1 00:00:01,070 --> 00:00:03,244 Viewers like you make this program possible. 2 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 3 00:00:03,279 --> 00:00:05,350 Support your local PBS station. 4 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 5 00:00:26,164 --> 00:00:29,236 At two-and-a-half minutes before midnight 6 00:00:29,270 --> 00:00:30,961 on the 12th of March 1928, 7 00:00:30,996 --> 00:00:35,518 the lights in Los Angeles flickered. 8 00:00:35,552 --> 00:00:40,695 William Mulholland was asleep at his home near Windsor Square. 9 00:00:40,730 --> 00:00:42,766 He didn't notice. 10 00:00:44,527 --> 00:00:46,632 Mulholland runs an agency 11 00:00:46,667 --> 00:00:48,979 that is in charge of providing water 12 00:00:49,014 --> 00:00:51,913 for Los Angeles. 13 00:00:51,948 --> 00:00:54,778 He's a civil servant. 14 00:00:54,813 --> 00:00:56,918 Nonetheless, he's extraordinarily powerful, 15 00:00:56,953 --> 00:00:59,093 and he knows it. 16 00:00:59,128 --> 00:01:03,028 Mulholland is the man who brought 17 00:01:03,063 --> 00:01:05,134 water to the city of Los Angeles. 18 00:01:05,168 --> 00:01:06,825 With the aqueduct, 19 00:01:06,859 --> 00:01:09,483 with the dams, 20 00:01:09,517 --> 00:01:14,004 he forges Los Angeles into a major city. 21 00:01:14,039 --> 00:01:19,907 Meanwhile, in a canyon 40 miles northwest of the city, 22 00:01:19,941 --> 00:01:21,598 Ace Hopewell pulled his motorcycle 23 00:01:21,633 --> 00:01:25,568 to the side of the road. 24 00:01:25,602 --> 00:01:28,640 He passed the St. Francis Dam about a mile back, 25 00:01:28,674 --> 00:01:31,194 Mulholland's most recent creation: 26 00:01:31,229 --> 00:01:34,094 a wall of concrete 20 stories high 27 00:01:34,128 --> 00:01:36,613 holding back 12 billion gallons of water. 28 00:01:39,099 --> 00:01:41,308 As he lit a cigarette, 29 00:01:41,342 --> 00:01:44,311 Hopewell heard a sound in the distance. 30 00:01:49,385 --> 00:01:53,837 The St. Francis Dam was collapsing. 31 00:01:53,872 --> 00:01:56,357 It's 54 miles to the ocean. 32 00:01:56,392 --> 00:01:59,360 As many as 10,000 people 33 00:01:59,395 --> 00:02:01,949 are downstream from this. 34 00:02:01,983 --> 00:02:04,331 They could actually feel the vibration 35 00:02:04,365 --> 00:02:06,712 and they could hear it coming. 36 00:02:06,747 --> 00:02:09,439 It felt like an earthquake. 37 00:02:09,474 --> 00:02:11,096 They saw their neighbors running out. 38 00:02:11,131 --> 00:02:13,236 And then they realized. 39 00:02:13,271 --> 00:02:16,791 But by that time, the water was just upon them. 40 00:02:16,826 --> 00:02:18,655 Most of the people who were killed 41 00:02:18,690 --> 00:02:23,350 probably never knew what was happening to them. 42 00:02:23,384 --> 00:02:28,389 That wall of water carried bodies 43 00:02:28,424 --> 00:02:29,977 out to the Pacific Ocean. 44 00:02:32,221 --> 00:02:34,188 It was one of the worst civil engineering disasters 45 00:02:34,223 --> 00:02:36,121 in American history, 46 00:02:36,156 --> 00:02:38,365 rooted in a national drive 47 00:02:38,399 --> 00:02:42,576 to harness nature and remake the West. 48 00:02:42,610 --> 00:02:43,887 The question is not whether 49 00:02:43,922 --> 00:02:45,717 water should have been brought to Los Angeles, 50 00:02:45,751 --> 00:02:49,928 but rather how it was done. 51 00:02:49,962 --> 00:02:53,966 Because the consequences are so devastating. 52 00:02:54,001 --> 00:02:56,003 When infrastructure fails, 53 00:02:56,037 --> 00:03:00,180 engineers use the disaster to learn from and rebuild. 54 00:03:00,214 --> 00:03:03,079 But the failure of the St. Francis Dam is as much 55 00:03:03,113 --> 00:03:05,875 a social-political story as it is 56 00:03:05,909 --> 00:03:08,533 an engineering story. 57 00:03:08,567 --> 00:03:10,707 And when there's a social disaster, 58 00:03:10,742 --> 00:03:15,747 we need to think about, where did we go wrong as a society? 59 00:03:36,423 --> 00:03:38,942 When I was a young boy, 60 00:03:38,977 --> 00:03:43,533 my parents would always warn me not to go to the river. 61 00:03:43,568 --> 00:03:48,055 They would tell the story of La Llorona, 62 00:03:48,089 --> 00:03:50,644 the woman that would be crying along the riverbed, 63 00:03:50,678 --> 00:03:51,921 searching for her children. 64 00:03:55,269 --> 00:04:00,412 There's definitely a haunting of the river even to this day. 65 00:04:02,552 --> 00:04:06,591 And I never understood until I was much older 66 00:04:06,625 --> 00:04:10,111 why there were ghosts along the Santa Clara River. 67 00:04:27,681 --> 00:04:29,545 The St. Francis Dam disaster 68 00:04:29,579 --> 00:04:33,342 began in a flush of hope. 69 00:04:33,376 --> 00:04:37,346 On a perfect November morning in 1913, 70 00:04:37,380 --> 00:04:42,143 40,000 Angelenos gathered at a new landmark called the Cascades 71 00:04:42,178 --> 00:04:48,011 to inaugurate one of the wonders of the modern world. 72 00:04:48,046 --> 00:04:51,152 The Los Angeles Aqueduct was a perfect emblem 73 00:04:51,187 --> 00:04:53,672 for the city of tomorrow: 74 00:04:53,707 --> 00:04:56,744 more than 200 miles of pipes and canals 75 00:04:56,779 --> 00:05:00,645 carrying enough water for two-and-a-half million people, 76 00:05:00,679 --> 00:05:03,164 ten times the current population, 77 00:05:03,199 --> 00:05:09,067 from the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the outskirts of the city. 78 00:05:09,101 --> 00:05:15,349 The aqueduct does hail a new beginning for Los Angeles. 79 00:05:15,384 --> 00:05:19,905 It very much follows on the idea of Manifest Destiny, 80 00:05:19,940 --> 00:05:21,493 but now it's not just about land. 81 00:05:21,528 --> 00:05:23,115 It's about controlling the resources 82 00:05:23,150 --> 00:05:26,429 to make the American West the kind of civilization 83 00:05:26,464 --> 00:05:29,432 they want it to be, the kind of place that they want it to be. 84 00:05:32,401 --> 00:05:34,713 The "Los Angeles Times" proclaimed, 85 00:05:34,748 --> 00:05:37,475 "A mighty river has been brought out 86 00:05:37,509 --> 00:05:42,272 from the mountain wilderness, an inexhaustible supply of water." 87 00:05:42,307 --> 00:05:44,378 And there was more. 88 00:05:44,413 --> 00:05:47,761 They realized that they could use this flow 89 00:05:47,795 --> 00:05:51,385 to turn generators and generate 90% of the electricity 90 00:05:51,420 --> 00:05:54,561 that was needed by Los Angeles. 91 00:05:54,595 --> 00:05:58,323 With ample water and clean power, 92 00:05:58,358 --> 00:06:00,981 L.A. would lead the way to a better future, 93 00:06:01,015 --> 00:06:03,811 far from the crowded cities of the East. 94 00:06:05,606 --> 00:06:07,367 "No black pillars of smoke 95 00:06:07,401 --> 00:06:10,473 shall blind the sun," the "L.A. Times" promised, 96 00:06:10,508 --> 00:06:13,718 "no army of grimy workers 97 00:06:13,752 --> 00:06:17,687 "shall feed the red-mouthed furnaces, 98 00:06:17,722 --> 00:06:21,001 "for the river, bound with hoops of steel, 99 00:06:21,035 --> 00:06:25,454 shall generate the power for numberless industries." 100 00:06:25,488 --> 00:06:29,458 "We will be a modern city. 101 00:06:29,492 --> 00:06:30,942 "We're not going to be like those older places 102 00:06:30,976 --> 00:06:32,564 "that have these older social problems. 103 00:06:32,599 --> 00:06:34,601 We can remake ourselves in this new way." 104 00:06:34,635 --> 00:06:38,881 Having, quote-unquote, "ended the frontier era," 105 00:06:38,915 --> 00:06:44,473 the West is now going to be 106 00:06:44,507 --> 00:06:47,855 won or lost through its cities. 107 00:06:47,890 --> 00:06:54,828 The rise of faith in the city, it's very optimistic. 