90th Anniversary of St. Francis Dam Failure

The St. Francis Dam, constructed and owned by the City of Los Angeles, was a 205-foot tall concrete arched gravity dam which impounded about 38,000 acre-feet of water. On March 12, 1928, just before midnight, and days after the reservoir was filled to capacity for the first time, the dam failed catastrophically. The resulting flood wave rampaged for over 5 hours through the night as it traveled 54 miles downstream, ending at the Pacific Ocean. In its wake, it destroyed thousands of acres of farmland, ripped apart more than a thousand structures, and cut short more than 400 lives. Now, 90 years later, no one who witnessed the flood in person remains alive, but a review of first-hand accounts collected over the years reminds us of how truly deadly and destructive the flood was.