Download or read book Heavy Ground written by Norris Hundley and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Minutes beforeÊmidnightÊon March 12, 1928, the St. Francis Dam collapsed, sending more than 12 billion gallons of water surging through CaliforniaÕs Santa Clara Valley and killing some 400 people, causing the greatest civil engineering disaster in twentieth-century American history. This extensively illustrated volume gives an account of how the St. Francis Dam came to be built, the reasons for its collapse, the terror and heartbreak brought by the flood, the efforts to restore the Santa Clara Valley, the political factors influencing investigations of the failure, and the effect of the disaster on dam safety regulation. Underlying all is a consideration of how the damÑand the disasterÑwere inextricably intertwined with the life and career of William Mulholland.Ê
Download or read book St Francis Dam Disaster written by John Nichols and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2002-10-01 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Minutes before midnight on the evening of March 12, 1928, the St. Francis Dam collapsed. The dam's 200-foot concrete wall crumpled, sending billions of gallons of raging flood waters down San Francisquito Canyon, sweeping 54 miles down the Santa Clara River to the sea, and claiming over 450 lives in the disaster. Captured here in over 200 images is a photographic record of the devastation caused by the flood, and the heroic efforts of residents and rescue workers. Built by the City of Los Angeles' Bureau of Water Works and Supply, the failure of the St. Francis Dam on its first filling was the greatest American civil engineering failure of the 20th century. Beginning at dawn on the morning after the disaster, stunned local residents picked up their cameras to record the path of destruction, and professional photographers moved in to take images of the washed-out bridges, destroyed homes and buildings, Red Cross workers giving aid, and the massive clean-up that followed. The event was one of the worst disasters in California's history, second only to the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire.
Download or read book Heavy Ground written by Norris Hundley and published by University of Nevada Press. This book was released on 2020-12-08 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Minutes before midnight on March 12, 1928, the St. Francis Dam collapsed, sending more than twelve billion gallons of water surging through Southern California’s Santa Clara Valley, killing some four hundred people and causing the greatest civil engineering disaster in twentieth-century American history. In this carefully researched work, Norris Hundley jr. and Donald C. Jackson provide a riveting narrative exploring the history of the ill-fated dam and the person directly responsible for its flawed design—William Mulholland, a self-taught engineer of the Los Angeles municipal water system. Employing copious illustrations and intensive research, Heavy Ground traces the interwoven roles of politics and engineering in explaining how the St. Francis Dam came to be built and the reasons for its collapse. Hundley and Jackson also detail the terror and heartbreak brought by the flood, legal claims against the City of Los Angeles, efforts to restore the Santa Clara Valley, political factors influencing investigations of the failure, and the effect of the disaster on congressional approval of the future Hoover Dam. Underlying it all is a consideration of how the dam—and the disaster—were inextricably intertwined with the life and career of William Mulholland. Ultimately, this thoughtful and nuanced account of the dam’s failure reveals how individual and bureaucratic conceit fed Los Angeles’s desire to control vital water supplies in the booming metropolis of Southern California.
Download or read book Mulholland and the St Francis Dam Failure written by Bob Mayer and published by Cool Gus Publishing. This book was released on 2017-03-17 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Quote: During the Los Angeles Coroner's Inquest, William Mulholland said, ""this inquest is a very painful for me to have to attend but it is the occasion of that is painful. The only ones I envy about this whole thing are the ones who are dead."" In later testimony, after responding to a question, he added, ""Whether it is good or bad, don't blame anyone else, you just fasten it on me. If there was an error in human judgment, I was the human, I won't try to fasten it on anyone else."" William Mulholland, chief engineer, Water Department Los Angeles Every man-made disaster and catastrophe has at least six Cascade Events leading up to the final event, the catastrophe according to the Rule of Seven. This is a quick read of the Cascade Events of the second greatest loss of life in the history of California: The St. Francis Dam. Bob examines the Rule of Seven, and how human error plays a role in many catastrophes. Nothing happens in isolation or as a result of a single event. Thus, by learning from history, we can gain insight into preventing a similar catastrophe in the future. William Mulholland, a self-taught engineer, brought water to Los Angeles, but he also brought a catastrophe in the form of the St. Francis dam which failed, killing hundreds. From the very land the dam was placed on, to its design, to the failure of Mulholland on the very day the dam would collapse when called by the worried dam-keeper, to see the pending catastrophe. This is one of many catastrophes that Bob Mayer, former Green Beret, West Point Graduate and NY Times Bestselling Author, examines in his series of shorts: The Anatomy of a Catastrophe.
Download or read book William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles written by Catherine Mulholland and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2002-05-06 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mulholland presided over the creation of a water system that forever changed the course of Southern California's history. In the first full-length biography of the water and civil engineer, his granddaughter provides insights into the triumphant completion of the Owens Valley Aqueduct and the San Francisquito Dam tragedy that ended his career. Archival photos. 7 maps.
