78 - Liquid Avalanche. Saint Francis Dam Disaster National Monument.

National Park After Dark

Audioboom Studios

True Crime, Places & Travel, Wilderness, Society & Culture, Sports

4.8 • 4.6K Ratings

🗓️ 29 August 2022

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Water – we live and die by it! Today, we head to southern California and visit the ruins of the Saint Francis Dam to learn about the worst civil engineering failure of the 20th century and the second greatest loss of life in California state history.

Make a donation: Kentucky Relief Fund

We love our National Parks and we know you do too but when you're out there, remember to enjoy the view but watch your back. Please take a moment to rate and subscribe from wherever you’re listening to NPAD! Become part of our Outsider family on Patreon to gain access to ad-free episodes, bonus content, and more. Follow our socials Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. To share a Trail Tale, suggest a story, access merch, and browse our book recommendations - head over to our website.

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Sources: Floodpath by Jon Wilkman, Smithsonian, USDA, The OutBound, Wikipedia, St. Francis Dam Memorial, Water and Power, A Brief History of: The St. Francis Dam Disaster, The Massive LA Disaster You’ve Never Heard Of, SCV History

Transcript

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0:00.0	The world can be a scary place, and you don't need to look far to be reminded of that.
0:08.2	The news is overflowing with stories of all kinds of disasters, so much so that it seems
0:14.6	we're confronted with a new one every single day.
0:19.1	Natural disasters are especially eerie.
0:22.3	Humans have always feared nature as we are helpless in the face of her profound power.
0:28.5	Grouts drying up the land, blazing fires, the ground splitting open during quakes, whipping
0:35.4	winds ripping away homes in tornadoes, and landslides sweeping away entire faces of mountains.
0:43.0	These are all just the tip of the iceberg.
0:46.8	While we have spent thousands of years finding ways to understand weather patterns in an
0:51.6	attempt to predict the unpredictable, it's abundantly clear we are no match in the ring,
0:59.0	pitted against the elements.
1:01.7	The ancient Greeks believe that there were four elements that everything was made up of,
1:07.1	earth, water, air, and fire.
1:10.6	Not surprisingly, all four of these things we need to survive.
1:15.5	They may be essential to our survival, but as history has proven repeatedly, they serve
1:22.1	as our lifeline, but also potentially as our demise.
1:30.2	Welcome to National Park after dark.
1:46.7	This feels like a disaster episode.
1:49.2	Yeah.
1:50.2	Well, I think I said disaster three times.
1:53.2	Maybe that's where I got that from.
1:55.8	Yeah.
	...

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