Signal: What morning?

Buttelman: March 12, 1928, the day of the failure — and reported that the water was clear, coming out from underneath the structure, which would mean just that it's a harmless leak.
    Also what was noticed that day was a new leak on the eastern side — which is the side Laurena is talking about — the eastern abutment. That did also occur, a small leak on the eastern side.

Signal: So there were leaks, but they were saying it wasn't a problem?

Buttelman: That's correct. They were saying that (the leaks) weren't undercutting the dam, they were just leaks off of hard rock.
    Mulholland, as a matter of fact, stated, "All dams leak" — and a leak isn't really a bad thing unless it's undercutting, unless it's taking material away from underneath the dam, the footing. That's when the problems arise in a concrete dam. Now, in an earthen dam, obviously if you got a leak it's a little more of a problem.

Signal: Laurena, when you were there in late February, did you actually see leaking in the dam?

Carter: Oh yes, I did.

Signal: What did it look like?

Carter: Well, I would say the leakage was no bigger than my thumb, maybe a little smaller, and it was trickling down the side of the dam, into the dirt and on down. I don't think that it turned into the little creek that was there.
    Now, I did have pictures of that creek, but they were very, very funny, because I was wading in the water in the creek and I had my dress all rolled up, and years ago I threw (the picture) away because I thought it was terrible.
    I was close enough when I was wading in the creek that I could look up and see the water coming out. It didn't seem like it was very big. My guess was it was about like my thumb; I'm just guessing because it's so long ago that some of the particulars...

Signal: Do you remember if it was on the right side or the left side as you were facing it?

Carter: It was on the right side of the dam, halfway up.

Signal: Was it right up against the mountain, or was it on the face of the dam?

Carter: It was right up against the dam.

Signal: On the face of the dam?

Carter: Yes. Right on the edge of the dam.

Signal: Isn't that one of the places where the dam broke?

Buttelman: Well, the theory of the eastern side causing the failure — there isn't total fact; nobody survived who saw the dam fail, so we can't say for certain that it failed on the eastern or western side.
    The state of California had a theory that it failed the western side, at the fault line, on the western abutment. J. David Rogers, who is a dam engineer, has done a lot of research on it, and his theory is that the failure (occurred) on the eastern abutment, which is the theory I go along with.
    So yes, the theory is, there was a small blowout down the dam, probably halfway, two-thirds of the way down, which undercut the eastern abutment, the hillside, triggering a landslide that took out the eastern side of the damn, simplistically put.
    So yes, that is one of the theories, that the eastern side failed first.

Signal: Laurena, did you just see only the one leak?

Carter: Only the one leak, yes.

Signal: Keith, was it all of these cracks that caused the dam to break, or was it something else?

Buttelman: Basically, it was geology that killed the St. Francis.
    The eastern side of the dam was on a shift, or shale, which was very fractured. Also, the whole eastern side of that hillside was an ancient landslide that had taken place millennia ago, and actually, there was an earthen dam that plugged that whole area up, creating a lake larger than the reservoir of the St. Francis or anything else, and eventually was eaten away.
    So the hillside itself was unstable, and that is one of the reasons that if you ever see a picture of the St. Francis, of the hillside where the landslide took place, the slide actually occurred 50 to 100 feet above the top of the St. Francis. That's what took out the power lines that designated the time of the failure at 11:57:30 (p.m.). That's when the power lines were cut.

Carter: I have a question. It's very odd that the middle of the dam was still standing when I went back. Why would all that pressure not take the middle of the dam out?

Buttelman: Well, there were cracks in the face of the dam. There were four large cracks, contraction cracks from the original pouring.
    When they poured the St. Francis, they didn't know that Portland cement, the concrete they use, generates its own heat when it's poured in large sections. So as the dam cured, four large cracks appeared — two in the center section that went alongside that one piece that remained standing after the failure, plus two on the abutments.
    Now, those were filled in 1927 with oakum, which is basically wedges of oak, and with grout. So the theory (is), when the dam failed, when the eastern side failed because of the landslide, the dam then started to shift toward the east, because there was no longer a structure there separating it from the western side, and it failed along those two existing cracks in the center section of the dam.

Signal: Laurena, you mentioned what you called "sloppy cement." What is that?

Carter: Sloppy cement is, let's say, a half a sack of cement to a bucket of water, or two-thirds of a bucket of water, and take a hole and mix it up. That's what they were doing. I could tell that they were using sloppy cement, otherwise it wouldn't go down the hose.

Signal: So a very liquid cement.

Carter: It had to be liquid to go down into the hose. They couldn't put anything that was real heavy in there. There was no sand or gravel. I think it was strictly cement. I didn't see any sand or gravel or any sacks of it. But I did see the cement, and I did see that they had a bucket and a hoe, and they were mixing up sloppy cement, I call it.

Signal: If you go out to the site of the dam and examine the rubble, it looks like they just used whatever dirt and rocks were in the area, and threw them together with the cement when they built the dam. Was the composition of the dam itself a problem?

