Blog: The collapse of water exports – Los Angeles, 1914
This is a re-post from 2019 with updated links for pictures and further readings. … Collapse of Los Angeles aqueduct pipeline through Antelope Valley from a major flood in February, 1914 (3-months after the aqueduct’s official opening) “In February, 1914, the rainfall in the Mojave Desert region exceeded by nearly fifty per cent in three days the average annual precipitation. Where the steel siphon crosses Antelope valley at the point of greatest depression, an arroyo or run-off wash indicated that fifteen feet was the extreme width of the flood stream, and the pipe was carried over the wash on concrete piers set just outside the high water lines. The February rain, however, was of the sort known as a cloud-burst, and the flood widened the wash to fifty feet, carried away the concrete piers, and the pipe sagged and broke at a circular seam.