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A mile and a half down the canyon, nestled against its
east wall, stoo·d Los Angeles' municipal Power Plant No. 2. '
It was a two-story building of heavily reinforced concrete,
containing two 100-ton dynamos. Close by huddled a settle-
ment of 65 persons-plant employees and their families.
Five minutes after the dam crumbled, that unwarned
community was swept away.
The powerhouse, struck by a
flood wave that rose even
higher than 125 feet, was ob-
literated as if it had been a
tent.
Not far below this spot, a
few ranches sprawled across
the lower canyon. The Sau-
gus substation of the South-
ern California Edison Co.
stood near where the canyon
emptied into the valley of
the Santa Clara River. The
river bed_, with only a thin
stream trickling down it, ran
westward to the sea for 42.5
miles from the point where
canyon and valley met.
The plunging waters from the breached dam, still 50
feet deep; in half an hour scoured out the contents of the The -flood raged all
thr way from San
canyon, drowned the substation, and lurched into a huge,
Francisquito Canyon
devastating right curve as they found the bed of the river. in northwestern Los
At about this time, a six-man crew of Edison workers- Angele~ C ounti; to
responding to an emergency alarm from Saugus that they the calm Pacific
between Ventura and
thought involved a fire-raced into the head of the flood
Oxnard, a distance
in their wire-enclosed Dodge truck and were rolled over of 52.5 miles. It
and over. Miraculously, they were flung back out of the destroyed ranches,
water and escaped serious injury. fruit groves, camps,
The relentlessly spreading -flood by now had widened in and farm laborers'
places to 2~~ miles. It swept across ranches, groves of fruit shacks. It uprooted
roads and carried
and walnut trees, a tourist camp, and small communities. away bridg(?s .. Miles
It smashed and scattered the riverside shacks of Mexican of track were left
farm laborers. It uprooted oil and n~tural-gas pipelines, drooping in braids,
ripped down telephone and transmission lines. It destroyed and freight cars were
washed away.
miles of roads, tore out a · stretch of the main inland high-
way between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and carried
away bridges. It cuffed freight cars off sidings, and left
railroad track drooping in braids.
Seven and a half miles west of the point where the rush-
ing waters foamed out of San Francisquito Canyon, they
bore down upon a construction camp of 140 Edison men.
The men, of course, were asleep. But the equipment watch-
man heard the ominous roar swelling out of the darkness,
and somehow guessed what had happened.
H e ran from cabin to cabin, shouting the sleepers into
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