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SierraVictoriaCharli t1_j5cuptt wrote

Reply to comment by MuchResolution8542 in TIL that the California St. Francis Dam disaster of 1928, a midnight-hour 120' wave that killed 431 sleeping people and wiped out giant sections of land more than 50 miles west to Ventura, was caused by the dam having been built on a fault zone (in addition to the dam's retention of water). by atrailofdisasters

I mean, they built a dam on gypsum deposits; which utterly proved that man never deserved a career in the first place.

edit: upon reading more, in the words of the real life 'villain' of this story; "Whether it is good or bad, don't blame anyone else, you just fasten it on me. If there was an error in human judgment, I was the human, I won't try to fasten it on anyone else."

Mastery is running out of ways of fucking shit up, and there is a deep honor in admitting grievous fault. This story is complicated.

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Vanthix t1_j5ebx8l wrote

I really appreciate you taking the time to research and ponder over your opinion, it's a rare sight to behold nowadays!

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maedchenhosen t1_j5de95z wrote

Can you point me to where it says they built on gypsum deposits? I can’t seem to find it and thought the issue was they built on schist.

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SierraVictoriaCharli t1_j5f0lx5 wrote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Francis_Dam references to gypsum begin five paragraphs down in planning and design, noted on the eastern abutment. Then more in the discussions of the various failure modes as one of the investigations faulted upthrust on the eastern abutment. The western abutment is also listed as having veins of talc which is just as bad if not worse.

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maedchenhosen t1_j5f6cpe wrote

Thank you! Small veins of gypsum and talc certainly wouldn’t help (and you’re right, talc is slippery and probably worse than gypsum). I’ve been to the site and the schist is clearly very friable at least at the surface. Thanks for expanding my knowledge on the site :)

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SierraVictoriaCharli t1_j5rh412 wrote

Thank you for sharing your experience of the site; Mastery is running out of ways of making mistakes, the true and best masters learn from others' mistakes. The St. Francis Dam was a wonderful theory. Engineering is the joke; what is the difference between theory and practice? well in theory nothing; now prove it.

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