrology engineering or civil engineering class and its studied. A lot was learned from this disaster that applies to dam building. Like the 1919 molasses flood in Boston. Out of that disaster, American Water Works and American Petroleum Institute tank building standards were developed. And the safety of airplanes and flying come from studies of crashes.
@@curtisstewart9594 a what flood. Molasses????
@@fortusvictus8297 I just like the way she humanizes death and the tragedy. it isn't just some numbers, she puts faces on these people. I don't know, shes just great ya know
Curtis Stewart I saw a program once on the molasses flood. That was just unbelievably freakish. It was gruesome.
Thank you so much for sharing stories like this.
I found this heartbreaking and once more disgusted by the arrogance of the people that caused this to happen.
You nailed this one Caitlyn. The stories of California’s water wars are filled with intrigue, greed and poor judgement at every bend. These stories traumatized me all the way through my years as a student in the LA County unified school district.
You may still be traumatized 😪
James, thanks that’s thoughtful. The damming of Hetch Hetchy, a canyon considered the more beautiful of two sisters, is the worst example. The sister canyon’s name? Yosemite national Park. It still make me sad.
@@AwkwardHistory 💕🌾
I’ve lived in Los Angeles for 26 years, my entire life thus far, and I’ve never heard about this disaster. I have actually hiked around the dam site and never knew what the debris was from. My dad used to catch rattle snakes in the area to safe harvest venom for anti venom. On another note, have you already done a video on the 1980’s floods that washed out the Native American burial grounds? My parents have photos someplace of cemeteries and native burial grounds washed out onto Mount Gleason road and into the high school football fields, and other road ways. Schools were closed for weeks, because of casket and body recovery.
What is the rattlesnake anti venom used for? Is it in case you are bitten or does it have any other use?Sorry for my ignorance We don’t really have snakes in England.
If you hike in the area, then you should've seen the giant plaque and brick pumphouse that's on your right as you head up San Francisquito Road. It's worth stopping.
katrina taylor anti venom is used to reverse the effects of the venom from a snake bite. Rattlesnake bites are relatively common in the US as well as other venomous snake bites.
artisticwife I honestly never have noticed them before. I’ll be sure to pay attention next time. Typically We are out looking for debris and abandoned junk to flip over for snake searching. Or trudging through any brush or rocky alcoves.
I grew up in the Owens Valley, we’re still mad and want the water back lol
Last thing I read, Owens Valley was getting water back but some environmentalists were upset because the trees, bushes and wild life were being flooded as the waters raised. Remember reading about it like 4-5 years ago.
I will bring you a glass from Apple Valley.
Lol
Don't blame ya, that was some sneaky BS they pulled on ya.
That's my maiden name lol.
I lived in Saticoy right by Ventura and never heard about this, I'm pretty sure I know exactly the spot it flooded through town as well. How heartbreaking! Thanks for bringing light to this.
"Long time fugitive from justice" is in little hidden moments like this that I remember why I love your channel so much
I need a little reminder about what Roman Polanski did....
Hey, let’s build a major metropolitan site in an area with questionable water supplies and what geologically shows as an area that historically is considered to be in a state of drought. This will never become a problem.
The story of the inter mountain west, which will now become incredibly worse as the California diaspora increasingly sees former urbanites moving to ecologically marginal areas of the intermountain west and demanding urban services and hedonistic, non land based culture.
It was fine for the indigenous people up to 300 yr ago.
@shane kearsley Well, Vegas made sense. Vegas was built by the mafia because it was so incredibly cheap in that barren desert wasteland that they could build ostentatious stuff and lure people into visiting with cheap costs & then con them out of all of their money with corrupt gambling procedures.
To be fair, LA was built on lush, beautiful land bordering the coast (good for import/export), with a ton of surrounding rivers and natural sources of water. As she mentioned in the video, the issue wasn’t lack of water so much as it was overpopulation. Every water table has its limits and when you overpopulate to the extent that LA did - especially with so many immigrants provided with terrible living conditions without toilets or electricity - you start to get a lot of pollution. The pollution contaminates the water table, which is already made shallow by overuse, and what little water people have left is unusable.
When you talk about “droughts” - these aren’t coming from a natural lack of water. CA has a lot of natural water. They come from there being way too many people, far too much pollution, and a total failure on behalf of the government.
The same thing is happening where I live, now, and nobody can do anything about it. Our water quality is a lot worse than it used to be, but our local political officials think that installing more affordable housing is the popular thing to do. So they destroy nature preserves and build poorly constructed affordable housing that ignores fire safety and water safety codes - endangering the lives of everyone in the town, including the poor people trapped in the death trap “affordable housing” units...that will probably mostly burn to death if that place ever catches on fire (but it’s okay because they “installed sprinklers”)...and we all just have to accept that this is the future. The worst part is that if you say anything you will be dismissed as classist - because you’re against affordable housing. 🙄
We live on a very narrow peninsula. The problem is not socioeconomic class. The problem is just a complete lack of space and natural resources for the people that are trying to move here. You can even reliably get cell service anymore because Verizon and AT&T can’t handle our rapid population boom.