108 00:06:56,864 --> 00:06:59,211 The mastermind behind the aqueduct 109 00:06:59,246 --> 00:07:00,903 was the head of the Los Angeles Bureau 110 00:07:00,937 --> 00:07:03,112 of Water Works and Supply, 111 00:07:03,146 --> 00:07:07,427 an Irish immigrant who never finished grade school. 112 00:07:09,014 --> 00:07:11,603 "Well, I went to school in Ireland when I was a boy," 113 00:07:11,638 --> 00:07:14,572 William Mulholland told a reporter, 114 00:07:14,606 --> 00:07:17,264 "learned the three Rs and the Ten Commandments... 115 00:07:17,298 --> 00:07:20,716 "or most of them... made a pilgrimage to the Blarney Stone, 116 00:07:20,750 --> 00:07:25,272 received my father's blessing, and here I am." 117 00:07:25,306 --> 00:07:26,722 He starts out 118 00:07:26,756 --> 00:07:27,861 as a ditch digger. 119 00:07:27,895 --> 00:07:29,932 I mean, you can't start out any lower, 120 00:07:29,966 --> 00:07:31,381 you know, than that. 121 00:07:31,416 --> 00:07:34,108 But that's what made him such a good field general. 122 00:07:34,143 --> 00:07:37,284 He understands the working man 123 00:07:37,318 --> 00:07:39,113 and how to marshal their efforts. 124 00:07:39,148 --> 00:07:41,875 That was what he lived for. 125 00:07:41,909 --> 00:07:43,808 Angelenos really loved him 126 00:07:43,842 --> 00:07:47,846 because he was a working-class immigrant who had made good. 127 00:07:47,881 --> 00:07:50,746 He was the hearty Irishman, 128 00:07:50,780 --> 00:07:53,438 the man of the people. 129 00:07:54,991 --> 00:07:57,338 But the settlers in the Owens River Valley, 130 00:07:57,373 --> 00:07:59,306 the source of L.A.'s water, 131 00:07:59,340 --> 00:08:02,516 saw William Mulholland very differently. 132 00:08:02,551 --> 00:08:07,556 As far as they were concerned, he was taking their river, 133 00:08:07,590 --> 00:08:10,973 leaving farms and towns to wither on the vine. 134 00:08:11,007 --> 00:08:14,321 They had been kept in the dark about the aqueduct 135 00:08:14,355 --> 00:08:18,705 as the city quietly bought up their land and water rights. 136 00:08:18,739 --> 00:08:23,399 The Owens Valley was a rural, high-desert community 137 00:08:23,433 --> 00:08:27,852 that had begun settled by Euro Americans in the 1860s. 138 00:08:27,886 --> 00:08:32,442 Their fortunes were tied to the Owens River. 139 00:08:32,477 --> 00:08:35,549 The water wasn't stolen, 140 00:08:35,584 --> 00:08:39,795 but it was not acquired all in the up-and-up. 141 00:08:39,829 --> 00:08:41,624 They certainly didn't tell them that their plan really 142 00:08:41,659 --> 00:08:43,626 was to run the water down to Los Angeles. 143 00:08:43,661 --> 00:08:46,560 The anger in the Owens Valley 144 00:08:46,595 --> 00:08:49,114 would haunt Mulholland to his grave, 145 00:08:49,149 --> 00:08:53,049 but for most Angelenos, any qualms about the project 146 00:08:53,084 --> 00:08:56,639 were eclipsed by its breathtaking scale and ambition. 147 00:09:00,332 --> 00:09:03,577 It is a gargantuan construction project: 148 00:09:03,612 --> 00:09:08,755 placing metal aqueduct structures 149 00:09:08,789 --> 00:09:10,998 in and around valleys, 150 00:09:11,033 --> 00:09:12,897 arroyos, sheer mountains, 151 00:09:12,931 --> 00:09:15,382 long, flat, dry expanses 152 00:09:15,416 --> 00:09:18,040 of the California landscape. 153 00:09:18,074 --> 00:09:20,180 It's astonishing. 154 00:09:41,650 --> 00:09:44,100 To think that you could bring that water 155 00:09:44,135 --> 00:09:47,310 over 200 miles, that's just extraordinary at the time. 156 00:09:47,345 --> 00:09:49,209 It would be a huge project today. 157 00:09:51,763 --> 00:09:55,664 On that November day in 1913, 158 00:09:55,698 --> 00:09:56,941 when Angelenos gathered at the Cascades 159 00:09:56,975 --> 00:10:00,323 to celebrate the opening of the aqueduct, 160 00:10:00,358 --> 00:10:04,155 they were captivated by the city's glittering future. 161 00:10:07,572 --> 00:10:09,367 Shortly after 1:00 p.m., 162 00:10:09,401 --> 00:10:12,335 Owens River water was released down the Cascades 163 00:10:12,370 --> 00:10:14,165 for the first time. 164 00:10:22,380 --> 00:10:24,140 The people just rushed toward the water. 165 00:10:24,175 --> 00:10:27,385 They had brought tin cups to dip 166 00:10:27,419 --> 00:10:29,214 into the water as it was coming down, 167 00:10:29,249 --> 00:10:31,354 to drink the first water from this man-made river. 168 00:10:33,218 --> 00:10:36,532 As the crowd rushed to marvel at their new river, 169 00:10:36,566 --> 00:10:39,569 Mulholland perfectly captured the moment. 170 00:10:39,604 --> 00:10:42,469 "There it is," he shouted from the stage. 171 00:10:42,503 --> 00:10:45,575 "Take it." 172 00:10:54,792 --> 00:10:57,795 The aqueduct was a game changer. 173 00:10:57,829 --> 00:11:00,763 It made Los Angeles 174 00:11:00,798 --> 00:11:03,593 the fastest-growing city in the United States. 175 00:11:05,285 --> 00:11:08,046 The aqueduct teaches Los Angeles that 176 00:11:08,081 --> 00:11:10,704 it can do bold and amazing things. 177 00:11:10,739 --> 00:11:12,533 Suburbs are springing up all over, 178 00:11:12,568 --> 00:11:14,294 and migrants are pouring into Los Angeles. 179 00:11:16,468 --> 00:11:18,747 It was a moment of great excitement. 180 00:11:20,818 --> 00:11:22,785 That's not to say this works for everybody 181 00:11:22,820 --> 00:11:24,718 by any stretch of the imagination. 182 00:11:24,753 --> 00:11:28,964 There's racial segregation in law and in practice. 183 00:11:28,998 --> 00:11:31,656 There's violence meted out to non-whites. 184 00:11:31,691 --> 00:11:33,727 So, it's not a alchemy 185 00:11:33,762 --> 00:11:38,042 of fulfillment and happiness that spreads to everybody. 186 00:11:38,076 --> 00:11:41,631 But the mythic qualities of it are palpable. 187 00:11:44,393 --> 00:11:49,053 The dream was: come here, perhaps start anew. 188 00:11:52,573 --> 00:11:55,162 But as Los Angeles boomed, 189 00:11:55,197 --> 00:11:58,200 Southern California was drying up. 190 00:11:58,234 --> 00:12:01,479 By the time the population blew past the one million mark 191 00:12:01,513 --> 00:12:05,172 in the early 1920s, the aqueduct flow had been cut 192 00:12:05,207 --> 00:12:08,555 almost in half by years of drought. 193 00:12:08,589 --> 00:12:13,733 Just think about it: they were looking out 50 years, 194 00:12:13,767 --> 00:12:16,114 and they were out of water in ten. 195 00:12:17,564 --> 00:12:19,808 Surprise, surprise. 196 00:12:19,842 --> 00:12:21,016 That's what California is full of. 197 00:12:21,050 --> 00:12:22,327 It's full of surprises. 198 00:12:22,362 --> 00:12:26,193 What Mulholland created was an illusion of abundance. 199 00:12:26,228 --> 00:12:30,059 And so, the people of the city of Los Angeles 200 00:12:30,094 --> 00:12:31,267 keep using more water 201 00:12:31,302 --> 00:12:35,996 instead of responding to drought conditions. 202 00:12:36,031 --> 00:12:39,379 There are lawns everywhere. 203 00:12:39,413 --> 00:12:44,142 Spectacular flower gardens. 204 00:12:44,177 --> 00:12:47,456 The amount of water poured onto those lawns 205 00:12:47,490 --> 00:12:49,044 is pretty astounding. 206 00:12:51,080 --> 00:12:53,427 In order to quench L.A.'s thirst, 207 00:12:53,462 --> 00:12:55,705 the Bureau of Water went on another buying spree 208 00:12:55,740 --> 00:12:56,810 in the Owens Valley, 209 00:12:56,845 --> 00:13:00,296 laying claim to most of the remaining water 210 00:13:00,331 --> 00:13:03,852 and further undermining the region's economy. 211 00:13:03,886 --> 00:13:06,613 There's a tremendous amount of anger 212 00:13:06,647 --> 00:13:08,373 growing in the Owens Valley. 213 00:13:08,408 --> 00:13:12,688 There's a sense that the community 214 00:13:12,722 --> 00:13:15,449 is really being destroyed. 215 00:13:21,110 --> 00:13:23,837 To see this distant city 216 00:13:23,872 --> 00:13:27,772 turning into a glamorous metropolis... 