Download or read book The St Francis Dam Disaster Revisited written by Doyce Blackman Nunis and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The St. Francis Dam was built in San Francisquito Canyon to provide additional storage for the Los Angeles - Owens River Aqueduct. On the night of 12/13 March 1928, it failed catastrophically, killing about 450 people in the San Francisquito and Santa Clara River valleys.
Download or read book Cadillac Desert written by Marc Reisner and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1993-06-01 with total page 674 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “I’ve been thinking a lot about Cadillac Desert in the past few weeks, as the rain fell and fell and kept falling over California, much of which, despite the pouring heavens, seems likely to remain in the grip of a severe drought. Reisner anticipated this moment. He worried that the West’s success with irrigation could be a mirage — that it took water for granted and didn’t appreciate the precariousness of our capacity to control it.” – Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times, January 20,2023 "The definitive work on the West's water crisis." --Newsweek The story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water. It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruption and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecological and economic disaster. In his landmark book, Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants, the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in the competition to transform the West. Based on more than a decade of research, Cadillac Desert is a stunning expose and a dramatic, intriguing history of the creation of an Eden--an Eden that may only be a mirage. This edition includes a new postscript by Lawrie Mott, a former staff scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, that updates Western water issues over the last two decades, including the long-term impact of climate change and how the region can prepare for the future.
Download or read book Water to the Angels written by Les Standiford and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2015-03-31 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of Last Train to Paradise tells the story of the largest public water project ever created—William Mulholland’s Los Angeles aqueduct—a story of Gilded Age ambition, hubris, greed, and one determined man who's vision shaped the future and continues to impact us today. In 1907, Irish immigrant William Mulholland conceived and built one of the greatest civil engineering feats in history: the aqueduct that carried water 223 miles from the Sierra Nevada mountains to Los Angeles—allowing this small, resource-challenged desert city to grow into a modern global metropolis. Drawing on new research, Les Standiford vividly captures the larger-then-life engineer and the breathtaking scope of his six-year, $23 million project that would transform a region, a state, and a nation at the dawn of its greatest century. With energy and colorful detail, Water to the Angels brings to life the personalities, politics, and power—including bribery, deception, force, and bicoastal financial warfare—behind this dramatic event. At a time when the importance of water is being recognized as never before—considered by many experts to be the essential resource of the twenty-first century—Water to the Angels brings into focus the vigor of a fabled era, the might of a larger than life individual, and the scale of a priceless construction project, and sheds critical light on a past that offers insights for our future. Water to the Angels includes 8 pages of photographs.
Download or read book The Mirage Factory written by Gary Krist and published by Crown. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From bestselling author Gary Krist, the story of the metropolis that never should have been and the visionaries who dreamed it into reality Little more than a century ago, the southern coast of California—bone-dry, harbor-less, isolated by deserts and mountain ranges—seemed destined to remain scrappy farmland. Then, as if overnight, one of the world’s iconic cities emerged. At the heart of Los Angeles’ meteoric rise were three flawed visionaries: William Mulholland, an immigrant ditch-digger turned self-taught engineer, designed the massive aqueduct that would make urban life here possible. D.W. Griffith, who transformed the motion picture from a vaudeville-house novelty into a cornerstone of American culture, gave L.A. its signature industry. And Aimee Semple McPherson, a charismatic evangelist who founded a religion, cemented the city’s identity as a center for spiritual exploration. All were masters of their craft, but also illusionists, of a kind. The images they conjured up—of a blossoming city in the desert, of a factory of celluloid dreamworks, of a community of seekers finding personal salvation under the California sun—were like mirages liable to evaporate on closer inspection. All three would pay a steep price to realize these dreams, in a crescendo of hubris, scandal, and catastrophic failure of design that threatened to topple each of their personal empires. Yet when the dust settled, the mirage that was LA remained. Spanning the years from 1900 to 1930, The Mirage Factory is the enthralling tale of an improbable city and the people who willed it into existence by pushing the limits of human engineering and imagination.
Download or read book Ethical Issues from the St Francis Dam Failure written by J. Paul Guyer and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2018-11-27 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A discussion of professional engineering ethical issues arising from the failure of the St. Francis Dam in California.
