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Post by rockpickerforever on May 7, 2022 13:37:54 GMT -5
Just watched this video on PBS online. Very interesting, learned many things I did not know. If you have 53 minutes to watch this video, do so! You might learn something, I know I did American Experience Flood in the Desert
Season 34 Episode 3 | 52m 45s Aired: 05/03/22 Expires: 06/02/22 1928 collapse of the Saint Francis Dam 40 miles ENE of the city of Los Angeles Flood in the Desert - Collapse of the St Francis DamExplore the 1928 dam collapse, the second deadliest disaster in California history. A colossal engineering failure, the dam was built by William Mulholland, who had ensured the growth of Los Angeles by building the aqueduct to bring water from the Owens River to the city of LA. The St. Francis Dam failed catastrophically upon being filled for the first time, near midnight on March 12, 1928. Over 450 people perished as the flooding waters raced through the San Francisquito and Santa Clara River valleys and continued on its 54 mile course to the ocean. It was the second deadliest disaster in California history. When the reason for the collapse was investigated, it was erroneously attributed to "a defective soil foundation." In the documentary, it is admitted that the collapse was an engineering error, not defective soil foundation. Yet, an entry for the St. Francis Dam on Wikipedia, right now, still says: St. Francis Dam - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org › wiki › St._Francis_DamCollapse and flood wave — It catastrophically failed in 1928 due to a defective soil foundation, triggering a flood that claimed the lives of at least 431 ... Dam volume: main dam 130,446 cu yd (99,733 m3) Catchment area: 37.5 sq mi (97 km2) Location: Los Angeles County, California, U.S Height (foundation): 205 feet (62 m) Mulholland Dam • William Mulholland • San Francisquito Canyon To this day, they are still not putting the blame where it deservedly lays, at the feet of Mulholland. But the investigation cleared Mulholland of all charges In the years of the early 1920s, the aqueduct flow had been cut in half by years of drought. Also while the project was ongoing, the population of LA was growing by leaps and bounds. They had been looking out 50 years into the future, but they were out of water in ten. So Mulholland made changes to the dam's design, "while it was under construction," to increase water storage capacity. He added ten feet to the height of the dam, then added ten more, not taking into account that the base of it was not designed to hold such an increase in water pressure and weight. This concerns me, just a little, because they did the same thing to a dam near here (I am not in the disaster zone of it, should it fail). They increased the height of the San Vicente Dam by 117 feet, expanding the capacity of the reservoir from 152,00 acre-feet to 242,000 acre-feet. It is located 4.3 miles north of Lakeside, CA. TBH, I think that they did build the base up substantially, and I am sure they better engineer things these days. Dam expansion project website33 second time lapse youtube video of the project, video posted in 2014 ETA - one more link to a 4 1/2 minute youtube video of the dedication by the San Diego Water Authority
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Post by parfive on May 7, 2022 13:58:14 GMT -5
Watched it the other night. Somehow, Chinatown never even got a mention.
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Post by parfive on May 7, 2022 14:23:57 GMT -5
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Post by parfive on May 7, 2022 14:26:57 GMT -5
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Post by parfive on May 7, 2022 14:27:58 GMT -5
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Post by rockpickerforever on May 7, 2022 16:46:54 GMT -5
Not allowed to say that, it might hurt someone's feelers. I wish our dams, bridges and roads were being better maintained.
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Post by mohs on May 7, 2022 16:53:04 GMT -5
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Post by mohs on May 7, 2022 17:23:12 GMT -5
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Post by RickB on May 7, 2022 17:47:54 GMT -5
You can bet if the current administration had actually spent infrastructure money on actual infrastructure instead of on non-infrastructure things, the condition and safety of our dams would be in a much better place. Same with our crappy roads. Our local governments are also to blame for that. I always thought a pothole was a place to hide your stash.