217 00:13:29,878 --> 00:13:32,397 ...and using their water, 218 00:13:32,432 --> 00:13:34,572 must have been incredibly frustrating. 219 00:13:34,606 --> 00:13:37,575 Arrogance absolutely plays a big role. 220 00:13:37,609 --> 00:13:42,649 There is a lot of resentment that is driven by the decisions 221 00:13:42,683 --> 00:13:47,136 and the attitudes of people like Mulholland. 222 00:13:49,863 --> 00:13:52,624 The farmers in the Owens River Valley 223 00:13:52,659 --> 00:13:56,870 weren't perceived as equal citizens. 224 00:13:56,905 --> 00:13:58,734 They are imperial subjects. 225 00:13:58,768 --> 00:14:03,428 The anger only deepened when it became clear 226 00:14:03,463 --> 00:14:06,086 that much of the Owens River water 227 00:14:06,121 --> 00:14:08,640 wasn't going to Los Angeles at all. 228 00:14:08,675 --> 00:14:11,160 Even as the rest of Southern California 229 00:14:11,195 --> 00:14:13,300 was drying up, the city was providing 230 00:14:13,335 --> 00:14:15,233 vast amounts of water to farms 231 00:14:15,268 --> 00:14:17,649 and orchards in the San Fernando Valley, 232 00:14:17,684 --> 00:14:21,619 which belonged in large part to a syndicate 233 00:14:21,653 --> 00:14:24,691 of the most powerful men in the city. 234 00:14:24,725 --> 00:14:27,728 Did the city really need to provide landowners 235 00:14:27,763 --> 00:14:30,317 in the San Fernando Valley with that much water? 236 00:14:30,352 --> 00:14:35,150 Well, it turns out that the owner of the "Los Angeles Times" 237 00:14:35,184 --> 00:14:39,809 and some other associates have bought a lot of land there. 238 00:14:39,844 --> 00:14:45,263 Those wealthy landowners made a killing. 239 00:14:45,298 --> 00:14:49,474 It's very easy to picture Mulholland as corrupt, 240 00:14:49,509 --> 00:14:53,513 but he wasn't doing this because he was getting paid off to do it 241 00:14:53,547 --> 00:14:56,654 or he was making money off of it. 242 00:14:56,688 --> 00:15:01,314 I think, for him, it's really about his own vision 243 00:15:01,348 --> 00:15:04,006 and his power and his ability 244 00:15:04,041 --> 00:15:06,284 to remake nature. 245 00:15:06,319 --> 00:15:09,909 I think that's what's driving him. 246 00:15:09,943 --> 00:15:12,325 The threat of shortages 247 00:15:12,359 --> 00:15:17,261 accelerated the next phase in Mulholland's master plan. 248 00:15:19,090 --> 00:15:20,471 In a dry year, 249 00:15:20,505 --> 00:15:23,957 if there isn't a lot of snow in the Sierra Nevada, 250 00:15:23,992 --> 00:15:28,134 the aqueduct won't deliver as much water to Los Angeles. 251 00:15:28,168 --> 00:15:29,756 So they need storage, 252 00:15:29,790 --> 00:15:33,208 big reservoir, so you could fill it up in the wet years, 253 00:15:33,242 --> 00:15:37,453 and in the dry years, it'll tide you over. 254 00:15:37,488 --> 00:15:40,180 In the summer of 1922, 255 00:15:40,215 --> 00:15:42,976 Mulholland decided to build seven new dams 256 00:15:43,011 --> 00:15:45,013 near the southern end of the aqueduct, 257 00:15:45,047 --> 00:15:48,568 including a pair of majestic concrete structures 258 00:15:48,602 --> 00:15:51,674 worthy of a great metropolis: 259 00:15:51,709 --> 00:15:55,333 the Hollywood Dam, in the hills overlooking Los Angeles, 260 00:15:55,368 --> 00:15:58,647 and biggest of all, the St. Francis Dam, 261 00:15:58,681 --> 00:16:03,272 in a canyon 40 miles northwest of the city. 262 00:16:03,307 --> 00:16:04,618 The St. Francis Dam and the Hollywood Dam 263 00:16:04,653 --> 00:16:08,381 are similar structures; they were both built 264 00:16:08,415 --> 00:16:10,866 with the same design, 265 00:16:10,900 --> 00:16:16,665 a tribute to engineering triumph and the control of nature, 266 00:16:16,699 --> 00:16:18,563 and it's impossible not to think 267 00:16:18,598 --> 00:16:20,980 that he saw it as a tribute to him, as well. 268 00:16:22,602 --> 00:16:24,914 Plans were drawn up in Mulholland's offices 269 00:16:24,949 --> 00:16:27,503 in the fall of 1922. 270 00:16:27,538 --> 00:16:30,368 20 years before, the city had required 271 00:16:30,403 --> 00:16:34,131 that a group of experts review his plans for the aqueduct. 272 00:16:34,165 --> 00:16:37,893 But that was then. 273 00:16:37,927 --> 00:16:39,032 This is that sense 274 00:16:39,067 --> 00:16:41,379 that he had earned the right 275 00:16:41,414 --> 00:16:46,108 to sort of do what he wanted to do. 276 00:16:46,143 --> 00:16:48,283 This is the second-largest storage reservoir 277 00:16:48,317 --> 00:16:50,630 in Southern California. 278 00:16:50,664 --> 00:16:54,392 It should have had peer review; 279 00:16:54,427 --> 00:16:56,843 at least some people outside his organization reviewing it 280 00:16:56,877 --> 00:16:58,293 and looking at it. 281 00:16:58,327 --> 00:17:04,540 But nobody's questioning him by the time you get to 1922. 282 00:17:04,575 --> 00:17:06,128 Nobody. 283 00:17:13,515 --> 00:17:16,276 In April of 1924, 284 00:17:16,311 --> 00:17:18,313 the first construction workers arrived 285 00:17:18,347 --> 00:17:21,143 in the San Francisquito Canyon. 286 00:17:21,178 --> 00:17:24,905 It had been 12 years since Mulholland's crews 287 00:17:24,940 --> 00:17:27,494 ran the southern end of the aqueduct through here, 288 00:17:27,529 --> 00:17:28,840 and three years 289 00:17:28,875 --> 00:17:30,601 since they finished building a generating station 290 00:17:30,635 --> 00:17:32,327 called Powerhouse 2 291 00:17:32,361 --> 00:17:37,332 about a mile downstream from the new dam. 292 00:17:37,366 --> 00:17:41,370 The Powerhouse 2 workers and their families 293 00:17:41,405 --> 00:17:43,614 lived in wooden bungalows clustered around the plant 294 00:17:43,648 --> 00:17:45,409 at the bottom of the canyon. 295 00:17:45,443 --> 00:17:48,446 Now their quiet little community 296 00:17:48,481 --> 00:17:52,209 was overrun with men and machinery. 297 00:17:52,243 --> 00:17:55,039 But just as the project was gearing up, 298 00:17:55,074 --> 00:17:57,869 it suddenly took on a new urgency. 299 00:17:59,768 --> 00:18:02,943 On the 21st of May 1924, 300 00:18:02,978 --> 00:18:05,394 a massive explosion destroyed a section 301 00:18:05,429 --> 00:18:08,742 of the aqueduct in Owens Valley. 302 00:18:08,777 --> 00:18:11,987 The damage was repaired within a few days, 303 00:18:12,021 --> 00:18:15,818 but as far as the activists in the valley were concerned, 304 00:18:15,853 --> 00:18:18,442 the fight was just getting started. 305 00:18:18,476 --> 00:18:23,481 The aqueduct was a disaster for Owens Valley. 306 00:18:23,516 --> 00:18:28,383 The people who lived there lost almost all of their water. 307 00:18:28,417 --> 00:18:34,147 It became such a desolate place. 308 00:18:34,182 --> 00:18:35,907 It was a complete undoing 309 00:18:35,942 --> 00:18:38,358 of their livelihoods and their households 310 00:18:38,393 --> 00:18:41,568 and their families. 311 00:18:41,603 --> 00:18:46,953 To the city and to Mulholland, this is terrorism. 312 00:18:46,987 --> 00:18:49,542 You are destroying the water supply 313 00:18:49,576 --> 00:18:52,786 for this major urban center. 314 00:18:52,821 --> 00:18:55,375 Six months after the first attack, 315 00:18:55,410 --> 00:18:57,136 over a hundred men seized 316 00:18:57,170 --> 00:18:59,103 the aqueduct control gates in Owens Valley, 317 00:18:59,138 --> 00:19:01,761 opened up the valves, 318 00:19:01,795 --> 00:19:05,144 and released the water onto the parched soil. 319 00:19:07,146 --> 00:19:10,563 They wouldn't restore the aqueduct flow, they said, 320 00:19:10,597 --> 00:19:13,359 until the city agreed to pay reparations 321 00:19:13,393 --> 00:19:16,914 and limit any further expansion of the project. 322 00:19:25,060 --> 00:19:29,098 By noon the next day, hundreds of men, women, and children 323 00:19:29,133 --> 00:19:30,514 had joined the siege, 324 00:19:30,548 --> 00:19:34,207 which had come to look more like a huge barbecue. 