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| deadliest dam failure in history: Heavy Ground Norris Hundley, Donald C. Jackson, Jean Patterson, 2016-01-26 Minutes beforeÊmidnightÊon March 12, 1928, the St. Francis Dam collapsed, sending more than 12 billion gallons of water surging through CaliforniaÕs Santa Clara Valley and killing some 400 people, causing the greatest civil engineering disaster in twentieth-century American history. This extensively illustrated volume gives an account of how the St. Francis Dam came to be built, the reasons for its collapse, the terror and heartbreak brought by the flood, the efforts to restore the Santa Clara Valley, the political factors influencing investigations of the failure, and the effect of the disaster on dam safety regulation. Underlying all is a consideration of how the damÑand the disasterÑwere inextricably intertwined with the life and career of William Mulholland.Ê |
| deadliest dam failure in history: No One Had a Tongue to Speak Utpal Sandesara, Tom Wooten, 2011-05-24 On August 11, 1979, after a week of extraordinary monsoon rains in the Indian state of Gujarat, the two mile-long Machhu Dam-II disintegrated. The waters released from the dam’s massive reservoir rushed through the heavily populated downstream area, devastating the industrial city of Morbi and its surrounding agricultural villages. As the torrent’s thirty-foot-tall leading edge cut its way through the Machhu River valley, massive bridges gave way, factories crumbled, and thousands of houses collapsed. While no firm figure has ever been set on the disaster’s final death count, estimates in the flood’s wake ran as high as 25,000. Despite the enormous scale of the devastation, few people today have ever heard of this terrible event. This book tells, for the first time, the suspenseful and multifaceted story of the Machhu dam disaster. Based on over 130 interviews and extensive archival research, the authors recount the disaster and its aftermath in vivid firsthand detail. The book presents important findings culled from formerly classified government documents that reveal the long-hidden failures that culminated in one of the deadliest floods in history. The authors follow characters whose lives were interrupted and forever altered by the flood; provide vivid first-hand descriptions of the disaster and its aftermath; and shed light on the never-completed judicial investigation into the dam’s collapse. |
| deadliest dam failure in history: St. Francis Dam Disaster John Nichols, 2002-10-01 Minutes before midnight on the evening of March 12, 1928, the St. Francis Dam collapsed. The dam's 200-foot concrete wall crumpled, sending billions of gallons of raging flood waters down San Francisquito Canyon, sweeping 54 miles down the Santa Clara River to the sea, and claiming over 450 lives in the disaster. Captured here in over 200 images is a photographic record of the devastation caused by the flood, and the heroic efforts of residents and rescue workers. Built by the City of Los Angeles' Bureau of Water Works and Supply, the failure of the St. Francis Dam on its first filling was the greatest American civil engineering failure of the 20th century. Beginning at dawn on the morning after the disaster, stunned local residents picked up their cameras to record the path of destruction, and professional photographers moved in to take images of the washed-out bridges, destroyed homes and buildings, Red Cross workers giving aid, and the massive clean-up that followed. The event was one of the worst disasters in California's history, second only to the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire. |
| deadliest dam failure in history: Johnstown Flood David McCullough, 2007-05-31 The stunning story of one of America’s great disasters, a preventable tragedy of Gilded Age America, brilliantly told by master historian David McCullough. At the end of the nineteenth century, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was a booming coal-and-steel town filled with hardworking families striving for a piece of the nation’s burgeoning industrial prosperity. In the mountains above Johnstown, an old earth dam had been hastily rebuilt to create a lake for an exclusive summer resort patronized by the tycoons of that same industrial prosperity, among them Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew Mellon. Despite repeated warnings of possible danger, nothing was done about the dam. Then came May 31, 1889, when the dam burst, sending a wall of water thundering down the mountain, smashing through Johnstown, and killing more than 2,000 people. It was a tragedy that became a national scandal. Graced by David McCullough’s remarkable gift for writing richly textured, sympathetic social history, The Johnstown Flood is an absorbing, classic portrait of life in nineteenth-century America, of overweening confidence, of energy, and of tragedy. It also offers a powerful historical lesson for our century and all times: the danger of assuming that because people are in positions of responsibility they are necessarily behaving responsibly. |
| deadliest dam failure in history: The Austin Disaster 1911 Gale Largey, Andy Worthington, Phillip E. Ogden, 2011-06-30 Social/Historical study of the Austin Dam Disaster of 1911 through the extensive use of news accounts and photographs. In addition, the social dynamics, ethical issues, and variant explainations surrounding the disaster are explored. |