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Post by rockpickerforever on May 7, 2022 18:24:32 GMT -5
mohs , the most deadly US disaster in terms of loss of life to that point in time, would be the Okeechobee hurricane in Sept 1928, also known as the San Felipe Segundo hurricane. At least 2,500 people drowned, most in FL, it was one of the deadliest hurricanes in the recorded history of the North Atlantic basin, and the third deadliest hurricane in the United States. Affected areas included Florida, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, Guadeloupe, North Carolina, East coast of the US, South Carolina, Lesser Antilles and Georgia. I guess natural disasters are ranked by loss of life, not by amount of damage. During its tenure, the Okeechobee hurricane caused $100 million in damage and killed at least 4,112 people. (That was second in number of deaths behind the Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900. It was the single deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, it resulted in a massive 6,000 – 12,000 casualties.) mohs , I cannot speak to your last sentence, I don't want to hurt anyone's feelers. Must keep this thread neutral, or it may end up in the cave. Deaths caused by Natural Disaster Worldwide (excluding epidemics and famines) Death toll Date Event Location 4,000,000 July 1931 China floods China 2,000,000 Sept 1887 Yellow River flood China 830,000 Jan 23, 1556 Shaanxi earthquake China 655,000 July 28, 1976 Tangshan earthquake China 500,000 Nov 13, 1970 Bhola cyclone East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) 316,000 Jan 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake Haiti 300,000 May 526 Antioch earthquake Byzantine Empire (now Turkey) 300,000 Nov 25, 1839 Coringa cyclone Andhra Pradesh, India 273,400 Dec 16, 1920 Haiyuan earthquake China 229,000 Aug 7, 1975 Typhoon Nina China Looks like China is a great place to move to if you want to increase your odds of dying in a natural disaster!
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Post by rockpickerforever on May 7, 2022 18:53:13 GMT -5
I always thought a pothole was a place to hide your stash. RickB Ha ha! The deeper potholes are real bad on tires. Some roads out here are so terrible, I'm afraid they are going to rattle my car apart. Even if the car itself doesn't get shook to death, think of what that shaking is doing to the electric system/computer components! Wonder how much damage the shaking does to the expensive batteries in the EVs? You'll be taking that car back to the Auto Electric place many times over in the hope they can track down the problem and fix it. $$$ A big part of the problem is the planning dept does not plan ahead. They can repave a street that has been in dire need for years, and as soon as they do, there will be an underground water pipe break. What a mess for them to dig that up and replace the pipe, then a crappy patch job. Then they let cable companies, other utilities come in and dig the streets up to do their thing, then the next guy. The street ends up being patches on patches! The last hurricane I spoke about in my last post, the Okeechobee Hurricane in 1928, was heading back out to the Atlantic after plowing through Florida, the Carolinas, and Georgia, when it decided to do a quick detour through the town of Edisto Beach, NC. I know you weren't living there then (or anywhere else yet, for that matter!), but were you aware of it? Maybe still remnants of the damage from that long ago time? Wonder if there are a few people still living there that went through it? They'd be in their mid 90's now.
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Post by mohs on May 7, 2022 19:17:55 GMT -5
O were talking about major 20th century disasters This is a story that I always recalled form 1986 Gas cloud kills Cameroon villagerswww.history.com/this-day-in-history/gas-cloud-kills-cameroon-villagersnot sure why I remember this? besides I thought at the time how insidious a natural silent killer gas can be for some reason I also remember Lisbon Tsunami not sure why it happened in 18th century
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Post by parfive on May 7, 2022 19:39:35 GMT -5
You can bet if the current administration had actually spent infrastructure money on actual infrastructure instead of on non-infrastructure things, the condition and safety of our dams would be in a much better place. Same with our crappy roads. Our local goverments are also to blame for that. [Wrong article, Toots] Couldn’t have been much left to fix after the last one, Jean . . . they had a beautiful new infrastructure plan every two weeks.
