Santa Clarita Valley History In Pictures
> ST. FRANCIS DAM DISASTER
Aerial View of Flood Path (Composite)
Castaic Junction | St. Francis Dam Disaster


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Composite

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Left (North) Side

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Right (South) Side

Composite of two aerial views of the floodpath at Castaic Junction.


Construction on the 600-foot-long, 185-foot-high St. Francis Dam started in August 1924. With a 12.5-billion-gallon capacity, the reservoir began to fill with water on March 1, 1926. It was completed two months later.

At 11:57:30 p.m. on March 12, 1928, the dam failed, sending a 180-foot-high wall of water crashing down San Francisquito Canyon. An estimated 411 people lay dead by the time the floodwaters reached the Pacific Ocean south of Ventura 5½ hours later.

It was the second-worst disaster in California history, after the great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906, in terms of lives lost — and America's worst civil engineering failure of the 20th Century.


RO2803i: 19200 dpi jpeg; composite of RO2803g and RO2803h. Online image only.
LADWP Archive
CASTAIC JUNCTION
St. Francis Dam Disaster

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Flood Path Aerials x3

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High Water Mark

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SPRR Tracks Moved

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SPRR Track Erosion

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Highway Pile Driver

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Highway Pile Driver

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Highway Pile Driver

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