325 00:19:36,692 --> 00:19:40,006 Families came with picnics, 326 00:19:40,040 --> 00:19:43,975 businesses up and down the valley closed for the occasion, 327 00:19:44,010 --> 00:19:46,668 and a group of musicians arrived, 328 00:19:46,702 --> 00:19:48,497 courtesy of movie star Tom Mix, 329 00:19:48,532 --> 00:19:51,397 who was shooting a Western nearby. 330 00:19:51,431 --> 00:19:54,676 The siege lasted four days, 331 00:19:54,710 --> 00:19:58,645 long enough to make news around the world. 332 00:20:00,026 --> 00:20:02,718 To Mulholland's annoyance, 333 00:20:02,753 --> 00:20:05,963 much of the coverage presented the settlers' actions 334 00:20:05,997 --> 00:20:08,345 as a noble struggle against the corruption 335 00:20:08,379 --> 00:20:10,347 and power of Los Angeles. 336 00:20:17,077 --> 00:20:21,841 It became known in the press as "the Little Civil War." 337 00:20:21,875 --> 00:20:26,708 And it was intense, and it was violent. 338 00:20:26,742 --> 00:20:30,298 There are multiple layers of irony here. 339 00:20:30,332 --> 00:20:33,059 When the settlers of the Owens Valley 340 00:20:33,093 --> 00:20:37,408 came in the 1850s and '60s, 341 00:20:37,443 --> 00:20:40,100 they displaced the Northern Paiute people, 342 00:20:40,135 --> 00:20:44,898 the Native people who lived in the Owens Valley. 343 00:20:46,210 --> 00:20:49,420 Before contact, 344 00:20:49,455 --> 00:20:51,388 the Paiutes' homeland had stretched across 345 00:20:51,422 --> 00:20:55,150 30 million acres of the Western interior. 346 00:20:55,184 --> 00:20:58,602 Although most preferred a nomadic lifestyle, 347 00:20:58,636 --> 00:21:01,432 one group settled in Owens Valley, 348 00:21:01,467 --> 00:21:05,022 where the snowmelt coming off the Sierra Nevada Mountains 349 00:21:05,056 --> 00:21:07,507 provided a reliable source of water. 350 00:21:07,542 --> 00:21:10,890 The Paiutes there, they were building irrigation canals 351 00:21:10,924 --> 00:21:13,720 going back to 1000 A.D., 352 00:21:13,755 --> 00:21:15,308 so they could take the runoff 353 00:21:15,343 --> 00:21:17,172 from the back side of the Sierra Nevada 354 00:21:17,206 --> 00:21:20,175 and they could grow different types of indigenous crops. 355 00:21:20,209 --> 00:21:22,626 Of course, during the conquest, 356 00:21:22,660 --> 00:21:25,836 there's an influx of white Americans to the West Coast. 357 00:21:25,870 --> 00:21:28,425 For the Owens Valley Paiute, in particular, 358 00:21:28,459 --> 00:21:32,118 there's tension over kidnapping of Paiute children 359 00:21:32,152 --> 00:21:34,085 and other types of really atrocious things, 360 00:21:34,120 --> 00:21:36,605 and there's a series of wars. 361 00:21:36,640 --> 00:21:39,194 In the long run, it's, it's the Paiute who are removed 362 00:21:39,228 --> 00:21:41,921 from their ancestral lands as the settlers come there 363 00:21:41,955 --> 00:21:43,888 and basically take over the irrigation system 364 00:21:43,923 --> 00:21:48,065 that the Paiutes had built a thousand years before. 365 00:21:48,099 --> 00:21:50,999 So what the settlers did to Native people, 366 00:21:51,033 --> 00:21:54,313 the City of Los Angeles is in a sense doing to them: 367 00:21:54,347 --> 00:21:56,729 taking the water away. 368 00:21:58,455 --> 00:22:00,940 The Los Angeles Water Bureau picked up 369 00:22:00,974 --> 00:22:03,425 where the Paiute Wars left off, 370 00:22:03,460 --> 00:22:06,808 insisting that any Paiutes who remained in the valley 371 00:22:06,842 --> 00:22:09,638 should be removed through a land swap 372 00:22:09,673 --> 00:22:12,469 for humanitarian reasons. 373 00:22:12,503 --> 00:22:17,991 "Some are living in dugouts or crudely constructed shacks 374 00:22:18,026 --> 00:22:20,891 that are a disgrace to American ideals," 375 00:22:20,925 --> 00:22:24,826 an internal report observed, before coming to the point. 376 00:22:24,860 --> 00:22:30,452 "Nearly all of them use immense quantities of water." 377 00:22:30,487 --> 00:22:32,661 Is it a morality tale? 378 00:22:32,696 --> 00:22:35,250 It's always a morality tale. 379 00:22:35,284 --> 00:22:37,735 But of course, it depends on whose morals 380 00:22:37,770 --> 00:22:41,014 and whose perspective. 381 00:22:41,049 --> 00:22:43,776 Dispossession is really woven into 382 00:22:43,810 --> 00:22:46,295 the fabric of the American West. 383 00:22:46,330 --> 00:22:48,228 It's the philosophy that 384 00:22:48,263 --> 00:22:50,921 forms the entire foundation of the settlement of the region. 385 00:23:09,042 --> 00:23:12,425 By the fall of 1924, 386 00:23:12,460 --> 00:23:15,601 the canyon was a hive of activity. 387 00:23:18,189 --> 00:23:20,709 Trucks ferried sand and gravel 388 00:23:20,744 --> 00:23:24,713 to a small concrete plant at the downstream face of the dam. 389 00:23:30,305 --> 00:23:34,965 A crane lifted the liquid concrete. 390 00:23:37,243 --> 00:23:40,142 Workers directed it into position. 391 00:23:43,111 --> 00:23:47,943 Over the next 16 months, that same operation would be repeated 392 00:23:47,978 --> 00:23:51,740 tens of thousands of times. 393 00:23:51,775 --> 00:23:54,743 A gravity dam's a very simple concept. 394 00:23:54,778 --> 00:23:57,056 It's a retaining wall that you're building 395 00:23:57,090 --> 00:24:01,957 to have something of much greater weight and stability 396 00:24:01,992 --> 00:24:04,235 than the forces you're putting against it. 397 00:24:04,270 --> 00:24:07,756 And this is water, this is concrete. 398 00:24:07,791 --> 00:24:10,725 So a dam that has a triangular shape 399 00:24:10,759 --> 00:24:14,763 should be able to hold back a lake that's of infinite length. 400 00:24:16,213 --> 00:24:18,077 As work proceeded on the dam, 401 00:24:18,111 --> 00:24:20,148 Mulholland decided to make it taller 402 00:24:20,182 --> 00:24:22,909 than originally planned. 403 00:24:22,944 --> 00:24:25,118 Mulholland had made a promise 404 00:24:25,153 --> 00:24:27,155 that he wanted enough storage 405 00:24:27,189 --> 00:24:32,609 to contain one year's water supply for Los Angeles. 406 00:24:32,643 --> 00:24:37,372 Because the population was increasing so much every year, 407 00:24:37,406 --> 00:24:40,651 the demand was greater and greater. 408 00:24:40,686 --> 00:24:42,170 And so Mulholland 409 00:24:42,204 --> 00:24:45,449 increased the height of the dam ten feet 410 00:24:45,484 --> 00:24:48,383 the first year that they were in construction, 411 00:24:48,417 --> 00:24:50,212 and then the second year, he did it again, 412 00:24:50,247 --> 00:24:53,940 without increasing the base width. 413 00:24:53,975 --> 00:24:55,528 What's important here is, okay, 414 00:24:55,563 --> 00:24:56,909 you can raise the height of the dam. 415 00:24:56,943 --> 00:24:59,221 But if you do this, 416 00:24:59,256 --> 00:25:01,879 there's going to be more pressure on the concrete, 417 00:25:01,914 --> 00:25:03,674 and you better make sure that it's thick enough 418 00:25:03,709 --> 00:25:06,332 to withstand that. 419 00:25:08,541 --> 00:25:10,992 In fact, Mulholland was distracted 420 00:25:11,026 --> 00:25:13,995 by an even more ambitious enterprise. 421 00:25:14,029 --> 00:25:17,377 The Boulder Dam project, 422 00:25:17,412 --> 00:25:19,138 which becomes the Hoover Dam, 423 00:25:19,172 --> 00:25:23,487 is an undertaking that even dwarfs the aqueduct: 424 00:25:23,522 --> 00:25:28,527 to take water from the Colorado River, move it 425 00:25:28,561 --> 00:25:33,117 to various places along Southern California. 426 00:25:33,152 --> 00:25:38,364 Mulholland is a consultant to that project. 427 00:25:38,398 --> 00:25:41,022 It feeds into his vision of what 428 00:25:41,056 --> 00:25:44,473 he thinks Southern California can become. 