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Post by mohs on May 7, 2022 20:01:27 GMT -5
And then there this infrastructure fubar Jeez guys c’mon Of course mohs had to get caught up in the traffic Actually I lucked out an avoided a headache By leaving the back up-- through a secret path Ya see I had to go Traders Joes” Darn they got the good tasty conveniently cooked foods Stuff ya can’t get nomor at the major super market Like frozen hash brown paddies Some damn conspiracy to end convenience Ah yes its coming Anyway off my rant Traders Joes still as the frozen hash brown paddies Very important when you don’t have a stove And frozen gnocchi & spinach ravioli w/ tomato sauce in a bag No boiling water necessary ! Microwave bily The best- Frozen Green Chili Burro’s and I do mean good - lots of other tasty treats And they are way friendly That another things sort of-- in short supply Sort of- not to terrible Or maybe it just my bad mood Ha
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Post by parfive on May 7, 2022 20:07:50 GMT -5
Remember me?
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Post by mohs on May 7, 2022 20:39:18 GMT -5
That was a gneiss vague video
This is the disaster that made me say
What Have They Done To The Earth
Just the magnitude To me unbelievable That us moderns needs that kind of production
Quit producing And let us catch up a little
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Post by vegasjames on May 7, 2022 20:40:04 GMT -5
Interesting show. I recall an old report that also talked about how politicians who knew about the aqueduct and where it was going to go raced to buy up all the land in the pathway, then sold it back to the government at highly inflated prices since they were forced to buy the land to make the project happen.
We had something similar here going on recently. The Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA), which is supposed to be a non-profit agency but is allowed to make laws, has been pulling all sorts of crap. This includes fencing off water sources to prevent the wild horses from accessing the water so the BLM can claim there is not enough water for the horses so they can illegally round these supposedly Federally protected horses and adopt them out or as has happened so many times send them off to the slaughter houses. Then the SNWA wanted to steal the water from Central Eastern Nevada and crate a pipeline or aqueduct to move all the water to the Las Vegas area as we are running short on water. Although, you would never know the way they waster water here with manmade lakes, massive fountains and waterfalls, building more golf courses, building like crazy that uses up tremendous amounts of water, etc. This would turn that lush area of Nevada in to a desert just like the LA Aqueduct did to Owens Valley. And just like with the questionable practices of the California politicians who quietly bought up the land in the path of the aqueduct, the SNWA was doing the same exact thing here in Nevada. The supposedly non-profit SMWA is the largest single farm/ranch land owners in the State of Nevada even though they are not in the business of farming or ranching.
Luckily, the SNWA's attempted theft of the water was shot down by the Courts. Did not hear an exact reasoning, but likely had to do with the water belonging not only to the ranchers and farmers of that area, but also the Native American tribes along the path. In addition, the water table runs under the State border in to Utah, who therefore also has claim on a lot of the water. And there was talk of building a nuclear power plant in Southern Utah, which would have also sucked that water dry.
Personally, I am really glad the SNWA got shot down on the project. Bringing more water to the Las Vegas would have meant more uncontrolled growth, which has already gone on here way too long. When I as a kid we actually had intelligent politicians here. They made it very clear that Las Vegas is in the desert and we cannot grow uncontrolled due to the lack of water. As time went on we got dumber and dumber and greedier and greedier politicians who simply did not care and they went on a massive building spree blowing up old casinos using massive amounts of water to control the dust, and building new megaresorts that used of super massive amounts of water just in the mixing of the concrete alone. I think this played a big part in the drop of our underground water table. Las Vegas actually means "the springs" as before this area was settled it was lush being fed from springs in the area. Of course controlling water is controlling power so the springs were capped to control the water and thus create power for some individuals who controlled that water.
