Dateline>City of Angels

Poking around the web late last night, I stumbled on a brief but fascinating video by Tony Biasotti commemorating the infamous St. Francis Dam Disaster.

For those unfamiliar with the history, back in 1926, William Mulholland completed the dam to help ensure a steady water flow for a fledgling but rapidly growing Los Angeles. Townspeople celebrated it as an engineering triumph. Ranchers downstream in San Francisquito Canyon, however, weren’t so impressed. They nicknamed it the Giant Tombstone.

They didn’t know how prophetic they were… Just before midnight on March 12, 1928, the damn burst, spilling 12 billion gallons of water into the canyon. It remains one of the worst tragedies in California history, with estimates putting the death toll somewhere between 400 to 500 souls.

As for Biasotti’s video, yes, it would’ve been nice if I had Googled it up for my faithful readers while it was still fresh two months ago, but as the saying goes, better late than never. Especially in this case. Biasotti manages to pack a lot of info into his little flick, including a compelling interview with an elderly survivor who chillingly recalls the muddy debris field: “It was a terrible sight…to see people…to see parts of people…”

Incidentally, there are several ghost tales associated with the dam break. To this day, some locals say they still hear disembodied cries for help — along with sightings of ghostly figures desperately trying to make midnight climbs up the canyon walls to safety. Of course, the ghosts are said to be most active each March 12 at the midnight hour.

The victims that night included six members of the Ruiz family, who were buried in a small private cemetery on their ranch, which has remained at the center of the ghostlore. As reported on several paranormal websites, over the years trespassers would swear they encountered strange phenomena, including the ghostly sobs of a toddler. At one time, the hand print of a young girl was said to have mysteriously appeared on a freshly painted wall.

Recently, however, I conducted an off-the-record interview with a local historian who called at least some of those tales into question. Apparently an associate, who grew up near the cemetery, has admitted that years ago she used to sneak out at night with one or two other kids and hide in the cemetery to scare away curiosity-seekers.

See? It just goes to prove that some ghost stories really do have a Scooby-Doo ending.