Southern California's St. Francis Dam Collapse Is One Of The Worst Disasters In This State's History

The dam towered 185 feet above the stream bed and was said to hold some 12.5 billion gallons of water.

Larger cracks and leaks followed and were dealt with in various manners, from filling and grouting to installing small drain pipes, to simply letting them drain, all at the direction of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s general manager and chief engineer, William Mulholland.

While there were no eyewitnesses to the actual break, it was determined that the entire dam collapsed suddenly. This was clear from the fact that at least five people had seen the dam within an hour beforehand, one having driven past at about 11:50 p.m., combined with the fact that the reservoir was nearly empty within a little over an hour. Only a small piece of the dam was left standing, appearing like a tombstone memorializing the disaster.

Around 5:30 a.m., the wave - which had reached nearly two miles in width and was still moving at close to 6 miles per hour - reached the Pacific Ocean just south of Ventura. The wave dumped debris and bodies that it had collected and carried over the 54 miles from the dam into the sea. Many victim’s bodies were never recovered, being either buried under wreckage and silt or washed out to sea.

The reported death toll has fluctuated due to reports of missing persons that were never settled, as well as the fact that many victims were farm workers without traceable family. A report in 2018, after continual efforts to investigate and figure out who all the victims were, stated the number of deaths to be 411.