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World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2017 388
Figure 7. Plugging of the dam’s contraction joints on the downstream face could have had
disastrous consequences by creating full reservoir pressure against the interior faces of the
main dam, especially if the grouting behind the face was anything less than a 100% seal.
This was a detail apparently missed by all of the post-failure reviews in 1928.
SUPERVISION OF THE DAM’S DESIGN
At the Coroner’s Inquest BWWS Senior Office Engineer William W. Hurlbut stated that he was
responsible for overseeing “all of the drawings, computations, in connection with that,” [for the
St. Francis Dam] were “done under his supervision.” He then added that “the dam was designed
on the basis of studies which were made on the Hollywood Dam. The studies for Hollywood Dam
were for a gravity type of dam, two hundred and ten feet in height, and the design on that dam
corresponds to the same general conditions as on the St. Francis. One of them is 203 and the
other 208 feet, and the studies were on the gravity type dam of 208 feet.”
World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2017