The loss of our water table has led to problems that most people here do not want to talk about. For instance, about 35 years ago or so I was looking to buy a house here in Las Vegas. I told the realtor that I do not mind a fixer upper as I would likely tear apart and redo the interior of the house anyway to my liking. The realtor called me one day and said she found a 4 bedroom house for only $10,000. The ultra low price was a big red flag, but I was curious and so I went to look at it. There were massive deep cracks in the yard and the house was literally tilting at about a 40 degree angle end to end. Long story short, the whole neighborhood that was known as Windsor Park was sinking in to the ground from the groundwater removal. The whole neighborhood ended up condemned. They moved what houses they could then bulldozed the rest. Shortly afterward, the City Hall building downtown started to sink and they wanted to spend $50,000 to figure out why. Of course it was the same issue with the groundwater removal. The City ended up pawning off the old City Hall building to the company Zappos. Now the Mandalay Bay Casino is sinking. Last I heard it has already sunk 6 feet. From what I have heard the US Geological Survey has already mapped out other areas of Las Vegas that are expected to sink for the same reason, but City officials are still allowing these areas to be built on. By the time home and business owners realize what is happening the sellers will be long gone or statute of limitations will be applied. I have seen various cases in town where houses are already developing cracks and concrete floors are buckling.
Before the housing bust here about 10 years ago or so we were the fastest growing city in the US with over 6,000 people a month moving in. Lake Mea was dropping drastically, although they keep trying to blame the problem on drought and people's lawns and not all the lakes, fountains, golf courses, construction, etc. really behind the main lake drop.
To give you an idea of how fast the lake has dropped, in 1983 the dam's spillway gates were all the way up and the water was still overflowing the gates by several feet. The water is now way below the base of the gates. When the lake is at normal level the average depth of Lake Mead is only about 400'. The lake is now somewhere around 150' below normal. And what most people do not think about is the lake was formed by the Hoover Dam, which back up the water in to sloped canyons. Not straight walls. Therefore, there is a much lower volume of water if you were to to measure by columnar measurements as the walls are sloped in. This also means that the more the water drops, the faster it will drop.
This poses various problems. Obviously, one is supplying Las Vegas with its water needs. Our original water intake pipe that feeds Vegas is now above water. Several other deeper intakes have been built in anticipation. Still it is just matter of time fro the lake is no longer. Before the housing bust here the media was reporting that experts were saying that with the growth that Lake Mead would dry up by 2016. Ironically, it was the housing bust that saved Las Vegas from complete disaster. When the housing bust occurred building stopped, and population growth went to a minimum as a lot of people started moving out. The other issue is power production by Hoover Dam. Most this power goes to Los Angeles and Arizona so that would have virtually no direct effect on Las Vegas if the dam stops producing electricity. Still, it will seriously impact millions of people. Last I heard several years ago, the lake only had to drop another 30 feet to stop Hoover Dam from producing electricity. The lake has dropped quite a bit since then so they have to be getting awful close and they expect Lake Mead to drop around another 10 feet in the next year or two. Even without stoppage of electrical production altogether, the low water still poses a major problem for the dam's generators as the low water levels can crate cavitations that will damage the generators and other equipment. These will be super costly to repair, and will only get damaged again shortly or simply will not function without sufficient water, which will shoot up electrical costs in the areas that normally get the electricity from Hoover Dam.
If the SNWA though would have succeeded with their water grab this would have given Las Vegas an excuse for more uncontrolled growth until we outstripped that water source as well and we ended up in the same boat. This is why I am so glad that the Court shot down the SMWA's plan. Hopefully we will get some intelligence back in to politics very soon and they finally put a cap on the unsustainable growth that has been allowed to go on for so long here in Las Vegas. Otherwise, property here will be worthless anyway since we cannot live without water and we do not have the water for more growth.
As far as construction of dams go, I do not think anything is ever going to be foolproof. How many dams in California are likely to survive if California gets hit by a extremely large earthquake? Here is Southern Nevada we have entire mountains that have been severely tilted or even turned completely on their side by geological forces. A dam is nothing compared to a mountain.
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Post by vegasjames on May 7, 2022 20:58:03 GMT -5
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Post by mohs on May 7, 2022 21:03:36 GMT -5
I agree this growth growth growth push is exploiting the desert resources
not sure where to point the finger buuute you got to figure there going to be a price to pay
Arizona desert is experiencing the those faults from ground water depletion
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Post by vegasjames on May 7, 2022 21:12:27 GMT -5
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