The St. Francis Dam was a 200-foot high concrete gravity-arch dam built between 1924 and 1926 in St. Francisquito Canyon (near present-day Castaic and Santa Clarita). The dam collapsed on March 12, 1928 at two and a half minutes before midnight. The resulting flood killed more than 600 residents plus an unknown number of itinerant farm workers camped in San Francisquito Canyon, making it the 2nd greatest loss of life in California after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. It is considered the worst American civil engineering failure in the 20th century.
Group portrait of about 24 disaster recovery workers seated on and standing next to a pickup truck after the failure of the Saint Francis Dam and resulting flood. The workers appear to be in a park with large trees shading wooden picnic tables with attached benches. A plank spanning a truck fender and picnic table and tools on the ground suggest that the men are engaged in construction or repair work. A painted sign in the door of the truck reads "...ople's...[Lum]ber Co. ...nta Paula." Santa Paula was one of the communities in the path of the flood. Beyond the park there is a metal rail fence, a street and a building across the street.
Group portrait of a frightened little girl, standing with her hands clasped in front of her, next to another girl who looks at her with her mouth open in concern, who grasps the hand of a toddler girl next to her, who grasps the hand of a taller girl next to her (head not in photograph frame), and a smaller toddler girl (half in the photograph frame). The group is in front of a row of tents in a relief camp for people who were displaced by the flood following the failure of the Saint Francis Dam..
