Baldwin Hills Dam disaster

34.008158333333-118.36357777778

The Baldwin Hills store was a water storage in Baldwin Hills in Los Angeles in the U.S. state of California. He broke in December 1963 and produced a tidal wave that was said to be 15 meters high and caused 50 million dollars damage. There were five to eight deaths.

The rectangular pool was built in 1951. It was about 260 times 305 m tall and had a ring dam of 40 m height. According to ICOLD he was even 80 meters high, according to Flemming (see below) to 70 m. The surface inside was sealed with asphalt concrete. Among them was a drainage layer. The pool volume was 1.1 million cubic meters, of which 200 million gallons ( 756,000 m³ = ) expired or even 930.000 m³.

In the underground there were several geological faults, but they were known. Because of earthquakes, groundwater lowering and an oil field near the ground sloped off. About 800 m away from the pool, there was a settlement trough with 3 m depth, which was developed in the course of 50 years. Directly, however, the pelvis, the settlements were only 3 cm deep.

On December 14, 1963 a Saturday, the dam broke in the course of several hours. First, the Master jam noticed in the morning at 11:15 clock muddy seepage water to the drainage, then strongly effervescent sole drainage. They tried from 12:20 clock to empty the memory. However, too fast, it formed cracks in various places, which eventually led about 15:00 clock to a breach and for leakage. Flemming is the width of the crack with 23 m and its height 27 m. The tidal wave was expired after three to four hours; by Flemming took the drain only 77 minutes. The maximum discharge rate was 120 m³ / s

Six hours before breaking the downstream residents should have been warned, so they could leave the area at risk. (This time, however, does not fit the above time specifications, they may have been warned about the earliest at 12:00. ) However, there were at least five deaths. 41 homes were destroyed and 984 damaged. The material damage amounted to Flemming DM 50 million (instead of dollars).

It was later determined that the drains were broken by movements on the faults. The water ran down from and seeped into the ground, causing erosions emerged, an effect which is called piping. Finally, the asphalt concrete seal was torn to movements of the disorders.

The dam was never rebuilt. It has made the site the Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area.