| deadliest dam failure in history: The River Dragon Has Come! John Thibodeau, Philip B. Williams, 1998 Presents essays and field reports assessing the impact of the Three Gorges dam now under construction at Sandouping in China's Hubei Province, revealing deep-rooted problems with the project that the government is attempting to suppress. Opponents of the dam discuss issues including safety, population resettlement, environment and economic impact, loss of cultural antiquities, military considerations, and lessons learned from dam disasters of the past. Includes bandw photos. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR |
| deadliest dam failure in history: The Teton Basin Project Eric A. Stene, 1995 |
| deadliest dam failure in history: Ruthless Tide Al Roker, 2018-05-22 “Reads like a nail-biting thriller.” — Library Journal,starred review A gripping new history celebrating the remarkable heroes of the Johnstown Flood—the deadliest flood in U.S. history—from NBC host and legendary weather authority Al Roker Central Pennsylvania, May 31, 1889: After a deluge of rain—nearly a foot in less than twenty-four hours—swelled the Little Conemaugh River, panicked engineers watched helplessly as swiftly rising waters threatened to breach the South Fork dam, built to create a private lake for a fishing and hunting club that counted among its members Andrew Mellon, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew Carnegie. Though the engineers telegraphed neighboring towns on this last morning in May warning of the impending danger, residents—factory workers and their families—remained in their homes, having grown used to false alarms. At 3:10 P.M., the dam gave way, releasing 20 million tons of water. Gathering speed as it flowed southwest, the deluge wiped out nearly everything in its path and picked up debris—trees, houses, animals—before reaching Johnstown, a vibrant steel town fourteen miles downstream. Traveling 40 miles an hour, with swells as high as 60 feet, the deadly floodwaters razed the mill town—home to 20,000 people—in minutes. The Great Flood, as it would come to be called, remains the deadliest in US history, killing more than 2,200 people and causing $17 million in damage. In Ruthless Tide, Al Roker follows an unforgettable cast of characters whose fates converged because of that tragic day, including John Parke, the engineer whose heroic efforts failed to save the dam; the robber barons whose fancy sport fishing resort was responsible for modifications that weakened the dam; and Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross, who spent five months in Johnstown leading one of the first organized disaster relief efforts in the United States. Weaving together their stories and those of many ordinary citizens whose lives were forever altered by the event, Ruthless Tide is testament to the power of the human spirit in times of tragedy and also a timely warning about the dangers of greed, inequality, neglected infrastructure, and the ferocious, uncontrollable power of nature. |
| deadliest dam failure in history: The Johnstown Flood of 1889 Charles River Charles River Editors, 2018-02-19 *Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the flood written by survivors *Includes a bibliography for further reading The deluge released by the dam's collapse carried more than 12,000 cubic meters of debris-filled water each second. Flow rates in the Mississippi River typically vary between 7,000 and 20,000 cubic meters per second. - Sid Perkins, Science News, Vol.176 In 2005, the world watched in horror as Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans, and the calamity seemed all the worse because many felt that technology had advanced far enough to prevent such tragedies, whether through advanced warning or engineering. However, the failure of human engineering like that seen in New Orleans was nothing new, and it had previously had even deadlier consequences in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Although floods rarely get as much coverage as other kinds of natural disasters like volcanic explosions, the Johnstown Flood of 1889 has remained an exception due to the sheer destruction and magnitude of the disaster. On May 31, 1889, Johnstown became a casualty of a combination of heavy rains and the failure of the South Fork Dam to stem the rising water levels of Lake Conemaugh about 15 miles away. The dam's inability to contain the water and its subsequent collapse resulted in a catastrophic flood that swept through the town with virtually no warning. With water flowing at a rate equivalent to the Mississippi River, a tide of water and debris 60 feet high and traveling 40 miles per hour in some places surged through Johnstown and swept away people and property alike. The flood ultimately resulted in the deaths of over 2,000 people and destroyed thousands of buildings, wreaking damages estimated to be the equivalent of nearly half a billion dollars today. In 1889, the Johnstown Flood was the deadliest natural disaster in American history, and though it was later surpassed by other events, the unprecedented nature of the flood led to relief efforts never before seen, including by the Red Cross. The Johnstown Flood also led to a change in laws as people tried and failed to recoup damages caused by the collapse of the dam and the subsequent flood. The Johnstown Flood of 1889 chronicles the story America's deadliest natural disaster during the 19th century. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Johnstown Flood like never before, in no time at all. |
