Why was St. Francis Dam built outside of Santa Clarita?
Built to provide water for the city and suburbs of Los Angeles, the dam was a 200-foot-high concrete monument at the northern end of the San Francisquito Canyon, northeast of Santa Paula.
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The St. Francis Dam, created by the Los Angeles County Water and Power company as part of the California aqueduct system, collapsed at 11:58 pm on March 12, 1928, making it the was the worst manmade disaster in California history.
Francis Dam in the San Francisquito Canyon. Nearby these haunting reminders, there is a sign: “On March 12, 1928, just before midnight, it collapsed and sent over twelve billion gallons of water roaring down the valley of the Santa Clara River. Over 450 lives were lost in this, one of California's greatest disasters.”
Between the years 2000 and 2009 more than 200 notable dam failures happened worldwide. The reservoir emptying through the failed Teton Dam Ruins of the dam of Vega de Tera (Spain) after breaking in 1959.
The January 5, 2023 spillway failure of the North Fork Dam on Pacheco Creek is an unfortunate sign that California has much work to do to ensure dam safety. The North Fork Dam has been a focus of the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) Division of Safety of Dams (DSOD) since at least 2017.
A wave of water washed above the lake to Casso and Erto, communities above the reservoir, where the air blast and water destroyed buildings and caused at least 158 fatalities. Five downstream towns were destroyed including Longarone, Pirago, Rivalta, Villanova, and Fae.
The worst dam failure in the United States was the Johnstown flood of 1889. The failure of the South Fork Dam, which affected Johnstown, is currently regarded as the worst dam failure in U.S. history.
After several days of heavy rainfall in May 1889, the South Fork Dam 14 miles upstream of Johnstown in Pennsylvania failed catastrophically. The resulting flood of 1889 killed more than 2,200 people and caused US$17m damage. It is still the worst dam disaster in US history.
Three minutes before midnight on March 12, 1928, the St. Francis Dam collapsed, sending over 12 billion gallons of water and debris rushing down the Santa Clara River Valley from San Francisquito Canyon to the Pacific Ocean, 54 miles away. In six hours more than 450 people were swept away in the dark and murky waters.
— Nearly 180,000 people were evacuated from Oroville five years ago following a potential Oroville Dam disaster that threatened to flood the town and the surrounding communities.