Dam Crumples Under Pressure

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 303, 14 March 1928, Page 1

Dam Crumples Under Pressure

DESOLATION AND DEATH IN CALIFORNIA

rpHE dam broke without warning, due- -* to continued heavy rains, although at first it was stated to be the result o£ an earthquake. The flood poured through several small settlements, wiping out citrus groves and small ranches, and three,tening oil veils in Southern California. The Edison plant immediately below the dam was destroyed and 75 workmen are not accounted for, besides employees in the power plants. Behind the dam, which was 185 feet high, and supplied Los Angeles, was stored 1,200,000,000 gallons of water. Reports from the rescue workers at 10 o’clock stated that one hundred bodies had been recovered at the point where the flood v r aters entered the Santa Paula and Santa Clara Rivers. The deathroil in the devastated Santa Clara River Valley is mounting hourly. Rescuers are struggling frantically to penetrate the area which is piled with wreckage and debris. A present estimate indicates that the death list may go well beyond 200. Unconfirmed reports state that 194 bodies have been recovered. The fate of more than 400 families in the vicinity of Newhall in the direct path of the water is unknown. A colony of over 100 employees of the Los Angeles Power Company is believed to have been trapped between the canyon walls. The western seismographs show no record of an earthquake which could have caused the flood. Rescue workers and the Red Cross are moving into the valley as the water recedes. Near the Pacific, people are still fleeing to the hills before the flood. Communications, highways and means of transportation are obliter ated, and 3,000 persons left homeless. Reports from the rescuers are most fragmentary. At Montalvo on the coast bodies are beginning to appear in the water, which is washing them

from the higher sections at SantaPaula. Bodies are being recovered as fast as the ambulances can take them away. The gas supplj’ line to Los Angeles has snapped. Much petroleum was lost when the oil lines were torn up. Great damage has been done to walnut and citrus orchards, which were torn up by the roots over a great area. The State engineer, Mr. Edward Hyatt, states that the dam which spanned the San Francisquito canyon was in perfect condition according to the last report received. He says that it does not :#em likely that it could have been dynamited by disgruntled farmers. At noon more than 125 bodies of men, women and children had been

Bodies and Debris on Crest of Flood By Cable. —Press Association. — Copyright. Reed 8 a.m. LOS ANGELES, Tuesday. Eetween 200 and 500 lives were lost when the St. Francis reservoir dam in the San Francisquito canyon, 45 miles north of Los Angeles, burst to-day sending a wall of water rushing from the mountains, through the Santa Clara Valley to the sea. The damage is known to be of the greatest, but at present no accurate estimate can be made. Seven towns and cities, which are in the 60-mile wide path of the flood are feared to have been wiped out. All communications have been cut off. The aqueduct dam crumbled under the pressure of water from a cloudburst in the high Sierras and 38,000 acre-feet of water swept into the valley. The towns most severely damaged are: Newhall, Filmore, Saugus, Piru,, Santa Paula, Saticoy, Castiac, Oburg and Camarillo. Reports from the city of Ventura on the Pacific coast say that the Santa Clare River became a torrent 50 feet deep and two miles wide, wrecking homes and railroads, and sweeping away bridges. Animals and debris are being carried down on the crest of the flood.

i-4-recovered. The toll of the flood is growing hourly. ; The flood swept through the valley l while the inhabitants and workmen slept. The loss of property is enor- . mous.—A. and N.Z. j The County of Santa Clara, which suf--1 fered most in the disaster, lies between the Sierra del Monte Diabolo and the sea, to the north of Los Angeles. The soil is fertile, especially in the valley of the l Santa Clara River, down which the flood i travelled, and the climate is famous for its mildness. The city of Los Angeles is effectively > protected from the flood by the Susana - Mountains, which form the southern waH of the Santa Clara Valley. • It is interesting to note that, as the L capacity of the St. Francis reservoir is 12,000,000,000 gallons, it is considerably larger than the three Auckland dams put together, which have a total capacity of 1 only 1,030,000,000 gallons.