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Uploaded 03/12/1995

St. Francis Dam Disaster, with Frank Rock

Philip Scorza’s Points of Interest: St. Francis Dam Disaster, with Frank Rock

1995

 

Construction on the 600-foot-long, 185-foot-high St. Francis Dam started in August 1924. With a 12.5 billion-gallon capacity, the reservoir began to fill with water on March 1, 1926. It was completed two months later.

At 11:57:30 p.m. on March 12, 1928, the dam failed, sending a 180-foot-high wall of water crashing down San Francisquito Canyon. An estimated 431 people lay dead by the time the floodwaters reached the Pacific Ocean south of Ventura 5½ hours later.

It was the second-worst disaster in California history, after the great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906, in terms of lives lost — and America’s worst civil engineering failure of the 20th Century.

 

(c)1995/2015 Philip Scorza | SCVTV
5 Comments for Philip Scorza's Points of Interest: St. Francis Dam Disaster, with Frank Rock
  1. OMG 180ft wave!!! So scary…. Jason Rueck

  2. Jason Rueck says:

    Oh my god. Didn’t I just tell u about this a couple hours ago.?.?.?.? That’s really weird… Danielle Brunsell

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