The Night Los Angeles' Hero Became Its Villain - March 12, 1928

March 12, 1928, 11:57 p.m.: The St. Francis Dam collapsed, sending 12.4 billion gallons of water through five California towns. At least 431 people died, many in their sleep. Designer William Mulholland had inspected the dam 12 hours earlier, seen muddy water leaking from the foundation, and declared it safe. He was America's greatest water engineer—the self-taught genius who built the LA Aqueduct and made Los Angeles possible. He was also catastrophically wrong. Today, America has 92,000+ dams, average age 64 years. More than 2,500 high-hazard dams are in poor condition. We need $76 billion in repairs. Congress allocated $3 billion. We know the problems. We're not fixing them. The pattern is identical: known risks, deferred maintenance, "it'll be fine" until it isn't.