429 00:25:44,508 --> 00:25:48,201 Even as the biggest dam he'd ever built 430 00:25:48,236 --> 00:25:51,273 was rising in the San Francisquito Canyon, 431 00:25:51,308 --> 00:25:54,242 Mulholland was on the road for weeks at a time, 432 00:25:54,276 --> 00:25:58,004 mapping out routes for a Colorado River aqueduct 433 00:25:58,039 --> 00:26:02,250 and lobbying in Sacramento and Washington. 434 00:26:04,355 --> 00:26:07,635 All the while, behind the St. Francis Dam, 435 00:26:07,669 --> 00:26:11,224 the water was rising, the pressure building. 436 00:26:13,088 --> 00:26:17,161 When it's completed in the spring of 1926, 437 00:26:17,196 --> 00:26:20,233 there's almost no public notice of it. 438 00:26:20,268 --> 00:26:22,132 There are a number of dynamite attacks 439 00:26:22,166 --> 00:26:25,169 that take place along the aqueduct. 440 00:26:25,204 --> 00:26:28,794 I think they don't want to draw attention to it. 441 00:26:28,828 --> 00:26:32,694 The official reticence did nothing to pacify 442 00:26:32,729 --> 00:26:35,317 the settlers in the Owens Valley. 443 00:26:35,352 --> 00:26:39,287 On May 27, 1927, an explosion 444 00:26:39,321 --> 00:26:43,360 ripped out one of the largest siphons in the aqueduct. 445 00:26:43,394 --> 00:26:45,327 A few nights later, 446 00:26:45,362 --> 00:26:48,434 another 60-foot section was destroyed. 447 00:26:48,468 --> 00:26:51,126 By the end of June, there had been 448 00:26:51,161 --> 00:26:53,232 three more attacks on the aqueduct, 449 00:26:53,266 --> 00:26:55,683 and the city was alive with rumors of a plot 450 00:26:55,717 --> 00:26:58,340 to bomb the St. Francis Dam. 451 00:26:58,375 --> 00:27:01,896 The authorities had yet to make a single arrest. 452 00:27:01,930 --> 00:27:05,658 No one in the valley was talking. 453 00:27:05,693 --> 00:27:09,524 Hundreds of armed guards were sent in. 454 00:27:09,558 --> 00:27:13,321 To locals, they were an occupying army. 455 00:27:19,672 --> 00:27:21,778 Despite the worries about sabotage, 456 00:27:21,812 --> 00:27:24,366 communities that lay in the potential flood path 457 00:27:24,401 --> 00:27:27,059 were never consulted about the dam. 458 00:27:27,093 --> 00:27:30,994 The Santa Clara River Valley stretched 50 miles 459 00:27:31,028 --> 00:27:34,618 from the San Francisquito Canyon to the Pacific Ocean, 460 00:27:34,653 --> 00:27:37,725 a patchwork of citrus farms and oil wells 461 00:27:37,759 --> 00:27:41,867 that was a magnet for newcomers seeking work. 462 00:27:41,901 --> 00:27:44,766 There were some groups that had been there for generations, 463 00:27:44,801 --> 00:27:48,045 back from the Spanish era 464 00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:50,841 and the Mexican period of the 19th century. 465 00:27:50,876 --> 00:27:54,086 But many were starting to arrive, really, 466 00:27:54,120 --> 00:27:56,467 in the early 1900s, 467 00:27:56,502 --> 00:27:58,366 and especially during the Mexican Revolution, 468 00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:01,024 like my grandfather. 469 00:28:01,058 --> 00:28:04,441 Half the people in Santa Paula were of Mexican descent, 470 00:28:04,475 --> 00:28:09,411 most of them recent arrivals working in the citrus industry. 471 00:28:09,446 --> 00:28:12,035 My great-aunt and her husband 472 00:28:12,069 --> 00:28:14,485 were hardworking people. 473 00:28:14,520 --> 00:28:15,832 Poor. 474 00:28:15,866 --> 00:28:17,592 So they had to follow the crops. 475 00:28:17,626 --> 00:28:22,355 Soledad, being the oldest child, 476 00:28:22,390 --> 00:28:26,808 stayed behind in camp taking care of her siblings. 477 00:28:29,017 --> 00:28:33,263 When they would come home, they lived in Santa Paula. 478 00:28:33,297 --> 00:28:35,748 And it was very close to the river bottom. 479 00:28:35,783 --> 00:28:38,509 Not a lot of people knew 480 00:28:38,544 --> 00:28:40,511 of the St. Francis Dam. 481 00:28:40,546 --> 00:28:43,825 Even the ranchers who owned a lot of the orchards, 482 00:28:43,860 --> 00:28:45,931 they didn't even know the dam was being built 483 00:28:45,965 --> 00:28:48,623 until the cement was being poured. 484 00:28:48,657 --> 00:28:51,764 You can imagine that the Mexican community had no idea. 485 00:28:53,559 --> 00:28:55,803 That's what's so weird. 486 00:28:55,837 --> 00:28:58,322 I mean, it's this major structure. 487 00:28:58,357 --> 00:29:01,256 And it's just fascinating that there's so many people 488 00:29:01,291 --> 00:29:04,190 who don't really have any sense that it's there. 489 00:29:10,645 --> 00:29:12,371 Mulholland gets a call, 490 00:29:12,405 --> 00:29:14,614 I think it was a Monday, 491 00:29:14,649 --> 00:29:19,240 from Tony Harnischfeger, who's his dam keeper. 492 00:29:19,274 --> 00:29:23,451 Harnischfeger was highly attuned to the dam's condition. 493 00:29:23,485 --> 00:29:25,902 He and his family lived in the shadow 494 00:29:25,936 --> 00:29:28,042 of the enormous structure. 495 00:29:28,076 --> 00:29:31,804 Over the last year, Harnischfeger had watched 496 00:29:31,839 --> 00:29:36,153 as a series of cracks appeared in the dam. 497 00:29:36,188 --> 00:29:38,397 Those cracks went all the way through the dam. 498 00:29:38,431 --> 00:29:39,916 There were at least four of them. 499 00:29:39,950 --> 00:29:43,022 And Mulholland plugged all of the cracks 500 00:29:43,057 --> 00:29:45,784 with oakum on the downstream face. 501 00:29:45,818 --> 00:29:48,234 That was the absolute worst thing you could do, 502 00:29:48,269 --> 00:29:51,203 because now you're taking that hydraulic pressure 503 00:29:51,237 --> 00:29:54,171 and you're putting it on the interior of the dam. 504 00:29:54,206 --> 00:29:57,450 Harnischfeger was on edge. 505 00:29:57,485 --> 00:30:00,074 The reservoir had been filled to capacity 506 00:30:00,108 --> 00:30:02,801 for the first time five days before. 507 00:30:02,835 --> 00:30:06,977 Water was leaking under the dam's west side. 508 00:30:07,012 --> 00:30:09,117 Mulholland goes out there 509 00:30:09,152 --> 00:30:11,292 right away to take a look at it. 510 00:30:11,326 --> 00:30:13,777 And what he told Harnischfeger was, you know, 511 00:30:13,812 --> 00:30:15,917 "There's no active erosion 512 00:30:15,952 --> 00:30:18,782 "occurring of the dam foundation. 513 00:30:18,817 --> 00:30:22,372 This is a lot about nothing." 514 00:30:22,406 --> 00:30:24,477 Mulholland was back at the office 515 00:30:24,512 --> 00:30:26,755 in time for a late lunch. 516 00:30:26,790 --> 00:30:29,068 But with every passing minute, 517 00:30:29,103 --> 00:30:31,864 the internal stresses on the dam were multiplying. 518 00:30:31,899 --> 00:30:34,556 At around 11:20 p.m., 519 00:30:34,591 --> 00:30:38,629 the structure finally began to give way. 520 00:30:38,664 --> 00:30:42,495 A huge crack opened up on its upstream side. 521 00:30:42,530 --> 00:30:44,877 This is where that extra height 522 00:30:44,912 --> 00:30:47,638 really makes a difference. 523 00:30:47,673 --> 00:30:49,468 It's kind of like, you know, 524 00:30:49,502 --> 00:30:52,471 straws on a camel's back. 525 00:30:52,505 --> 00:30:55,957 This dam did not have the capacity 526 00:30:55,992 --> 00:31:00,997 to stop the loads that were being put on it. 527 00:31:01,031 --> 00:31:06,174 The dam was actually tilting one half of a degree. 528 00:31:06,209 --> 00:31:09,729 Already the St. Francis Dam was fractured by cracks, 529 00:31:09,764 --> 00:31:13,147 and its central section was tilting forward. 530 00:31:13,181 --> 00:31:15,804 Then another defect 531 00:31:15,839 --> 00:31:19,118 in Mulholland's design came into play. 532 00:31:19,153 --> 00:31:21,983 What about water that seeps under the base 533 00:31:22,018 --> 00:31:25,918 of the dam and then begins to push up at the bottom, 534 00:31:25,953 --> 00:31:30,233 what was termed uplift? 