| deadliest dam failure in history: Can You Survive the Johnstown Flood? Steven Otfinoski, 2022 On May 31, 1889, heavy rains and a dam failure sent flood waters sweeping into Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The 50-foot-high wall of water quickly demolished much of the town. Will you and your new husband be able to escape certain doom as you wait for your train to leave the station? Can you climb onto your house's roof for safety before the building completely fills with water? Will you join in the effort to save others who are floating by on the roofs of their houses? With dozens of possible choices, it's up to YOU to find a way to survive one of the deadliest disasters in American history. |
| deadliest dam failure in history: The Santa Clarita Valley Kim Stephens, Dr. Alan Pollack, E.J. Stephens, 2014-05-05 Born in 1987 as the nation's first new city with a population greater than 100,000, Santa Clarita, California, has a fascinating history that stretches back to the rugged Wild West era. Hollywood recreates this history in Santa Clarita and its surrounding valley, to the delight of movie fans worldwide. |
| deadliest dam failure in history: The Buffalo Creek Disaster Gerald M. Stern, 2008-05-06 The suspenseful and completely absorbing story (San Francisco Chronicle) of how survivors of the worst coal-mining disaster in history triumphed over corporate irresponsibility—written by the young lawyer who took on their case and won. One Saturday morning in February 1972, an impoundment dam owned by the Pittston Coal Company burst, sending a 130 million gallon, 25 foot tidal wave of water, sludge, and debris crashing into southern West Virginia's Buffalo Creek hollow. It was one of the deadliest floods in U.S. history. 125 people were killed instantly, more than 1,000 were injured, and over 4,000 were suddenly homeless. Instead of accepting the small settlements offered by the coal company's insurance offices, a few hundred of the survivors banded together to sue. |
| deadliest dam failure in history: Floods in a Changing Climate Slobodan P. Simonović, 2012-11-22 Flood risk management is presented in this book as a framework for identifying, assessing and prioritizing climate-related risks and developing appropriate adaptation responses. Rigorous assessment is employed to determine the available probabilistic and fuzzy set-based analytic tools, when each is appropriate and how to apply them to practical problems. Academic researchers in the fields of hydrology, climate change, environmental science and policy and risk assessment, and professionals and policy-makers working in hazard mitigation, water resources engineering and environmental economics, will find this an invaluable resource. This volume is the fourth in a collection of four books on flood disaster management theory and practice within the context of anthropogenic climate change. The others are: Floods in a Changing Climate: Extreme Precipitation by Ramesh Teegavarapu, Floods in a Changing Climate: Hydrologic Modeling by P. P. Mujumdar and D. Nagesh Kumar and Floods in a Changing Climate: Inundation Modelling by Giuliano Di Baldassarre. |
| deadliest dam failure in history: The St. Francis Dam Disaster Revisited Doyce Blackman Nunis, Charles N. Johnson, 1995 The St. Francis Dam was built in San Francisquito Canyon to provide additional storage for the Los Angeles - Owens River Aqueduct. On the night of 12/13 March 1928, it failed catastrophically, killing about 450 people in the San Francisquito and Santa Clara River valleys. |
| deadliest dam failure in history: Heat Wave Eric Klinenberg, 2015-05-06 The “compelling” story behind the 1995 Chicago weather disaster that killed hundreds—and what it revealed about our broken society (Boston Globe). On July 13, 1995, Chicagoans awoke to a blistering day in which the temperature would reach 106 degrees. The heat index—how the temperature actually feels on the body—would hit 126. When the heat wave broke a week later, city streets had buckled; records for electrical use were shattered; and power grids had failed, leaving residents without electricity for up to two days. By July 20, over seven hundred people had perished—twenty times the number of those struck down by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Heat waves kill more Americans than all other natural disasters combined. Until now, no one could explain either the overwhelming number or the heartbreaking manner of the deaths resulting from the 1995 Chicago heat wave. Meteorologists and medical scientists have been unable to account for the scale of the trauma, and political officials have puzzled over the sources of the city’s vulnerability. In Heat Wave, Eric Klinenberg takes us inside the anatomy of the metropolis to conduct what he calls a “social autopsy,” examining the social, political, and institutional organs of the city that made this urban disaster so much worse than it ought to have been. He investigates why some neighborhoods experienced greater mortality than others, how city government responded, and how journalists, scientists, and public officials reported and explained these events. Through years of fieldwork, interviews, and research, he uncovers the surprising and unsettling forms of social breakdown that contributed to this human catastrophe as hundreds died alone behind locked doors and sealed windows, out of contact with friends, family, community groups, and public agencies. As this incisive and gripping account demonstrates, the widening cracks in the social foundations of American cities made visible by the 1995 heat wave remain in play in America’s cities today—and we ignore them at our peril. Includes photos and a new preface on meeting the challenges of climate change in urban centers “Heat Wave is not so much a book about weather, as it is about the calamitous consequences of forgetting our fellow citizens. . . . A provocative, fascinating book, one that applies to much more than weather disasters.” —Chicago Sun-Times “It’s hard to put down Heat Wave without believing you’ve just read a tale of slow murder by public policy.” —Salon “A classic. I can’t recommend it enough.” —Chris Hayes |
