William Mulholland - St. Francis Dam Collapse

St. Francis Dam Collapse

Mulholland's career effectively ended on March 12, 1928, when the St. Francis Dam, which he had supervised the building of, failed twelve hours after he and his assistant had personally inspected the site. Within seconds after the collapse only what had been a large section the central part of the dam remained standing and the reservoirs 12.4 billion gallons (45 billion liters or 45 million m³) of water began moving down San Francisquito Canyon in a 140 ft. (43 m) high torrent at 18 miles per hour (29 km/h). In the canyon, it demolished the heavy concrete Powerhouse Number Two (a hydroelectric power plant) and took the lives of 65 of the 67 workmen and their families living there. The waters traveled south and emptied into the Santa Clara riverbed flooding parts of present-day Valencia and Newhall. Following the river bed, the water continued west, flooding the towns of Castaic Junction, Piru, Fillmore, Bardsdale and Santa Paula in Ventura County. It was almost two miles (3 km) wide, and still traveling at a speed of 5 miles (8 km) per hour when it reached the ocean at 5:30 a.m. ; emptying its victims and debris into the Pacific Ocean near Montalvo, 54 miles (87 km) from the reservoir and dam site. Many of the bodies that had been washed out to sea were recovered from the Pacific Ocean, some as far south as the Mexican border; others were never found.

The next morning rescuers found parts of the town of Santa Paula buried under 20 ft. (6 m) of mud and debris, and other parts of Ventura County were covered in as much as 70 ft. (21 m) in flood deposits. Recovery crews worked for days to dig out bodies and clear away the mud from the foods path. The final death toll is estimated to be near 600, of which at least 108 were minors.

Mulholland took full responsibility for what has been called the worst U.S. civil engineering disaster of the 20th century and resigned at the end of 1929. During the Los Angeles Coroner's Inquest he said, "the only people I envy in this whole thing are the dead" and toward the end of the Inquest went on to say, "Don't blame anyone else, you just fasten it on me. If there was an error in human judgment, I was the human, and I won't try to fasten it on anyone else." Though the inquest placed responsibility for the disaster on improper engineering, design, and governmental inspection, it also recommended that Mulholland not be held responsible because he had no way of knowing that the dam's site contained unstable rock formations, which were ultimately determined to be the cause of failure. Nevertheless, his critics pointed out that two other dams which Mulholland had consulted on had collapsed, and a third one was abandoned before completion.