Okay that’s the extent of my rant. You didn’t read it but I still got to say it so that works for me. Lol.
@shane kearsley That being said your point still stands because Vegas is...well, Vegas. So yeah.
This is exactly why I'm an engineer. There's so many tragedies that have occurred because of greed, lack of caring for communities, and gross negligence. Especially with dams. I hope that the current & next generation of engineers is continuously better than the past ones. This is why so many of us are in the field- to put people first.
Maybe not self taught anyway
@@timevans9529 very true! Although plenty of other disasters or issues occurred because of well educated, certified engineers too! A case study I find a really interesting example of moral issues/greed and engineering is the Cahora Bassa dam in Mozambique.
Congratulations on becoming an engineer
@@pollypockets508 thanks! I'm still at the beginning of my career so I'm not yet professionally certified but one day I'll get there 😄
But I hear the field doesn’t put YOU first.. all my ex were engineers and just went to management, finance, investing more money, better treatment.
I love your content! I am from Iowa and my grandma lives in Cedar Rapids and I was so glad you had them in your show for Derecho relief!! Thank you!
I met the great grandson of Mulholland on several occasions as he bought nursery plants where I worked. The first time I met this guy, I had to special order some things he was looking for and had to take his name for the order. When He said Mulholland, I had to ask "as in related to whoever the street Mulholland Dr. That I see in movies was named after? " He sort of sheepishly said yeah, but that was several generations ago. I never knew him." I thought it was a little strange he almost seemed to try to disassociate himself from his last name. He made many return trips to the nursery and I eventually got him to say that his great grandfather was , as he said, 'a city planner or something like that' but he pretended to be not completely sure. Anyhow, I never really understood why he didn't seem to want to claim whoever it was that the street was named after, I think he assumed I knew the story and was maybe ashamed. But I had never heard the story until now. He was a nice enough person and had nothing to do with it. But I do wish I could run into him again And see if I could find out more of his story now that I know this. He looked just like the guy in the picture.
Honestly, he's trying to get away from a very tragic legacy that probably still comes with a lot of misplaced blame on the family. Perhaps, have a heart and DON'T pester him about such a difficult bit of family history.
@@LadyVineXIII Likely. The family didn't do it, only the ego-heavy "engineer" who would not listen to anyone, even himself.
@@LadyVineXIII you do realize his comment was based on the past, correct? And you do realize he didn't know the story at the time he met the person, right? And I take it you also realize the comment wasn't meant as anything derogatory towards the individual either, right?
After hearing the history of LA water many years ago I often wonder why LA still honors Mulholland in nameing streets, statues, etc. It's a bit like honoring Hitler for the Autobahn. And of course why no reparations have been made to those who had their water stolen. Of course the fact that we treat water as an extractable saleable resource much like oil or gold is just so badly broken. Even today LA pay private entities to buy access to aquifer rights and then drain them - permanently. Soon LA will be surrounded by a man made sunken wasteland. And then it too will go.
@@tim1398 Yup. And over the past 20 years, a bunch of oil barron's have bought land over aquifers. It is pretty messed up.
"The cracks didn't really bother Mulholland." Didn't live downstream, did he.
Also was an old white man.
That is the bit that blows me away. I studied engineering to learn drafting, so basic stuff. When dams are discussed how leaks lead to catastrophic failure is the one thing you can't help but learn. A cadet engineer would have been freaking out at those leaks, like the dam keeper was.
Perhaps this was perception bias, why Republicans see a rigged election and Democrats say it was fair?
@@shondralyon-brown1603 To the ruling elite his color would not have been a mitigating factor though. He would have been "Irish" and "Catholic" both marking him as a lesser "other" in the WASP acronym. The KKK targeted Catholics as recently as the 1980s (they're still targets in the Deep South, both the Catholic and Episcopalian churches in Meridian, MS had their windows shot out for having the word "saint" as part of their names a few years ago) and just google "Irish need not apply" to find out about THAT chunk of history....
I'm a Santa Paula native. My grandfather told me about the disaster when I was a child. When I used to walk around the river just south of town, I'd see twisted pipes sticking out of the ground. Also when I was down there, I got the feeling I was stepping on someone's grave.
I grew up in Oxnard (born in the 60s), and I never heard of this. Ranks right up there with Japanese internment, which was also never discussed.