| deadliest dam failure in history: Floodpath Jon Wilkman, 2018-01-16 Floodpath attempts to rescue the disaster from obscurity . . . The author captures many heartbreaking stories of survivors . . . The effect is powerful. --The Wall Street Journal 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 like 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. |
| deadliest dam failure in history: Johnstown Flood Emma Huddleston, 2019-12-15 In 1889, a downpour of rain caused the South Fork Dam to collapse. A huge wave of water rushed into Johnstown, killing thousands of people. The Johnstown Floodexamines the scope of the disaster, its causes, and how people can keep a similar disaster from happening again. Easy-to-read text, vivid images, and helpful back matter give readers a clear look at this subject. Features include a table of contents, infographics, a glossary, additional resources, and an index. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Core Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO. |
| deadliest dam failure in history: Save This Land Nachiketa Das, 2021-04-17 Save This Land discusses some topical issues of the environment. In each of the six chapters, a topic is chosen, the problem is analysed, the dangers are described and the solutions are presented with an appeal to all for proaction to save this land. The imminent desertification caused by deforestation of land, amply served by the monsoon, must be averted by the construction of hundreds of thousands of micro-dams. The threat of sea level rise needs to be combated by undertaking a massive project of Coastal Works. The Ganga could remain perennial only with significant reforestation and strengthening of lateral and terminal moraines in the Himalaya. “When rivers die, civilisations die,” and this land faces an existential crisis because of the rivers choked to death by a vast deposition of sediments that need to be excavated for their revival. The Hirakud Dam on the Mahanadi must be revived too. Bodies of good clean drinking water are the heritage of humanity and they are getting polluted. The water quality is paramount and must be maintained. |
| deadliest dam failure in history: The Buffalo Creek Disaster Gerald M. Stern, 2011-01-26 The suspenseful and completely absorbing story (San Francisco Chronicle) of how survivors of the worst coal-mining disaster in history triumphed over corporate irresponsibility—written by the young lawyer who took on their case and won. One Saturday morning in February 1972, an impoundment dam owned by the Pittston Coal Company burst, sending a 130 million gallon, 25 foot tidal wave of water, sludge, and debris crashing into southern West Virginia's Buffalo Creek hollow. It was one of the deadliest floods in U.S. history. 125 people were killed instantly, more than 1,000 were injured, and over 4,000 were suddenly homeless. Instead of accepting the small settlements offered by the coal company's insurance offices, a few hundred of the survivors banded together to sue. |
| deadliest dam failure in history: Homo Deus Yuval Noah Harari, 2017-02-21 Official U.S. edition with full color illustrations throughout. NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Yuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon Sapiens, returns with an equally original, compelling, and provocative book, turning his focus toward humanity’s future, and our quest to upgrade humans into gods. Over the past century humankind has managed to do the impossible and rein in famine, plague, and war. This may seem hard to accept, but, as Harari explains in his trademark style—thorough, yet riveting—famine, plague and war have been transformed from incomprehensible and uncontrollable forces of nature into manageable challenges. For the first time ever, more people die from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals put together. The average American is a thousand times more likely to die from binging at McDonalds than from being blown up by Al Qaeda. What then will replace famine, plague, and war at the top of the human agenda? As the self-made gods of planet earth, what destinies will we set ourselves, and which quests will we undertake? Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century—from overcoming death to creating artificial life. It asks the fundamental questions: Where do we go from here? And how will we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? This is the next stage of evolution. This is Homo Deus. With the same insight and clarity that made Sapiens an international hit and a New York Times bestseller, Harari maps out our future. |
| deadliest dam failure in history: Monsoons over China Yihui Ding, 1993-12-31 The monsoon over China is one of the major components of the global circulation patterns. A remarkable relationship exists between this part of the monsoon and other world regions. However, in western countries little is yet known about monsoons over China. This monograph provides a systematic and comprehensive description of the major aspects of monsoons over China. Special emphasis is put on fluctuations of the monsoon on various scales and the effects of the Tibetan Plateau on the monsoon. The book also contains useful historical information. For researchers in meteorology, hydrology, oceanography. |
