WATER 113 



"What prevented the disaster from being more serious than 

 it was is the twelve reservoirs to the north of Los Angeles in 

 the Sierra Madre mountains. These dams caught some of the 

 water and held it back from the city, which lies on a sloping 

 plateau. . . . 



"It was estimated by engineers here tonight that the dams 

 were holding back 100,000 acre feet of water from the city. 

 One acre foot of water is sufficient to cover one acre of land 

 to a depth of one foot." 11 



There is a play-by-play account of one flood that cost about 

 $60,000,000 and killed well over a hundred people. If you read 

 the newspaper accounts carefully, you noticed that the dams 

 built for flood control, although they were helpful, were unable 

 to cope with the flood water. The storm that caused the flood 

 was unusually heavy, but in climates such as that of southern 

 California, there are many heavy storms. The question is why 

 the flood control dams failed at that particular moment. The 

 answer is that there was too much run-off. And why was there 

 too much run-off? Chiefly because there was too much rain. 

 But man could reduce the amount of destruction caused by 

 such floods by better protection of the vegetation that covers 

 the headwaters of rivers like the Los Angeles River and the 

 Santa Ana River. 



Some spring floods in the West start the previous fall as a 

 fire. The fire burns the brush or chaparral which covers the 

 mountainsides. When the spring storms come, there is nothing 

 to hold the water back, so down it comes, burying whole sec' 

 tions in mud and rock, destroying buildings and fields, drown 

 ing people. 



The people of Los Angeles are aware of the importance of 

 keeping fire out of the chaparral. Los Angeles County main 

 tains a large fire department whose sole duty is to watch for 

 and put out mountain fires. The United States Forest Service 



"New Tor\ Times, March 5, 1938. 



