dryheat
09-19-2023, 10:10
The St. Francis Dam was a concrete gravity dam located in San Francisquito Canyon in northern Los Angeles County, California that was built between 1924 and 1926 to serve the city of Los Angeles's growing water needs. It failed catastrophically in 1928 due to a defective soil foundation and design flaws, unleashing a flood that claimed the lives of at least 431 people.[2][3] The collapse of the dam is considered to have been one of the worst American civil engineering disasters of the 20th century, and remains the 3rd-greatest loss of life in California's history, exceeded only by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire and the Great Flood of 1862.[4][5][6]
Why do I bring this up? Because it echos what is happening on a large scale today. Politicians who don't know what they are doing are directing large scale human engineering.
Mulholland was a smart engineer. He had doubts about the surrounding geology but he went along with the project. There were numerous warnings of cracks in the dam itself and the land that it was attached to wasn't firm (like a lot of CA hills). They literally stuffed mud and glue into the cracks and ignored what was happening. It blew out one night and wiped out everything downstream.
There is a flood taking place today, but it's people not water, but maybe as damaging. "It'll be OK" We just have to repeat the old saw- The Border is Broken (whatever the hell that means), and then go back to what we were doing.
Why do I bring this up? Because it echos what is happening on a large scale today. Politicians who don't know what they are doing are directing large scale human engineering.
Mulholland was a smart engineer. He had doubts about the surrounding geology but he went along with the project. There were numerous warnings of cracks in the dam itself and the land that it was attached to wasn't firm (like a lot of CA hills). They literally stuffed mud and glue into the cracks and ignored what was happening. It blew out one night and wiped out everything downstream.
There is a flood taking place today, but it's people not water, but maybe as damaging. "It'll be OK" We just have to repeat the old saw- The Border is Broken (whatever the hell that means), and then go back to what we were doing.