" I heard a roaring like a cyclone... The water was so high we couldn't get out the front door... In the darkness I became tangled in an oak tree, fought clear and swam to the surface... I grabbed the roof of another house, jumping off when it floated to the hillside... There was no moon and it was overcast with an eerie fog - very cold."
Ray Rising, an employee of the Department of Water and Power, lost his wife and three daughters shortly after midnight on March 13. He was one of only three survivors there. He continued with the Department until he retired in 1963.
''It is just one great scene of devastation, at some places a mile and a half wide, that stretches clear to the sea. Thousands of people and automobiles are sloshing through the mud and debris looking for the dead... An Eyewitness account "I saw one alive stuck in the mud to his neck.''
An Eyewitness Description.
The Appalling Results of the Catastrophe. ''As far as you could see there were uprooted trees, fragments of barns and farm buildings, fence posts wrapped in yards and yards of tangled barbed wire, carcasses of cows, dogs, chickens, horses and slabs of concrete, perhaps from the abutments of the Willard Bridge that had recently linked Santa Paula to the oil leases on South Mountain.''
Do you have a story to tell about the St. Francis Dam Disaster or any other Dam Disaster? email us your story
To see more pictures and read more stories like these purchase a book.
This site provided by John Nichols, author of "Images of America, The St. Francis Dam Disaster"
Distributed by Sespe Group Creative Services
Located at 916 E. Main St., Santa Paula, California
Call 805-525-7804
The Dam Disaster | History | Stories | Photo Gallery | The Monument | Exhibits | Bibliography | Links | Contacts | Shop
© 2003-2005 DamDisaster.com All rights reserved. Sespe.com