| deadliest dam failure in history: Failure of Teton Dam Teton Dam Failure Review Group (U.S.), 1977 |
| deadliest dam failure in history: Fukushima David Lochbaum, Edwin Lyman, Susan Q. Stranahan, The Union of Concerned Scientists, 2015-02-10 “A gripping, suspenseful page-turner” (Kirkus Reviews) with a “fast-paced, detailed narrative that moves like a thriller” (International Business Times), Fukushima teams two leading experts from the Union of Concerned Scientists, David Lochbaum and Edwin Lyman, with award-winning journalist Susan Q. Stranahan to give us the first definitive account of the 2011 disaster that led to the worst nuclear catastrophe since Chernobyl. Four years have passed since the day the world watched in horror as an earthquake large enough to shift the Earth's axis by several inches sent a massive tsunami toward the Japanese coast and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, causing the reactors' safety systems to fail and explosions to reduce concrete and steel buildings to rubble. Even as the consequences of the 2011 disaster continue to exact their terrible price on the people of Japan and on the world, Fukushima addresses the grim questions at the heart of the nuclear debate: could a similar catastrophe happen again, and—most important of all—how can such a crisis be averted? |
| deadliest dam failure in history: extreme weather , 2015 |
| deadliest dam failure in history: Disaster Resilience National Academies, Policy and Global Affairs, Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy, Committee on Increasing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters, 2012-12-29 No person or place is immune from disasters or disaster-related losses. Infectious disease outbreaks, acts of terrorism, social unrest, or financial disasters in addition to natural hazards can all lead to large-scale consequences for the nation and its communities. Communities and the nation thus face difficult fiscal, social, cultural, and environmental choices about the best ways to ensure basic security and quality of life against hazards, deliberate attacks, and disasters. Beyond the unquantifiable costs of injury and loss of life from disasters, statistics for 2011 alone indicate economic damages from natural disasters in the United States exceeded $55 billion, with 14 events costing more than a billion dollars in damages each. One way to reduce the impacts of disasters on the nation and its communities is to invest in enhancing resilience-the ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from and more successfully adapt to adverse events. Disaster Resilience: A National Imperative addresses the broad issue of increasing the nation's resilience to disasters. This book defines national resilience, describes the state of knowledge about resilience to hazards and disasters, and frames the main issues related to increasing resilience in the United States. It also provide goals, baseline conditions, or performance metrics for national resilience and outlines additional information, data, gaps, and/or obstacles that need to be addressed to increase the nation's resilience to disasters. Additionally, the book's authoring committee makes recommendations about the necessary approaches to elevate national resilience to disasters in the United States. Enhanced resilience allows better anticipation of disasters and better planning to reduce disaster losses-rather than waiting for an event to occur and paying for it afterward. Disaster Resilience confronts the topic of how to increase the nation's resilience to disasters through a vision of the characteristics of a resilient nation in the year 2030. Increasing disaster resilience is an imperative that requires the collective will of the nation and its communities. Although disasters will continue to occur, actions that move the nation from reactive approaches to disasters to a proactive stance where communities actively engage in enhancing resilience will reduce many of the broad societal and economic burdens that disasters can cause. |
| deadliest dam failure in history: In the Shadow of the Dam Elizabeth M. Sharpe, 2007-08-10 Early one May morning in 1874, in the hills above Williamsburg, Massachusetts, a reservoir dam suddenly burst, sending an avalanche of water down a narrow river valley lined with factories and farms. In just thirty minutes, the Mill River flood left 139 people dead and 740 homeless -- and a nation wondering how this terrible calamity had happened. In this compelling tale of a man-made disaster peopled with everyday heroes and arrogant scoundrels, Elizabeth Sharpe opens a rare window into industry and village life in nineteenth-century New England, a time when dam failures and other industrial accidents were widespread and laws favored factory owners rather than factory workers. In the Mill Valley, the townsfolk depended upon generally benevolent patriarchs who assured them that the dam was safe, when most people could see that it was not. The story of the Mill River flood is the story of those townsfolk: of George Cheney, the dam keeper whose repeated warnings about leaks in the dam had been ignored by the mill owners; of his wife, Elizabeth, who watched in disbelief as the dam burst open from the bottom; of Isabell Hayden, the mother who saw her young son swept away in the river's torrent; and of Fred Howard, a box maker who spent the days after