@@beth7467 there was internment in Ventura County? Not really surprised.
@@toad762002 Japanese Americans were removed from the area to internment camps. Only found out about this in high school, when a teacher mentioned that his folks had been forced into the camps. (Not sure which one.) There was a large, vibrant Japanese American population in Oxnard when I was a kid.
@@beth7467 This was another FDR Presidential act !!!
@@beth7467 > here in Hawai'i too !
Honouliuli National Historic Site is near Waipahu on the island of Oahu, Hawaii.
I did not know, I must go visit .
Great video, I'm in San Diego now but I lived in Santa Clarita for a year and didn't know about this. Maybe I'm just a dumb ass but you make these stories very interesting to watch. Thanks for everything you do.
KEY FACT: The collapsed dam has a twin dam called Mulholland Dam overlooking downtown LA. Fearing this dam would fail too, the city dumped tons of dirt in front of the dam to reinforce it. The dam is still there (until the Big One hits)
.
I loved how you threw in that comment about Roman Polanski. Great video on the LA Disaster
They used boy scouts to find bodies. Let that sink in for a minute.
Im sorry excuse me they used children to find dead bodies????
Maybe someone concluded there was no way to keep them from seeing the tragedy and thought they could feel less helpless and like they were helping and making a difference by combing for the deceased
The boy scouts were originally a military-esque organization - a training of youth to do scouting (hence the name).
@Straight Razor Daddy i said it in a shocking way lmao im not sheltered im just not old and born back then where this was common or even heard of since ya know the boy scouts are doing camping and building these days not helping find dead bodies from freak events....
@@Miraclelittlepie Scouts still help with search and rescue if needed. It's not just camping and building things. My daughter is training for Eagle scout. She recently completed her CPR training before Covid. I was CPR trained in girl scouts at the same age and while I never did a human search and rescue as a kid, I did plenty of livestock search and rescues. Sometimes we don't give our kids enough credit.
Great grandpa complaining about kids these days, "Always playin' their video games, and cryin' at that deer cartoon! When I was a boy scout we were out markin' the locations of flood corpses!"
..."and we liked it!"
(Dana Carvey's grumpy old man character).
As queazy as my stomach is, I still rather be outside marking locations.
Caitlin you are a pleasure to listen to..your story telling captivates.
"Deeming them unfit to give their accounts" that is some next level racism
Well, it is more specific than that. We still do this in our very age. IF someone is not capable of expressing things clearly or having a high enough command of language to give a story any different than the 20 people next to them, why bother?
I mean, maybe later in life as they can articulate it better, but in that moment its not useful.
More good ole fashioned American racism...that's still with us today.
@@fortusvictus8297 I don't think that's the reason why they weren't listened to. This place had their own proud KKK chapter, which leads me to believe that they just didn't think them human enough to matter. Jmo.
@@MsSwitchblade13 what is the kkk? I am in Singapore and have never heard of that because the U.S is not taught much here.
@@MsSwitchblade13
While very likely true, that's just disgusting! Just sayin'!
My Dad is a Hydrologist/Dam Engineer and I grew up on horror stories like this. He would have a lot to say about people cutting corners and not understanding the physics/geometry. I have heard him berate - and even go to court - against fellow "engineers" that are quite content making poor decisions as long as they get paid. It's so sad when selfishness costs people their homes and lives.
Edit: I remember standing on top of one of the dams he was overseeing as a kid during a full flood. The water was near the top and there was all sorts of debris in it - trees and so forth - but he was on top of which gates needed to be opened/closed and when based on his calculations. If he had been off? I shudder to think of how many people would've lost their homes or died.
How incredible. I grew up in the shadow of the Grand Coulee dam, Dry falls and the Scablands... I can well imagine what your father knew was at stake as our cliffs and ravaged landscape fascinated me.
@@cottoncandie761 They are amazing structures when designed and kept in working order. I can't tell you how many times I walked on top of the dams around Texas. He always liked to have a clear view of what the water was doing against the flood gates.
This reminded me of Brumadinho Tragedy, that happened here in Brazil. A billionaire mining company stored its debree and mining residue behind a massive dam, that cointained all the junk, stones, muddy waters, heavy metals and chemicals. One day, engineers said that the dam was well over its capacity, and would soon collapse. They were obviously ignored. The dam broke, and over 300 people died and many more were missing. The city nearby was completely destroyed; houses, buildings, they were all completely covered with mud. The mud and rock and heavy metals reached a river, killing millions of fishes and species unique to this ecossystem, turning the water undrinkable, eventually reaching the ocean, in a nursery beach to sea turtles.
Nobody was punished. The company (Vale) never paid for it. Never compensated the damage, never rebuilt the city or gave any money to treat the river. The families were never taken care of.
