A Deadly Flood From Dam Disaster
Three minutes before midnight, the St. Francis Dam’s 200-foot-high concrete wall crumpled, sending 12 billion gallons of water down San Francisquito Canyon north of Saugus and killing at least 450 people. Water flooded whole towns. The accident was attributed at the time to engineering errors by William Mulholland, the father of Los Angeles’ municipal water system, who had built the dam between 1924 and 1926 to hold a year’s supply of water for the city 50 miles to the south. More recent research has shifted the blame to an ancient landslide.
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