St. Francis Dam Disaster Site
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- Опубликовано: 7 сен 2024
- This is a flyover of the ruins of the St. Francis Dam which failed catastrophically in 1928, killing between 400 and 600 people. Being May The Fourth, I had to give a nod to Star Wars.
About the still photos that begin the video: As they were shot over 90 years ago, obviously they are not of my making.
The background music, "Dreams Become Real" by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (creativecommon...)
Source: incompetech.com...
Artist: incompetech.com/
We ride our bikes up and down San Francisquito canyon and go by here often. Its a beautiful ride. Thanks for the neat video.
Very nice Thomas! 👍 You got some beautiful shots and did a great job editing this.
Thanks, editing is a work in progress for me. Trying not to be too redundant in the video, and not stick on a particular subject for too long. There's room for improvement, but frankly at some point I just want to be done with it and get it uploaded! :-)
Great video, nice drone work.
Thanks Larry. It was a good flight. Nice LOS and no interference to worry about. Only concern was how far away from that Eastern canyon wall I was getting during the orbit. Kinda hard to judge.
Very nice presentation with some history to get it started. Really nice work, Thomas! I have a large collection of the old photos, before and after the catastrophe.
I can't believe they only went in 15 feet deep into the side of that hill. Then when it was completed they filled the dam up to 3" inches from the top. Crazy.
Yeah, some crazy stuff there. Amazing how much was not understood back then, vs what is known today.
Thumbs up ere' Thomas, fellow Drone Seekers - interesting video - good capture from above - many thanks for sharing :)
Thanks for the comment. I was at -500 feet (relative to launch) at the ruins. It was different for sure.
Very interesting subject. Not many people know about this. It's like they erased it from the landscape. I heard Mulholland was there shortly before the collapse and said, it's ok. Dams leak.
Indeed he was. Inspected it the day it failed or the day before. Basically said "don't worry about it". Apparently many lessons were learned about geology that day.
@@ThomasHart59 He didn't say "Don't worry about it." In fact, he said to Tony Harnischfeger, the dam keeper, "I think it's safe, but I agree we should lower the lake. I want you to get Mr. Rising and Mr. Coe and have them board-up the adits at Powerplant Number Two, today. We'll start releasing water tomorrow and see about sealing-up that crack."
He later would say, "If had any idea there was something wrong with the St. Francis Dam, I'd have been the first person up and down that valley sounding the alarm!"
@@PonyHorton Thanks, I was pretty clear when I said "Basically said". Which as a general interpretation of his actions, is "basically" what he said. He did not believe, and in his defence, could not know, that the dam would fail that night. Nobody believes he would have taken these actions had he believed that. What remains is the fact that his ACTUAL actions when summarized, equal "don't worry about it"...... We'll start fixing it later.
Very cool to see. I need to get up there.
Thanks C..... Wyatt and I went back out today to hike the ruins, and run the ridge. Unfortunately, we discovered that the road along the ridge (to this outcropping and then farther south) is open on one end, but dead-ends into a facility you might have some familiarity with on the other. I hate backtracking, but of course with the options available to me, back I went. :-)
Fantastic video. Nice flight and fascinating history 👍🏼👍🏼
Great drone footage and video content.
Thank you!
Wow, great history lesson, and you got some great shots Tom!
Thanks Marcus! I wanted to try something a bit different.
Hi Tom. Great documentary style video. Loved that intro too. Where is this at? Tell Frank to bring me along next time you guys go offroad.
Haha, Hi Irwin! Will do.
Oh, didn't answer your question.... Easy to get to Irwin, just drive to Santa Clarita Valley, go north on McBean from the mall area. You're looking for San Francisquito Canyon road. It's only 5 or 7 miles up the road from there. All paved. No problems. (well, it's dirt if you go up to the big rock like I did, but not if you just want to hike to the Dam ruins).
Sorry, but the initial failure began on the EAST abutment in the laminated mica schist, right along the canyon road. It failed there about 10-15 minutes before the west abutment failed. By then, the reservoir was down to about 75% of its capacity.
Also, the reservoir was at 38,168 acre-feet, not 32,000.
Hi Pony, while you are certainly entitled to your opinion on this, there was only one study that disagreed with the commission's findings on the failure, which believed the initial failure was the WEST abutment.
"The consensus of most of the investigating commissions was that the initial break had taken place at or near the fault line, which had been a problem area since water first covered the area, ON THE WESTERN ABUTMENT."
So, while you may choose what you wish to believe, your's is an opinion in the minority according to my reading.
And yes, my capacity was based upon the initial design specification, not the later revised one. My error.
Thanks.
@@ThomasHart59 The information you are using is incorrect. It could be based upon Charles Outland's findings, which have been found to be incorrect, but he did not have the benefit of engineering geology to work from.
Study other works. The fact is, and the American Society of Civil Engineers will back me on this, the failure started on the east abutment due to an ancient paleo landslide. DWP carpenter Ace Hopewell rode his motorcycle over the road as it was beginning to slip. He felt the bump as he passed. A few moments later, just up the road, he saw the wave of water caused by the initial landslide, which washed four feet higher than the high water line of the lake.
This has been verified by numerous other engineers and forensic studies. It's NOT a matter of opinion.
Study the work of Dr. J. David Rogers. He's considered on of the foremost authorities on the subject. His exhaustive work will verify my statements.
I have been doing serious research and written work on the St. Francis Dam for 40 years. And my statements have been verified by not only Dr. Rogers, but also (the late) Robert V. Philips who was Chief Engineer and General Manager of the DWP and whose father was in charge of the St. Francis disaster clean-up operations.
@@PonyHorton Thanks again. And again I'll say: You choose what report you wish to believe. I'll choose the report supported by the majority of the investigators, at the time, while it was still possible to investigate all the evidence present, onsite. Since my assertion is backed by the official, accepted , state commissioned report of the incident from which it is drawn, I'll suggest that you can believe what you wish, but until the State report is withdrawn, my assertion stands with authority. Thanks for your input though, I was aware that there were differing (but unaccepted), controversial opinions, but don't feel the need to go into them in a short video.
Nicely done Thomas! What was the cause of the failure?
Thanks John, with one abutment made up of a loose conglomerate and dirt (west) and the other abutment made up of ancient slide debris, the Dam was simply going to fail, there was no way it couldn't fail.... Apparently the science of geology was not what it is today. Although there is some comment that Mulhulland himself initially thought the area was unsuitable due to the nature of the ground at the abutments. So not sure what happened there... Why several years later he went ahead with it.