Download or read book Dams and Public Safety written by Robert B. Jansen and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Water Knife written by Paolo Bacigalupi and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2016-04-05 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A "fresh, genre-bending thriller” (Los Angeles Times) set in the near future when water is scarce and a spy, a hardened journalist and a young Texas migrant find themselves pawns in a corrupt game. "Think Chinatown meets Mad Max." NPR, All Things Considered In the near future, the Colorado River has dwindled to a trickle. Detective, assassin, and spy, Angel Velasquez “cuts” water for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, ensuring that its lush arcology developments can bloom in Las Vegas. When rumors of a game-changing water source surface in Phoenix, Angel is sent south, hunting for answers that seem to evaporate as the heat index soars and the landscape becomes more and more oppressive. There, he encounters Lucy Monroe, a hardened journalist with her own agenda, and Maria Villarosa, a young Texas migrant, who dreams of escaping north. As bodies begin to pile up, the three find themselves pawns in a game far bigger and more corrupt than they could have imagined, and when water is more valuable than gold, alliances shift like sand, and the only truth in the desert is that someone will have to bleed if anyone hopes to drink.
Download or read book Thirsty written by Marc Weingarten and published by Vireo Book, A. This book was released on 2015-10 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of Los Angeles' storied history in regards to water. Starting with William Mullholland and his aqueducts, through the 1926 collapse of the St. Francis Dam, which killed hundreds, and on through to the profound implications Los Angeles' path has for today. Where Marc Reiser's seminal 1986 book Cadillac Desert started, Marc Weingarten'sThirsty continues. Illuminating the complexities of the Los Angeles aquaduct system, the politics behind supplying America's second largest city with water from hundreds of mile away, and the disaster that haunted William Mullholland until his final days. --Publisher's description.
Download or read book Water and Los Angeles written by William Deverell and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program for monographs. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Los Angeles rose to significance in the first half of the twentieth century by way of its complex relationship to three rivers: the Los Angeles, the Owens, and the Colorado. The remarkable urban and suburban trajectory of southern California since then cannot be fully understood without reference to the ways in which each of these three river systems came to be connected to the future of the metropolitan region. This history of growth must be understood in full consideration of all three rivers and the challenges and opportunities they presented to those who would come to make Los Angeles a global power. Full of primary sources and original documents, Water and Los Angeles will be of interest to both students of Los Angeles and general readers interested in the origins of the city.
Download or read book Everything In Its Path written by Steve Alcorn and published by Themeperks. This book was released on 2003 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Just after midnight on March 13, 1928 the recently constructed St. Francis Dam gave way, releasing a 160-foot-high wall of water down San Francisquito Canyon. The torrent swept huge pieces of the dam, some weighing thousands of tons, more than a half mile downstream. Four hours later the water thundered into the Pacific Ocean after erasing nearly everything in its 50-mile path. By morning, more than five hundred people were dead or missing. It was the worst American civil engineering disaster of the twentieth century.Everything In Its Path tells the story of Santa Paula archaeologist Randall Thompson and his daughter Kate, who are excavating a Chumash Indian site in San Francisquito Canyon. As the dig progresses, Randall is puzzled by remains interred beneath a layer of silt. Kate explores the town of Castaic Junction and the dam?s powerhouse, she getting to know the real-life residents. Then she makes an alarming discovery: the dam is leaking!Intertwined with Kate and Randall?s story is that of the prehistoric Chumash settlement. Tribe member Singing Bird is tormented by dreams of water, and her village being swept away. But leader Lone Wolf belittles her premonitions, and threatens her if she speaks out. As storm clouds gather, Singing Bird must decide whether to submit to Lone Wolf or try to save the tribe from the awful event she foresees.Across the centuries the two girls? fates are drawn together, culminating in a remarkable discovery as they struggle to save their loved ones from a force that will sweep away Everything In Its Path.
Download or read book Managing California s Water written by Ellen Hanak and published by Public Policy Instit. of CA. This book was released on 2011 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Perishing written by Natashia Deón and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2022-11-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Black immortal in 1930's Los Angeles must recover the memory of her past in order to discover who she truly is in this extraordinarily affecting novel for readers of N. K. Jemisin and Octavia E. Butler. Lou, a young Black woman, wakes up in an alley in 1930s Los Angeles with no memory of how she got there or where she’s from. Taken in by a caring foster family, Lou dedicates herself to her education while trying to put her mysterious origins behind her. She’ll go on to become the first Black female journalist at the Los Angeles Times, but Lou’s extraordinary life is about to take an even more remarkable turn. When she befriends a firefighter at a downtown boxing gym, Lou is shocked to realize that though she has no memory of meeting him, she’s been drawing his face for years. Increasingly certain that their paths previously crossed—and beset by unexplainable flashes from different eras haunting her dreams—Lou begins to believe she may be an immortal sent here for a very important reason, one that only others like her can explain. Setting out to investigate the mystery of her existence, Lou must make sense of the jumble of lifetimes calling to her, just as new forces threaten the existence of those around her. Immersed in the rich historical tapestry of Los Angeles—Prohibition, the creation of Route 66, and the collapse of the St. Francis Dam—The Perishing is a stunning examination of love and justice through the eyes of one miraculous woman whose fate seems linked to the city she comes to call home.