535 00:31:30,267 --> 00:31:32,821 The dam had sort of pushed up off of its foundation. 536 00:31:32,856 --> 00:31:35,963 Like most modern dams, 537 00:31:35,997 --> 00:31:39,725 the St. Francis included relief wells to prevent uplift, 538 00:31:39,759 --> 00:31:43,487 but only in its center section. 539 00:31:43,522 --> 00:31:47,906 The wings of the dam were beginning to slip away. 540 00:31:47,940 --> 00:31:52,393 Around 11:30 p.m., a massive chunk of the dam, 541 00:31:52,427 --> 00:31:58,226 severed by cracks and weakened by uplift, blew out. 542 00:31:58,261 --> 00:32:00,746 Intensely pressurized water began 543 00:32:00,780 --> 00:32:02,782 jetting through the resulting gap. 544 00:32:02,817 --> 00:32:07,201 The entire east wing was on the verge of collapse. 545 00:32:09,410 --> 00:32:12,413 Over time, water from the reservoir had begun 546 00:32:12,447 --> 00:32:14,553 to saturate the east abutment, 547 00:32:14,587 --> 00:32:17,383 which was made up of this geological formation 548 00:32:17,418 --> 00:32:19,765 called schist, 549 00:32:19,799 --> 00:32:22,975 and it's layers of slate literally stacked on each other. 550 00:32:25,115 --> 00:32:28,049 If it begins to be on an angle, as the hillside was, 551 00:32:28,084 --> 00:32:33,192 and water gets in between these slate-like layers, 552 00:32:33,227 --> 00:32:35,712 it slides like a deck of cards. 553 00:32:38,818 --> 00:32:41,097 At two-and-a-half minutes before midnight, 554 00:32:41,131 --> 00:32:44,203 the entire hillside under the east wing 555 00:32:44,238 --> 00:32:46,102 collapsed into the dam. 556 00:32:49,519 --> 00:32:54,110 The dam was sliding on its base. 557 00:32:54,144 --> 00:32:58,183 And the west side crumbled down. 558 00:32:58,217 --> 00:33:00,840 And it collapses. 559 00:33:03,947 --> 00:33:07,951 Tony Harnischfeger probably saw it happen. 560 00:33:07,986 --> 00:33:11,265 Ace Hopewell, smoking a cigarette 561 00:33:11,299 --> 00:33:15,096 a mile up the road, heard it in the distance. 562 00:33:15,131 --> 00:33:18,686 The landslide severed the wires 563 00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:21,758 carrying power to Los Angeles. 564 00:33:21,792 --> 00:33:25,279 The lights in the city flickered. 565 00:33:28,765 --> 00:33:30,698 This huge flow, 566 00:33:30,732 --> 00:33:33,356 close to a million cubic feet per second, 567 00:33:33,390 --> 00:33:36,531 just rushes down the canyon. 568 00:33:36,566 --> 00:33:40,018 For Harnischfeger and his family, 569 00:33:40,052 --> 00:33:42,779 "Oh, my God!" 570 00:33:42,813 --> 00:33:46,058 There's no way you're going to withstand that. 571 00:33:50,614 --> 00:33:52,582 The sound of the collapsing dam 572 00:33:52,616 --> 00:33:55,205 took a little less than seven seconds to reach 573 00:33:55,240 --> 00:33:58,070 the cluster of cabins around Powerhouse Number 2, 574 00:33:58,105 --> 00:34:00,969 where it woke Lillian Curtis. 575 00:34:01,004 --> 00:34:02,764 She looked out to see 576 00:34:02,799 --> 00:34:07,700 "a misty haze hanging over everything." 577 00:34:07,735 --> 00:34:10,393 Suddenly, Curtis grabbed her husband and screamed, 578 00:34:10,427 --> 00:34:13,327 "The dam has broke!" 579 00:34:13,361 --> 00:34:18,401 It's a colossal force coming down the canyon, 580 00:34:18,435 --> 00:34:22,819 not like anything your senses would ever have understood. 581 00:34:22,853 --> 00:34:26,167 Curtis scrambled up the side of the canyon 582 00:34:26,202 --> 00:34:28,928 with her three-year-old son, while her husband 583 00:34:28,963 --> 00:34:31,828 went back to fetch the girls. 584 00:34:37,730 --> 00:34:40,837 That people had enough time 585 00:34:40,871 --> 00:34:43,391 to try to save their families 586 00:34:43,426 --> 00:34:45,945 and then to fail is, 587 00:34:45,980 --> 00:34:48,845 is a horrifying idea. 588 00:34:52,331 --> 00:34:54,471 40 minutes after the collapse, 589 00:34:54,506 --> 00:34:57,509 the deluge burst out of the canyon and turned into 590 00:34:57,543 --> 00:34:59,683 the valley of the Santa Clara River, 591 00:34:59,718 --> 00:35:02,238 where 140 Edison Company workers 592 00:35:02,272 --> 00:35:04,688 were sleeping at an encampment. 593 00:35:07,105 --> 00:35:10,038 "The confusion," one man remembered, 594 00:35:10,073 --> 00:35:12,938 "was indescribable." 595 00:35:12,972 --> 00:35:17,598 Fewer than half of them would see the sun rise. 596 00:35:19,807 --> 00:35:22,361 Most of the people who were killed 597 00:35:22,396 --> 00:35:24,777 probably never knew what was happening to them. 598 00:35:24,812 --> 00:35:26,434 They just knew they were drowning. 599 00:35:26,469 --> 00:35:30,162 In Santa Paula, ten-year-old 600 00:35:30,197 --> 00:35:33,545 Soledad Luna heard shouting outside. 601 00:35:36,306 --> 00:35:39,137 Two motorcycle policemen were going around 602 00:35:39,171 --> 00:35:41,760 yelling, "Agua, agua!" 603 00:35:41,794 --> 00:35:44,694 My great-grandfather thought it was crazy. 604 00:35:44,728 --> 00:35:47,179 "It hasn't been raining... what water is he talking about?" 605 00:35:48,974 --> 00:35:51,563 So my family didn't really pay much attention 606 00:35:51,597 --> 00:35:55,360 until other neighbors started running. 607 00:35:55,394 --> 00:35:58,017 Precious minutes ticked by 608 00:35:58,052 --> 00:36:00,986 as Soledad's father and her Uncle Sisto packed 609 00:36:01,020 --> 00:36:03,540 the family's possessions before finally 610 00:36:03,575 --> 00:36:06,060 gathering her young cousins. 611 00:36:06,094 --> 00:36:08,821 Sisto got his children, 612 00:36:08,856 --> 00:36:12,515 put the four oldest in the flatbed of the truck, 613 00:36:12,549 --> 00:36:15,863 and his wife was sitting in the cab of the truck 614 00:36:15,897 --> 00:36:20,247 holding their infant when the water hit. 615 00:36:20,281 --> 00:36:24,216 As the truck toppled over, they could see the little 616 00:36:24,251 --> 00:36:26,839 children's arms flailing in the water, 617 00:36:26,874 --> 00:36:29,463 trying to grasp, and crying out. 618 00:36:29,497 --> 00:36:33,087 With nowhere to go, 619 00:36:33,121 --> 00:36:35,676 Soledad's mother grabbed her four children 620 00:36:35,710 --> 00:36:38,541 and huddled them on the bed. 621 00:36:38,575 --> 00:36:42,614 The first impact tore their flimsy house apart. 622 00:36:44,202 --> 00:36:47,998 Miraculously, Soledad, her mother, 623 00:36:48,033 --> 00:36:50,518 and her three siblings were carried away 624 00:36:50,553 --> 00:36:55,385 on the crest of the flood, their bed a life raft. 625 00:36:55,420 --> 00:36:58,664 But Soledad's luck seemed to run out when her hair 626 00:36:58,699 --> 00:37:03,151 became entangled in the branches of a tree. 627 00:37:03,186 --> 00:37:05,464 Soledad watched her mother and siblings 628 00:37:05,499 --> 00:37:08,467 float away into the darkness. 629 00:37:08,502 --> 00:37:10,642 Soledad screamed, 630 00:37:10,676 --> 00:37:13,507 and her mother tried to grab her and couldn't. 631 00:37:13,541 --> 00:37:15,543 She couldn't see. 632 00:37:15,578 --> 00:37:17,442 It was, it was dark. 633 00:37:17,476 --> 00:37:20,307 But she could hear animals drowning, 634 00:37:20,341 --> 00:37:24,172 people screaming. 635 00:37:24,207 --> 00:37:28,211 And that was so terrifying to her. 636 00:37:28,246 --> 00:37:31,456 As the flood carried Soledad's mother downstream, 637 00:37:31,490 --> 00:37:33,423 it spread across the landscape until 638 00:37:33,458 --> 00:37:36,392 the leading edge was almost two miles wide. 639 00:37:38,635 --> 00:37:42,052 Even so, it still had power enough 640 00:37:42,087 --> 00:37:46,160 to demolish railroad and highway bridges. 641 00:37:46,194 --> 00:37:48,266 Along the way, it had picked up all the debris 642 00:37:48,300 --> 00:37:51,303 of the economy of the Santa Clara River Valley. 