This was January 2019. We don't talk about it anymore.
It seems like we've grown so unsensitive to tragedy lately.
It immediately reminded me of the Mariana tragedy as well! The entire city was wiped away and covered in toxic mud, all because the higher ups turned a blind eye to the safety regulations as long as it could keep making them money.
And yet, no one talks about it anymore, even though it still affects the place to this very day.
It is what we get when we have the rich, greedy, and power-hungry people running things. Which has become nearly universal nowadays.
If it only happened last year, there's still enough time for the local community to come together and get a lawsuit rolling.
i was curious if there'd be fellow brazilians here talking abt this. we had already dealt with a very similar thing just a few years prior. in that same region, there were and still are several dams like that, basically just full of mud that can't just be released into nature because of harmful stuff resulting from mining. the one near the town of Mariana broke in 2015. luckily, way fewer people died, 18 confirmed. i've heard some people talk about there having been an employee from the dam who had to go down to the nearby town and she heard it breaking through her walkie-talkie and warned people or something like that, but i'm not sure if that's true.
apparently, there weren't really any plans for dealing with an emergency of that sort, which is something you'd expect to have when living close to a dam.
the mud caused damage to other places as well, but luckily the people elsewhere had more time to get out. but of course there were many people who lost homes, farms, livestock, water supply, some amount of food supply, etc. and of course it did eventually end in the ocean.
the river that the mud eventually got to, Rio Doce, is a very important one in that region. it was used a lot for water supply for a lot of people, and also for fishing and just basically everything you use water for. completely poisoned now. ironically enough, one of the companies involved in it, Vale, which was also involved in Brumadinho in 2019, had been named after the important river that got destroyed because of that.
the companies involved are basically paying fines that would be huge if that company didn't already have as much money as they do. they were supposedly looking at other dams of that sort as well to see if there were any issues, and found out that a lot of them were not as safe as they should be. i don't know what's been done to end that risk, if they're getting rid of those damns or strengthening them or something else.
there was a lot of discussion about who was to blame and who should be legally punished, how much of that was on engineers or people who had inspected the dam and said it was ok versus higher-ups from the company. that also made the whole thing take very long to start.
Mining companies are disgusting, they destroy so many ecosystems, and most governments are ok with it...
You definitely have a calling as a teacher. You could make videos on pretty much any subject from history and bring it to life!
I've lived in LA my whole life. Been to Santa Paula, Castaic, Newhall, etc. NEVER heard of this incident. Caitlin you're the best for telling us all these great stories about history.
Very interesting indeed. I never have lived in California, but I heard of the disaster in a Frank Black and the Catholics song St. Francis Dam Disaster. I didn't realize how much of what was in the song was historical.
I grew up in newhall ( before it became Santa Clarita 😂) I didn’t even hear about this til I was 9-10 years old.
That wasn’t the only Dam Disaster btw.
Then you weren't paying attention. I grew up in LA and heard about this, as well as the "romantic" angle taught in schools regarding the Spanish mission system, which brutalized the indigenous peoples. Be curious.
Same! I was just telling my boyfriend about it, both of us born and raised in SoCal, and he hadn't heard of it either. I literally took 2 California history classes in high school and college and never heard of it.
I'm a 4th generation Californian and NEVER heard about this disaster! The California water wars and the sleazy politicians still run this state. It turns my stomach how people really don't matter to these corrupt psychopaths. Thanks for doing such a great job telling this story.
@Patrick Baptist I pick fresh strawberries from by garden in shorts in December. That’s one reason.
The voters don't matter to any politician , except when it comes to getting their snouts in the gravy train again .
"Money , more money , more money" still is a mantra often heard in the corridors of power , no matter where one lives . The involvement of WEF and freinds , doesn't help one iota .
SING IT!
Patrick thinks they can name a better US state lmao, they're all terrible
Still happening, Look at La Paz County Arizona.
As an Iowan who’s family was directly impacted by the Derecho, thank you for choosing this foundation. The storm is either equivalent to a category three hurricane with only 30 mins warning (and it was still much worse than anyone could imagine) or a 40 mile wide F3-F4 tornado. Either way, 7 weeks later, people are still rebuilding and without.
jayelizaa I live in Cedar Rapids and it was TERRIFYING watching it from my basement
STILL rebuilding, even in Cedar Rapids.
Thankyou for takeing your time to research and make those who never heard of this disaster aware. By doing so u keep the memmories of those lost alive and remembered. You are a great human being. And your show is very interesting. Thanks for everything u do!
KEY FACT: The collapsed dam has a twin dam called Mulholland Dam overlooking downtown LA. Fearing this dam would fail too, the city dumped tons of dirt in front of the dam to reinforce it. The dam is still there (until the Big One hits)
.