the flood searching for bodies, burying friends, and waiting to see if the button factory he relied upon for his livelihood would be rebuilt. It is also the story of the well-meaning but overconfident businessmen who built the dam: of Onslow Spelman, the manufacturer who dismissed the dam keeper's flood warning, irrationally insisting that the dam could not break; of Lucius Fenn and Joel Bassett, the engineer and contractor whose roles in the construction of the dam would be questioned during the public inquest into the causes of the flood; of William Skinner, the factory owner who struggled to decide whether or not to rebuild his silk factory in the village that bore his name; and of many others. The flood highlighted class divisions between worker and owner, as well as the disorganized state of professional engineering, then still in its infancy. As the flood exposed the dangers of allowing mill owners -- who were not trained engineers -- to design their own dam, legislation to regulate the building of reservoir dams in Massachusetts was enacted for the first time. Engineers, politicians, and business owners battled over control of the reform measures to prevent similar tragedies, yet saw them continually repeated. In the Shadow of the Dam is the story of an event that reshaped a society. Told through the eyes of villagers like Collins Graves, lauded as a hero for his desperate ride through the valley to warn people of the impending flood, and industrialists like Joel Hayden Jr., entrusted with the responsibility of disaster relief despite his culpability in failing to maintain the leaking dam, In the Shadow of the Dam is a history of our uneasy relationship with industrial progress and a riveting narrative of a tragic disaster in small-town Massachusetts. |
| deadliest dam failure in history: The Teton Dam Disaster Dylan J. McDonald, 2006 While cameras rolled, the newly completed Teton Dam collapsed shortly before noon on June 5, 1976. The resulting wall of water, 80 billion gallons strong, battered town after town during its three-day rampage through the Upper Snake River Valley in eastern Idaho. Impounding the flood-prone Teton River, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation dam failed during the reservoir's initial fill, ripping homes from foundations, drowning thousands of livestock, and stripping acres of valuable topsoil. Amazingly only 11 lives were lost during the disaster, as most residents heeded the flood warnings. Presenting photographs from local newspapers, archives, museums, historical societies, and witnesses, this book documents the dam's spectacular failure, the tremendous damage, and the Herculean cleanup and rebuilding process following one of the worst engineering disasters of the last 50 years. Today the investigation into why the 305-foot-tall earth-fill dam crumbled-ironically a dam built for flood control-still prompts debate. |
| deadliest dam failure in history: The Memorial History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884 James Hammond Trumbull, 1886 |
| deadliest dam failure in history: Naval Air War U. S. Department Navy, 2016-10-28 Naval Air War: The Rolling Thunder Campaign is the sixth monograph in the series The U.S. Navy and the Vietnam War. It covers aircraft carrier activity during one of the longest sustained aerial bombing campaigns in history. And it would be a failure. The U.S. Navy proved essential to the conduct of Rolling Thunder and by capitalizing on the inherent flexibility and mobility of naval forces, the Seventh Fleet operated with impunity for three years off the coast of North Vietnam. The success with which the Navy executed the later Operation Linebacker campaign against North Vietnam in 1972 revealed how much the service had learned from and exploited the Rolling Thunder experience of 1965-1968. |
| deadliest dam failure in history: Climate Change and Natural Disasters Vinod Thomas, 2017-01-31 The start of the new millennium will be remembered for deadly climate-related disasters—the great floods in Thailand in 2011, Super Storm Sandy in the United States in 2012, and Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in 2013, to name a few. In 2014, 17.5 million people were displaced by climate-related disasters, ten times more than the 1.7 million displaced by geophysical hazards. What is causing the increase in natural disasters and what effect does it have on the economy? Climate Change and Natural Disasters sends three messages: human-made factors exert a growing influence on climate-related disasters; because of the link to anthropogenic factors, there is a pressing need for climate mitigation; and prevention, including climate adaptation, ought not to be viewed as a cost to economic growth but as an investment. Ultimately, attention to climate-related disasters, arguably the most tangible manifestation of global warming, may help mobilize broader climate action. It can also be instrumental in transitioning to a path of low-carbon, green growth, improving disaster resilience, improving natural resource use, and caring for the urban environment. Vinod Thomas proposes that economic growth will become sustainable only if governments, political actors, and local communities combine natural disaster prevention and controlling climate change into national growth strategies. When considering all types of capital, particularly human capital, climate action can drive economic growth, rather than hinder it. |
| deadliest dam failure in history: The World's Largest Floods, Past and Present Jim E. O'Connor, John E. Costa, 2004 |