643 00:37:53,409 --> 00:37:56,757 Orchard trees, cattle. 644 00:37:56,791 --> 00:37:59,691 And as you get to the ocean, 645 00:37:59,725 --> 00:38:02,556 oil from oil drilling. 646 00:38:02,590 --> 00:38:07,077 So it's this mix of sludge 647 00:38:07,112 --> 00:38:10,080 and rocks and parts of steel bridges 648 00:38:10,115 --> 00:38:14,740 and bodies and animals in a kind of an oil slick. 649 00:38:18,572 --> 00:38:20,850 At 5:25 in the morning, 650 00:38:20,884 --> 00:38:23,059 at the mouth of the Santa Clara River, 651 00:38:23,093 --> 00:38:26,925 the floodwaters finally washed into the sea. 652 00:38:46,841 --> 00:38:49,361 The next day was gloomy, 653 00:38:49,396 --> 00:38:52,019 overcast. 654 00:38:52,053 --> 00:38:56,264 There was no color at all that morning. 655 00:38:56,299 --> 00:38:58,991 My grandfather walked around. 656 00:38:59,026 --> 00:39:02,719 He remembered houses just broken into pieces. 657 00:39:04,963 --> 00:39:08,346 Trees uprooted and thrown everywhere. 658 00:39:10,417 --> 00:39:15,180 Cadavers lined up like piles of wood. 659 00:39:15,214 --> 00:39:19,322 Mothers crying, in tears, sobbing. 660 00:39:22,083 --> 00:39:26,571 There were bodies strewn everywhere. 661 00:39:26,605 --> 00:39:29,125 Boy Scouts would go out with little flags, 662 00:39:29,159 --> 00:39:31,403 and when they found a body, 663 00:39:31,438 --> 00:39:34,337 they would put the flag in the ground, 664 00:39:34,372 --> 00:39:37,858 and then a recovery crew would come and pick up 665 00:39:37,892 --> 00:39:40,343 and carry the body away on stretchers, 666 00:39:40,378 --> 00:39:43,001 put them on the back of trucks, and take them into town. 667 00:39:46,245 --> 00:39:49,145 Rescuers found Lillian Curtis, 668 00:39:49,179 --> 00:39:51,768 her son, and a neighbor on a hillside 669 00:39:51,803 --> 00:39:55,013 overlooking the ruins of Powerhouse 2. 670 00:39:55,047 --> 00:39:58,430 Everyone else in the town was dead. 671 00:40:01,847 --> 00:40:05,230 They found my Great-Aunt Irene 672 00:40:05,264 --> 00:40:09,234 where the mouth of the river empties into the Pacific Ocean. 673 00:40:09,268 --> 00:40:12,996 She was cold and wet, 674 00:40:13,031 --> 00:40:17,380 scared, not able to speak the language. 675 00:40:27,804 --> 00:40:31,394 Soledad was found many, 676 00:40:31,429 --> 00:40:34,466 many, many hours later hanging from the tree. 677 00:40:37,745 --> 00:40:42,129 It traumatized her so much that to the very day that she passed, 678 00:40:42,163 --> 00:40:45,891 she could still remember the man's name that found her. 679 00:40:45,926 --> 00:40:48,722 It was a Mr. Baxter. 680 00:40:51,897 --> 00:40:56,005 Mulholland doesn't get there until hours later. 681 00:40:56,039 --> 00:40:59,491 He stands in shock and awe 682 00:40:59,526 --> 00:41:02,045 and horror, 683 00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:05,393 looking at where the St. Francis Dam once was. 684 00:41:07,568 --> 00:41:12,055 And all that's left is this center section of the dam. 685 00:41:12,090 --> 00:41:15,921 Everything else from the dam is gone. 686 00:41:23,895 --> 00:41:26,173 Within days, 687 00:41:26,207 --> 00:41:29,487 tourists began showing up at the disaster zone. 688 00:41:31,730 --> 00:41:34,975 Scaling the towering monolith that became known as 689 00:41:35,009 --> 00:41:38,288 the Tombstone. 690 00:41:38,323 --> 00:41:41,706 Collecting bits of debris for souvenirs. 691 00:41:41,740 --> 00:41:48,678 The sightseers fed a growing bitterness among the survivors. 692 00:41:52,337 --> 00:41:55,029 The haves and have-nots are very finely delineated 693 00:41:55,064 --> 00:41:58,412 during times of distress, during times of disaster. 694 00:41:58,446 --> 00:42:01,104 It makes the inequalities in a society very acute. 695 00:42:04,245 --> 00:42:08,008 Searchers found bodies of ranchers, housewives, 696 00:42:08,042 --> 00:42:13,116 teachers, farmhands, children. 697 00:42:13,151 --> 00:42:17,535 But some of the bodies were lost forever. 698 00:42:17,569 --> 00:42:19,640 We never know how many, 699 00:42:19,675 --> 00:42:23,230 exactly, died that night. 700 00:42:23,264 --> 00:42:28,131 It was a community that had many transients. 701 00:42:28,166 --> 00:42:33,620 There were migrant workers or migrant families. 702 00:42:33,654 --> 00:42:36,554 And so many of them, maybe, who lived along the river, 703 00:42:36,588 --> 00:42:39,349 who got swept away, 704 00:42:39,384 --> 00:42:43,561 they will never be known. 705 00:42:43,595 --> 00:42:45,804 And the fact that we can never name them 706 00:42:45,839 --> 00:42:47,910 or find out who they are 707 00:42:47,944 --> 00:42:50,913 still haunts us even to this day. 708 00:43:00,888 --> 00:43:03,477 For supporters of Hoover Dam, 709 00:43:03,511 --> 00:43:06,929 the disaster couldn't have come at a worse time. 710 00:43:06,963 --> 00:43:10,070 Just as the Senate was about to decide 711 00:43:10,104 --> 00:43:13,107 the fate of the project, Mulholland's catastrophe 712 00:43:13,142 --> 00:43:16,594 threatened to bring down the whole enterprise. 713 00:43:16,628 --> 00:43:20,598 The Hoover Dam was the largest line-item 714 00:43:20,632 --> 00:43:24,394 expenditure in the history of the United States. 715 00:43:24,429 --> 00:43:27,984 They had the votes to finally get this thing. 716 00:43:28,019 --> 00:43:29,607 The problem was that Mulholland was the biggest 717 00:43:29,641 --> 00:43:34,715 visible cheerleader for that whole proposal. 718 00:43:34,750 --> 00:43:38,408 How can you be sure about the safety of any other dam? 719 00:43:38,443 --> 00:43:44,311 They've got to find a way to deal with this very quickly. 720 00:43:46,175 --> 00:43:49,799 On March 15, two days after the disaster, 721 00:43:49,834 --> 00:43:52,353 California Governor C.C. Young 722 00:43:52,388 --> 00:43:56,219 appointed a commission to investigate the dam's failure. 723 00:43:56,254 --> 00:43:59,947 Within a week, the commission announced that the dam 724 00:43:59,982 --> 00:44:02,191 had collapsed because of a deficiency 725 00:44:02,225 --> 00:44:04,642 in the soil under the west wing. 726 00:44:04,676 --> 00:44:07,230 It was a reassuring conclusion: 727 00:44:07,265 --> 00:44:09,888 the failure was an aberration, 728 00:44:09,923 --> 00:44:12,995 unlikely to be repeated. 729 00:44:13,029 --> 00:44:14,790 It's a rabbit trail. 730 00:44:14,824 --> 00:44:17,206 It's not what caused the dam to fail. 731 00:44:17,240 --> 00:44:23,350 But nobody wants to investigate it too much. 732 00:44:23,384 --> 00:44:26,180 Meanwhile, the city moved quickly 733 00:44:26,215 --> 00:44:29,080 to settle with the survivors. 734 00:44:29,114 --> 00:44:32,255 The city agreed upon a kind of a fixed price. 735 00:44:32,290 --> 00:44:35,845 $5,000 for a human life is not enough. 736 00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:38,227 But that's what was negotiated. 737 00:44:38,261 --> 00:44:41,368 The city paid, very quickly. 738 00:44:41,402 --> 00:44:44,233 They wanted to get it out of the way. 739 00:44:46,925 --> 00:44:50,549 But for Mulholland, the reckoning was just beginning. 740 00:44:50,584 --> 00:44:54,139 Some of the victims had died in Los Angeles County, 741 00:44:54,174 --> 00:44:56,452 so the county coroner had to determine whether 742 00:44:56,486 --> 00:44:58,937 a crime had been committed. 743 00:44:58,972 --> 00:45:00,525 It's not a criminal trial. 744 00:45:00,559 --> 00:45:02,907 It was a trial to determine who was responsible 745 00:45:02,941 --> 00:45:05,530 and to determine if they were going to indict anybody. 746 00:45:05,564 --> 00:45:07,912 It's quite possible that William Mulholland 747 00:45:07,946 --> 00:45:10,397 would've been indicted for murder. 