I recently came across this recording by American folk singer Woody Guthrie telling the tale of the Flood of 1934. In it, he talks about the local towns besieged, the lives lost, and some of what happened during the disaster. His unique voice and singing is/was a touching memorial to a devastating historical event that would structurally change the L.A. Basin and its surrounding communities.
(I also found this great article telling in detail much more about the flood of 1934. And this is another, with excellent photos, that describes the flooding and damage experienced throughout L.A. on that day. The Great Crescenta Valley Flood is also an excellent historical book about the event.
The story begins on December 31st, 1933. Heavy rains pelted Southern California as holiday gatherings were in full swing. Then, in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day 1934, the Foothills towns of La Crescenta, Tujunga, Montrose and Glendale were inundated with flooding, mud slides and debris that buried houses, businesses, cars, and people. Rocks and boulders were sent careening through canyons and tumbling through the Verdugo valley, crushing and maiming as the muddy waters rushed to meet the yet unbound (by a concrete channel) Los Angeles River.
A festive start to the New Year had now become a terrible local tragedy. ((Much worse than the physical devastation would be the loss of at least one hundred lives. The catastrophe made national news and would forever change the relationship between Los Angeles and its natural drainage system.
Today, towns and cities in the foothills are dotted with concrete “washes” and debris basins, built to capture, control, and direct storm waters safely into the L.A. River. And as any local knows, all that funneling through these channels creates a raging L.A. River during the rainy season. All that storm water literally races to the sea. Of course, the Los Angeles River itself no longer meanders unbound. Long ago, partly as a result of this disaster, it was corseted into its own, movie-famous concrete bed (Grease, anyone?) . . . all part of the plan to prevent such a disaster from ever happening again.
So, yes, it is July . . . and yes, we are in the midst of a historical drought . . . but many of you have witnessed the power of the L.A. River when it does rain. And it will again.
In full storm mode, the river swells with turbulent water. It moves along with surprising fury and danger, pulling on the patchwork of all these watery channels that were built in the aftermath of the fatal flood of 1934.