| deadliest dam failure in history: A Failure of Initiative United States. Congress. House. Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina, 2006 |
| deadliest dam failure in history: Calamity Joann Green Byrd, 2014-01-01 June 14, 1903, was a typical, hot Sunday in Heppner, a small farm town in northeastern Oregon. People went to church, ate dinner, and relaxed with family and friends. But late that afternoon, calamity struck when a violent thunderstorm brought heavy rain and hail to the mountains and bare hills south of town. When the fierce downpour reached Heppner, people gathered their children and hurried inside. Most everyone closed their doors and windows against the racket. The thunder and pounding hail masked the sound of something they likely could not have imagined: a roaring, two-story wall of water raging toward town. Within an hour, one of every five people in the prosperous town of 1,300 would lose their lives as the floodwaters pulled apart and carried away nearly everything in their path. The center of town was devastated. Enormous drifts of debris, tangled around bodies, snaked down the valley. The telegraph was down, the railroads were out, and the mayor was in Portland. Stunned survivors bent immediately to the dreadful tasks of searching for loved ones and carrying bodies to a makeshift morgue in the bank. By the next afternoon, thousands of individuals and communities had rushed to the town's aid, an outpouring of generosity that enabled the self-reliant citizens of Heppner to undertake the town's recovery. In Calamity, Joann Green Byrd, a native of eastern Oregon, carefully documents this poignant story, illustrating that even the smallest acts have consequences - good or bad. She draws on a wealth of primary sources, including a moving collection of photographs, to paint a rare picture of how a small town in the West coped with disaster at the turn of the twentieth century. |
| deadliest dam failure in history: Lifelines Stephane Hallegatte, Jun Rentschler, Julie Rozenberg, 2019-07-16 Infrastructure—electricity, telecommunications, roads, water, and sanitation—are central to people’s lives. Without it, they cannot make a living, stay healthy, and maintain a good quality of life. Access to basic infrastructure is also a key driver of economic development. This report lays out a framework for understanding infrastructure resilience - the ability of infrastructure systems to function and meet users’ needs during and after a natural hazard. It focuses on four infrastructure systems that are essential to economic activity and people’s well-being: power systems, including the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity; water and sanitation—especially water utilities; transport systems—multiple modes such as road, rail, waterway, and airports, and multiple scales, including urban transit and rural access; and telecommunications, including telephone and Internet connections. |
| deadliest dam failure in history: The Spoils of Dust Alexander Robinson, 2018 Once the third-largest lake in California and among the world's greatest sources of dust, for decades the dried Owens Lake was merely a footnote to the most notorious water grab in modern history. Now, the desert lake has been reassembled--not refilled--to redeem its lost value without returning Los Angeles's main water supply. In The Spoils of Dust, this bargain redemption and its surprise conjuring of an extraordinary landscape, is the backdrop for investigating contemporary relationships between landscape architecture, engineering, and perception. The Promethean terrain makes legible the frameworks we use to reinvent nature in the Anthropocene, revealing itself as a monument to the prismatic modes by which we know landscapes today. Almost by accident, this has made select landscape values the linchpin for major water resource decisions, thrusting landscape architecture into a consequential position. Answering the challenge, the book concludes with a speculative atlas and robotic tool for an imaginative and advanced approach to dry lake design. |
| deadliest dam failure in history: Army Support During the Hurricane Katrina Disaster James A. Wombwell, 2011 This is a print on demand edition of a hard to find publication. Hurricane Katrina, in Aug. 2005, was the costliest hurricane as well as one of the five deadliest storms in U.S. history. It caused extensive destruction along the Gulf coast from central Florida to Texas. Some 22,000 Active-Duty Army personnel assisted with relief-and-recovery operations in Mississippi and Louisiana. At the same time, all 50 states sent approx. 50,000 National Guard personnel to deal with the storm¿s aftermath. Because the media coverage of this disaster tended toward the sensational more than the analytical, many important stories remain to be told in a dispassionate manner. This study offers a dispassionate analysis of the Army¿s response to the natural disaster by providing a detailed account of the operations in Louisiana and Mississippi. |
| deadliest dam failure in history: Death by Default Robin Munro, Human Rights Watch/Asia, 1996 - A New Order |
| deadliest dam failure in history: Federal Guidelines for Dam Safety , 2004 |
| deadliest dam failure in history: History of Ancient Woodbury, Connecticut William Cothren, 1854 |
| deadliest dam failure in history: The Johnstown Flood Herman Dieck, 2010-11 |
DEADLIEST Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
The meaning of DEADLY is likely to cause or capable of producing death. How to use deadly in a sentence. Synonym Discussion of Deadly.
