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Floodpath : the deadliest man-made disaster of 20th-century America and the making of modern Los Angeles / Jon Wilkman.
Van Pelt Library TC557.C3 S2495 2016
Available
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Wilkman, Jon, author.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Dam failures.
- History.
- Floods.
- Saint Francis Dam (Calif.).
- Floods--California--Santa Clara River.
- Dam failures--California--History--20th century.
- Floodplains--California.
- Floodplains.
- California.
- Los Angeles (Calif.)--History--20th century.
- Los Angeles (Calif.).
- California--Santa Clara River.
- Physical Description:
- 326 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm
- Place of Publication:
- New York : Bloomsbury Press, 2016.
- Summary:
- "Just before midnight on March 12, 1928, the St. Francis Dam, a twenty-story-high concrete structure just fifty miles north of Los Angeles, suddenly collapsed, releasing a devastating flood that roared fifty-four miles to the Pacific Ocean, destroying everything in its path. It was a horrific catastrophe, yet one which today is virtually forgotten. With research gathered over more than two decades, award-winning writer and filmmaker Jon Wilkman revisits the deluge that claimed nearly five hundred lives. A key figure is William Mulholland, the self-taught engineer who created an unprecedented water system, allowing Los Angeles to become America's second-largest city, and who was also responsible for the design and construction of the St. Francis Dam. Driven by eyewitness accounts and combining urban history with a life-and-death drama and a technological detective story, Floodpath grippingly reanimates the reality behind L.A. noir fictions such as the classic film Chinatown. In an era of climate change, increasing demand on water resources, and a neglected American infrastructure, the tragedy of the St. Francis Dam has never been more relevant."--Jacket.
- Contents:
- Monday
- The Chief and the City of the Angels
- "There it is, take it!"
- Holding back the future
- A monster in the dark
- No time for nightmares
- The dead zone
- Sympathy, anger, and amends
- Arguing over the ruins
- Los Angeles on trial
- Rewinding time
- Hasty conclusions and high dams
- Paying the price and moving on
- Unfinished business and historical amnesia
- Charley's obsession and computer time machines
- After the fall.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 283-310) and index.
- Local Notes:
- Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Ellis D. Williams, College 1865, Endowment Fund.
- ISBN:
- 1620409151
- 9781620409152
- OCLC:
- 907966087
- Publisher Number:
- 99966041331
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