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This is the St Francis Dam, outside Los Angeles.
Or rather, what's left of it. More than 50

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metres high, holding back 100,000 tonnes of
water. Until it collapsed catastrophically

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in 1928, twelve hours after its chief engineer
had said that the cracks in it weren't anything

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to be worried about.

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The chief engineer in question was William
Mulholland. He's one of the reasons that LA

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is the size and scale it is: Mulholland Drive,
home of the stars, is named after him, and

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his career before the dam collapse was astonishing.
He was in charge of projects that diverted

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a river, and caused what became known as the
California Water Wars, as locals tried to

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dynamite and destroy the infrastructure that
was pulling all the water away from their

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farms. At the opening ceremony of the Los
Angeles Aqueduct, close to here, as water

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cascaded down towards the growing city, Mulholland
declared to the mayor of Los Angeles: "there

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it is, take it". And they did. Remember, Los
Angeles was just one small city among many

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in the valley at that point -- but its charter
didn't allow it to provide surplus water to

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anyone else, so the only way for other cities
nearby to get access to this was to give up

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their independence and become part of LA.

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And that might have continued, perhaps Burbank,
Pasadena, Anaheim, other cities that have

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separate local government today might all
be part of one enormous city... if it wasn't

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for the St Francis Dam.

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The leading theory for the collapse is that
the foundations were unsound: on solid bedrock,

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the dam would have been perfectly safe -- but
it was built on permeable ground, so the weight

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of water held behind the dam started to seep
through and soften the ground under it. There

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had always been a couple of cracks in the
dam; that was normal for the time, concrete

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can do that as it sets. But more had started
to appear, leaks were starting to grow. Mulholland

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and his assistant inspected the dam, and decided
that it needed maintenance, but the situation

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wasn't desperate.

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Well, maintenance couldn't have helped: the
dam was twelve hours away from collapse. But

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evacuation of the areas below could have saved
hundreds of lives. Just before midnight, it

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gave way catastrophically.

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And as the courts of inquiry delivered their
verdicts, and as the last standing parts of

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the dam were demolished and cleared to stop
sightseers and people taking grisly souvenirs,

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the cities that hadn't been eaten up by LA
yet: Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, plenty of

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others -- decided that Los Angeles couldn't
be trusted with its water projects. They all

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refused to join, and instead they formed what
was called a "Water District" with LA -- they

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took joint control of any projects like that
in future. The dam collapse didn't just end

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Mulholland's career: it ended the assimilation
of other cities into LA. We might talk about

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the urban sprawl, everything in the valley,
as being Los Angeles, but it's not: it's separate

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towns and separate goverements, and one of
the reasons is this valley and the dam that

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isn't there any more.

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The incredible drone shots in this video came
from these guys. Go check out their channels.

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This is Ed from Media Giraffes.

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You can see all the 4K footage from this shoot

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and a few others besides on his channel.

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And this is Alex from Drone Gear,

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if you want drone reviews and giveaways,

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go subscribe to his channel.

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And there's a subscribe button round here
somewhere for mine as well, so...

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Thank you guys! That was amazing!

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