Buttelman: Mulholland always stated that the concrete was of acceptable quality. They would bring in the cement, and they would use the rocks from the existing creek base. Theoretically, it would be washed and then mixed with the concrete. So you will find the rocks in the concrete — like normally when we look for gravel or something like that, when you buy a sack of concrete at the hardware store. Well, they took the rocks from the existing creekbed; it saved them money.
    Part of the problem with the mixing of the concrete, though, they found with the St. Francis — because Mulholland said it was of average strength; tests have said it was a little weak — they used what's called a batch plant, which if you ever see a picture of the construction, you'll see there's a structure with a long tube coming off of it. Basically they mix the concrete there, pump it up this pipe, and then it would be distributed higher up into the dam. But as it was being done, the aggregate of the rocks would separate from the cement, thus causing a weaker cement.
    Was that responsible for the failure? Probably not. It's accepted that the strength of the concrete was not responsible for the failure, that it was the geology of the area.

Signal: Would this "sloppy cement," a cement and water mixture, be sufficient to plug a leak?

Buttelman: I'm not an expert. That's something an engineer would have to answer. I don't know.

Carter: Since my dad was in cement, I looked at it and I thought, "They'll never get a leak stopped with that sloppy cement."

Signal: What did you think when you saw it? Did you think "Boy, they've got a problem and it's going to break?"

Carter: I never thought about the dam breaking. It never entered my mind whatsoever. And of course four or five, six days later, when I heard about it, I was shocked. Right away I thought, "Oh, I wonder if that leak caused the dam to break." But I had no idea. And I did think that it was not a smart move to make, putting sloppy cement where there was water coming out.

Signal: How soon after the dam break did you come back and visit?

Carter: As soon as the (road conditions would) let me go back. ... Because I thought, "Oh my God, this has happened right after we were there? And the dam is gone?"

Signal: How many weeks later was it when you came back?

Carter: Oh, I don't think it was weeks. ... My guess would be about five days, because for a while, you couldn't get through on the roads.

Signal: Describe what you saw, five days after the dam broke.

Carter: I stood there, looked at that hunk in the middle and I thought, "Good grief, both sides of the dam are gone?" And here's this piece in the middle; I just was amazed. I couldn't believe that it had happened.

Signal: What about the destruction you saw on the way?

Carter: I didn't see much, because they wouldn't let me on the roads.

Signal: Then how did you get there?

Carter: I went some back roads, in and out.

Signal: You came up and around the dam?

Carter: Yes. And I thought, "Well, I'm going to take a picture of the piece that's standing." But no, most of the roads were closed for quite a long time. I kind of went in the back way and knew my way around, and I left the car on the side of the road and walked down and took a picture of the part that was standing.

Signal: Did you know people who died?

Carter: Did I know anyone that died? No. I didn't know a soul.

Signal: One of your pictures shows some cars near the section that was left standing (see photo, page C1). On the back it says, "April 8, 1929," so it's just about a year afterward. Did you take that picture?

Carter: Yes, but I can't vouch about the date on it at all.

Signal: Do you have any idea what the cars are doing?

Carter: No, I can't tell you.

Signal: If you were there on April 8, 1929, that would have been just before that center section was dynamited.

Carter: That was before they dynamited the center, yes.

Signal: Why did they dynamite it?

Buttelman: The center was dynamited, I believe it was in 1929 ... the DWP said for two reasons. One was for safety; a young man had been killed on the face of the dam about six months earlier, and (two), the DWP said they didn't want people to have to be reminded of it. So it was dynamited — (a) for safety and (b) to try to start to bury the memory of it.
    Because not only the center structure was dynamited, but a lot of the larger blocks downstream were dynamited and reduced to rubble. Actually they tried to contour it to look like what the rest of the area looks like, and that's why you don't see any of the large blocks down there today. There is only one block intact down there.

Signal: Laurena, if you were living in the Hawthorne-Inglewood area at the time, what was the reaction like?

Carter: When the dam broke? Personally, I couldn't believe it. I could not believe it. That big hunk of cement broke? To me it was unbelievable. I was shocked and I couldn't believe it.

Signal: Were people in Los Angeles talking about it?

Carter: Well, I heard it over the radio, that it had broke, and of course right away I thought, "Oh, I'll go back to see for myself." But I had to wait, because most of the roads in that area were closed. But as soon as I could get in there, I went in and I took the picture, then, of the piece that was standing in the middle.

Signal: Keith, what questions do you have? What's important in all of this?

Buttelman: The main questions she has answered, which is the time at which the photographs were taken. That's one of the important items here, is that these being taken two weeks before the failure could call into question a lot of things.

Signal: Such as?

Buttelman: If the timeline can be verified — and photographs usually speak for themselves, too. Photographs usually have a way of verifying when they were taken by themselves, be it people in the foreground or a lot of times, images that are in the background.
    You asked earlier about the height of the reservoir when the photographs were taken. There are definite benchmarks. They know what height the reservoir was at certain dates in the life of the St. Francis. So (the photographs) warrant a lot more investigation of them, because if that was a timeline, then why wasn't it mentioned at the coroner's inquest? It was never brought up.

Signal: You mean the fact that they were filling the cracks?

Buttelman: The fact that they were doing repair work on the dam two weeks before the failure. That would have been something worth investigating at that time. And then if there was a problem with it, why wasn't any word given downstream?
    Now, we're not at that point, obviously. But it does raise some interesting issues, and as I said, worthy of investigation of the photographs.

Signal: Laurena, anything you'd like to add?

Carter: I think you pretty well covered it.

    See this interview in its entirety today at 8:30 a.m., and watch for another "Newsmaker of the Week" on Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. on SCVTV Channel 20, available to Time Warner Cable subscribers throughout the Santa Clarita Valley.