Los Angeles Flood
of 1938
The 1938 flood event resulted in the deaths
of 115 people.
It destroyed
5,601 homes and damaged 1,500 homes making them uninhabitable. For many
Angelenos, the storm evoked grim memories of the 1934 Los Angeles New Year’s
Day flood in which 40 people, 200 homes, and 800 mostly Model “A” cars perished
in the water and mud. In both storms debris flows and watery mud buried people
in their homes or drowned them as they attempted in their automobiles to cross
roads that had become raging torrents or cross bridges that then washed out,
plunging them into the river torrents below.
At least
four persons were killed, hundreds of families were driven from their homes,
and property was damaged to the extent of perhaps $1,000,000 in today's record
rain storm. Thousands of acres of low lands were inundated, streets and
highways were washed out or buried under landslides and were closed to traffic.
Houses were crushed. Many street intersections in metropolitan Los Angeles were
turned into lakes.
Overall, the
flood of 1938 was responsible for destroying 5,601 houses, damaging a further
1,500, killing upwards of 110 people, and stranding over 800 cars. Heavy silt
content in floods buried roads and streets in the area, stopping traffic for
many days. The Little Rock Dam nearly collapsed during the flood, while another
dam in Pickens Canyon produced such large flood releases that it inundated the
Roosevelt district of Lancaster. The general hospital of Los Angeles County was
threatened by rising floodwaters, which had inundated the hospital power
generator. More than 20 structures were destroyed in the Arroyo Seco canyon,
but there were no fatalities there.
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