Deadliest - definition of deadliest by The Free Dictionary
1. causing or tending to cause death; lethal. 2. aiming to kill or destroy; implacable: a deadly enemy. 3. like death. 4. excruciatingly boring. 5. excessive; inordinate: deadly haste. 6. …
DEADLIEST definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary
It was like being caught in a riptide - the wind was pulling as hard as the deadliest current. The commander was an English gentleman Communist, the kind that he had come to think of as …
The Top 10 Deadliest Animals In The World
Jan 30, 2025 · The mosquito is the single deadliest, most dangerous animal in the world and also one of the smallest. Mosquitoes are estimated to cause between 750,000 and one million …
What does deadliest mean? - Definitions.net
Definition of deadliest in the Definitions.net dictionary. Meaning of deadliest. What does deadliest mean? Information and translations of deadliest in the most comprehensive dictionary …
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Find 66 different ways to say DEADLIEST, along with antonyms, related words, and example sentences at Thesaurus.com.
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Apr 19, 2023 · Read on to see 10 of the deadliest diseases worldwide. 1. Ischemic heart disease, or coronary artery disease. The deadliest disease in the world is coronary artery disease …
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Find 2,354 synonyms for deadliest and other similar words that you can use instead based on 12 separate contexts from our thesaurus.
List of animals deadliest to humans - Wikipedia
This is a list of the deadliest animals to humans worldwide, measured by the number of humans killed per year. Different lists have varying criteria and definitions, so lists from different …
DEADLIEST in Thesaurus: 1000+ Synonyms & Antonyms for DEADLIEST
What's the definition of Deadliest in thesaurus? Most related words/phrases with sentence examples define Deadliest meaning and usage.
DEADLIEST Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
The meaning of DEADLY is likely to cause or capable of producing death. How to use deadly in a sentence. Synonym Discussion of Deadly.
Deadliest - definition of deadliest by The Free Dictionary
1. causing or tending to cause death; lethal. 2. aiming to kill or destroy; implacable: a deadly enemy. 3. like death. 4. excruciatingly boring. 5. excessive; inordinate: deadly haste. 6. …
DEADLIEST definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary
It was like being caught in a riptide - the wind was pulling as hard as the deadliest current. The commander was an English gentleman Communist, the kind that he had come to think of as …
The Top 10 Deadliest Animals In The World
Jan 30, 2025 · The mosquito is the single deadliest, most dangerous animal in the world and also one of the smallest. Mosquitoes are estimated to cause between 750,000 and one million …
What does deadliest mean? - Definitions.net
Definition of deadliest in the Definitions.net dictionary. Meaning of deadliest. What does deadliest mean? Information and translations of deadliest in the most comprehensive dictionary …
66 Synonyms & Antonyms for DEADLIEST - Thesaurus.com
Find 66 different ways to say DEADLIEST, along with antonyms, related words, and example sentences at Thesaurus.com.
The Top 10 Deadliest Diseases in the World - Healthline
Apr 19, 2023 · Read on to see 10 of the deadliest diseases worldwide. 1. Ischemic heart disease, or coronary artery disease. The deadliest disease in the world is coronary artery disease …
What is another word for deadliest - WordHippo
Find 2,354 synonyms for deadliest and other similar words that you can use instead based on 12 separate contexts from our thesaurus.
List of animals deadliest to humans - Wikipedia
This is a list of the deadliest animals to humans worldwide, measured by the number of humans killed per year. Different lists have varying criteria and definitions, so lists from different …
DEADLIEST in Thesaurus: 1000+ Synonyms & Antonyms for DEADLIEST
What's the definition of Deadliest in thesaurus? Most related words/phrases with sentence examples define Deadliest meaning and usage.
