Today in Labor History March 12, 1928: The St. Francis Dam failed in Los Angeles, California, killing 431 people. It is the second deadliest disaster in California, after the 1906 earthquake, and one of the worst U.S. civil engineering disasters ever. A defective foundation and design flaws caused the failure. Yet, the inquest absolved chief engineer, William Mulholland, of all criminal responsibility, and he continued to earn a salary from the Bureau of Public Works (though his career was effectively ended). The authorities continued to find victims of the flood until the mid-1950s. Many of the victims were out to sea. Some washed ashore as far south as Mexico. Mulholland was also the designer of the 233-mile Los Angeles Aqueduct, which sucks water from the Owens Valley and is a major cause of the depletion of the fragile Mono Lake. As its water levels continues to decline, it threatens the world’s second largest gull rookery, home to up to 50,000 birds. The aqueduct’s construction, and the shady methods Mulholland used to acquire the water rights, led to the California Water Wars between LA County and Owens Valley farmers. Many of those same Anglo farmers (or their predecessors) usurped the land from Piute people during the 1863 Owens Valley Indian War, which was precipitated, in part, by the vast loss of human and cattle lives, and the displacements, caused by the Megaflood of 1861, which inundated much of the West, from Idaho and Oregon, down to northern Baja California. The corruption related to the construction of the aqueduct has been portrayed in the film Chinatown, and in the nonfiction book, “Cadillac Desert.”

For more on the Megaflood of 1861, please read my article, “Worse Than the Big One”: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2023/01/04/worse-than-the-big-one-californias-coming-megaflood-2/

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #flood #dam #mulholland #MonoLake #OwensValley #NativeAmerican #indigenous #piute #ecology #chinatown #IndianWar #HabitatDestruction @bookstadon

LA City Emergency Management Dept: "UPDATE: Mulholland (west of Coldwater) closed between Beverly Park and Deep Canyon drives due to unstable hillside. NO through traffic for ~24 hours (minimum) until rains cease. LAFD helped evacuate two residents to a neighbor's home. City agencies to assess for public safety." #Mulholland #DebrisFlow #LosAngeles #LosAngelesCounty #ColdwaterCanyon #CAwx

Not the best video but this game was such fun 12 years (!!) ago. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rGxT6HkpcNM #jamlegend #BrowserGame #mulholland

Beautiful road ride today doing the #RockStoreLoop. Here is the view from #Mulholland.

Out in my neck of the #sanfernandovalley getting back into exercise. I've been very sedentary since starting my new job, and after walking many miles every day in our #scotlandcoast trip. Fire patrols were out on #mulholland One of them was in a white #BMWI3 which was nice to see. Apart from finding abandoned cars and windshield wipers, I was enraptured by #crows.