748 00:45:13,434 --> 00:45:16,092 Eight days after the disaster, 749 00:45:16,127 --> 00:45:17,991 William Mulholland took the stand 750 00:45:18,025 --> 00:45:21,788 at the Los Angeles County Courthouse. 751 00:45:21,822 --> 00:45:26,102 To date, 277 bodies had been found. 752 00:45:26,137 --> 00:45:29,588 Hundreds were still missing. 753 00:45:29,623 --> 00:45:33,385 Mulholland was at times prickly and evasive 754 00:45:33,420 --> 00:45:36,664 under interrogation, but he did, finally, 755 00:45:36,699 --> 00:45:39,253 get to the heart of the matter. 756 00:45:39,288 --> 00:45:42,325 "If there is any error in human judgment," 757 00:45:42,360 --> 00:45:45,156 Mulholland admitted, "I was the human. 758 00:45:45,190 --> 00:45:48,331 I won't try to fasten it on anybody else." 759 00:45:50,782 --> 00:45:53,509 The fact that Mulholland takes 760 00:45:53,543 --> 00:45:57,306 responsibility for the St. Francis Dam disaster 761 00:45:57,340 --> 00:46:02,449 allows people not to have to ask really difficult questions. 762 00:46:02,483 --> 00:46:04,762 If blame could be put on this individual, 763 00:46:04,796 --> 00:46:06,729 you just remove the individual. 764 00:46:09,214 --> 00:46:12,459 In November 1928, a few weeks before 765 00:46:12,493 --> 00:46:15,255 the crucial Senate vote on Hoover Dam, 766 00:46:15,289 --> 00:46:19,259 William Mulholland retired from the Water Bureau. 767 00:46:19,293 --> 00:46:21,330 It was time for him to move along. 768 00:46:21,364 --> 00:46:23,677 And so long as he did, then he was, 769 00:46:23,711 --> 00:46:25,437 well, he was given a pension. 770 00:46:25,472 --> 00:46:28,716 They hold a banquet for him. 771 00:46:28,751 --> 00:46:33,031 No mention is ever made of the St. Francis Dam. 772 00:46:36,966 --> 00:46:40,211 In the spring of 1929, the City of Los Angeles 773 00:46:40,245 --> 00:46:42,972 erased one of the last vestiges of the disaster 774 00:46:43,007 --> 00:46:46,907 by obliterating the dam's remains. 775 00:46:53,431 --> 00:46:55,916 But it wasn't so easy to get rid of the very 776 00:46:55,951 --> 00:46:58,470 conspicuous reminder of the St. Francis Dam, 777 00:46:58,505 --> 00:47:03,441 and of William Mulholland, in the heart of Los Angeles. 778 00:47:03,475 --> 00:47:05,926 Nobody trusted the Hollywood Dam 779 00:47:05,961 --> 00:47:09,861 after St. Francis Dam went out. 780 00:47:09,896 --> 00:47:13,969 They ended up drawing it down two-thirds. 781 00:47:14,003 --> 00:47:17,110 It only holds one-third its design capacity, 782 00:47:17,144 --> 00:47:20,251 and it had a huge embankment fill 783 00:47:20,285 --> 00:47:23,116 added to the front of it. 784 00:47:23,150 --> 00:47:25,083 The monument to 785 00:47:25,118 --> 00:47:28,293 the triumph of man over nature and to William Mulholland 786 00:47:28,328 --> 00:47:30,157 gets buried in dirt. 787 00:47:30,192 --> 00:47:34,334 People in Hollywood no longer have to be reminded 788 00:47:34,368 --> 00:47:38,269 that there is a huge dam looming over their heads. 789 00:47:38,303 --> 00:47:41,375 Mulholland had a stroke 790 00:47:41,410 --> 00:47:44,413 and his health began to deteriorate. 791 00:47:44,447 --> 00:47:47,519 At family gathering, he would just 792 00:47:47,554 --> 00:47:50,522 sit in the corner and just stare into space. 793 00:47:53,871 --> 00:47:56,183 William Mulholland died in Los Angeles 794 00:47:56,218 --> 00:47:59,324 on July 22, 1935, 795 00:47:59,359 --> 00:48:03,328 two months before the dedication of Hoover Dam. 796 00:48:07,125 --> 00:48:10,439 Heroes serve the purpose of simplifying stories. 797 00:48:10,473 --> 00:48:13,407 Villains also do something similar. 798 00:48:13,442 --> 00:48:19,413 And in this story, Mulholland is the villain. 799 00:48:19,448 --> 00:48:20,898 There's lots of other folks, including 800 00:48:20,932 --> 00:48:22,658 the populace of Los Angeles, who voted for the project, 801 00:48:22,692 --> 00:48:24,039 who overwhelmingly supported it. 802 00:48:26,248 --> 00:48:29,320 This is a communal effort. 803 00:48:39,192 --> 00:48:41,953 The St. Francis Dam had largely disappeared 804 00:48:41,988 --> 00:48:44,507 from popular memory, 805 00:48:44,542 --> 00:48:47,648 but it left a deep impression among the engineers 806 00:48:47,683 --> 00:48:51,790 who were designing the next generation of public works. 807 00:48:51,825 --> 00:48:54,103 The Hoover Dam 808 00:48:54,138 --> 00:48:56,243 was to be the cornerstone of a new West, 809 00:48:56,278 --> 00:48:58,245 and its creators were 810 00:48:58,280 --> 00:49:02,215 determined to banish the ghost of St. Francis. 811 00:49:02,249 --> 00:49:05,735 I think a lot of good things come out of failures. 812 00:49:05,770 --> 00:49:08,393 We pull back, 813 00:49:08,428 --> 00:49:11,465 we do things more carefully. 814 00:49:11,500 --> 00:49:15,642 St. Francis Dam had a huge impact on Hoover Dam. 815 00:49:15,676 --> 00:49:18,610 Where the St. Francis Dam had been largely 816 00:49:18,645 --> 00:49:21,303 one man's creation, sketched out and then 817 00:49:21,337 --> 00:49:25,065 altered on the fly, Hoover Dam was scrutinized 818 00:49:25,100 --> 00:49:27,999 by teams of experts at every stage 819 00:49:28,034 --> 00:49:30,519 of its design and construction. 820 00:49:30,553 --> 00:49:33,556 It captured the imagination 821 00:49:33,591 --> 00:49:36,283 as few public works ever have. 822 00:49:36,318 --> 00:49:41,357 Immense dams became defining monuments of the age. 823 00:49:53,369 --> 00:49:56,027 The legacy of the St. Francis Dam disaster 824 00:49:56,062 --> 00:49:59,479 was a very short-term moral, 825 00:49:59,513 --> 00:50:02,551 which is, "Build your dams more carefully." 826 00:50:02,585 --> 00:50:06,072 I wish that they had taken 827 00:50:06,106 --> 00:50:09,006 a bigger moral from the story, 828 00:50:09,040 --> 00:50:14,528 which is, "Never trust anyone 829 00:50:14,563 --> 00:50:17,497 who tells you that you can have it all." 830 00:50:17,531 --> 00:50:20,086 When they said, "Yeah, 831 00:50:20,120 --> 00:50:24,711 "even though it doesn't rain, the sun is always shining, 832 00:50:24,745 --> 00:50:28,370 "we can feed the growing city of L.A. 833 00:50:28,404 --> 00:50:31,683 and water our crops," 834 00:50:31,718 --> 00:50:34,203 all of them thought that they could have it all. 835 00:50:36,309 --> 00:50:39,070 The idea that moving water from one geography 836 00:50:39,105 --> 00:50:41,210 to another can be done to such great effect, 837 00:50:41,245 --> 00:50:44,696 to say that's a disaster might be counterintuitive. 838 00:50:44,731 --> 00:50:47,423 But in some ways, 839 00:50:47,458 --> 00:50:50,530 that allowed other regions to do the same thing. 840 00:50:50,564 --> 00:50:55,604 It got us in the situation we're in today. 841 00:50:55,638 --> 00:50:59,021 We can look at Mulholland Dam, or St. Francis Dam, 842 00:50:59,056 --> 00:51:01,817 or Hoover Dam, and we can think of those 843 00:51:01,851 --> 00:51:03,474 as engineering marvels. 844 00:51:03,508 --> 00:51:05,993 But also, all of these things 845 00:51:06,028 --> 00:51:08,306 have led us to an unsustainable future. 846 00:51:08,341 --> 00:51:11,896 People are so optimistic that technology will solve 847 00:51:11,930 --> 00:51:14,795 these environmental problems 848 00:51:14,830 --> 00:51:16,487 that sometimes we lose sight 849 00:51:16,521 --> 00:51:20,525 of other ways to solve problems. 850 00:51:20,560 --> 00:51:23,494 We're going to have to learn to manage our resources, 851 00:51:23,528 --> 00:51:25,806 most particularly water. 852 00:51:25,841 --> 00:51:29,016 Where are we going to get it from? 853 00:51:29,051 --> 00:51:31,260 What are we going to do with it? 854 00:51:31,295 --> 00:51:34,194 This story, and as little known as it is, 855 00:51:34,229 --> 00:51:36,921 is a warning. 856 00:51:36,955 --> 00:51:40,338 And it couldn't be more relevant to today.