Chapter Three: Water Rights

A large, improbable obstacle is blocking their way forward, but the gang remain resolute in their search for the truth. Featuring stories on The Hales-Bar Dam, The Tierneys & Hoover Dam, St. Francis Dam

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Welcome back to Fort Fritz. I'm your host Fritz, joined
as always by co host Man Daddy, Hi, Angela Yo,
Marie and Nick Spry greeting some What has happened and
that's a lie? Since last episode, we've just been still
here on the shore. We took a little nap that
was needed.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
It was beyond needed, or four more.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Actually, so we uh we traveled over here. Thank you
to following younks. By the way, Fali Youngs for those
who are the best new listeners. Fall Youns is a
squid beast that my late uncle found and it killed
at least one person that friend adopted.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah, we don't know if it's it's a rescue kai.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
We don't know.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
I everybody him.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Really, we don't know if it's chaotic, neutral or something,
but definitely get here. Yeah, and it was driving like
a bad out of hell. I thought that was all murray,
So my apology.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Saved by a cat and then a tentacled beast. I mean,
we just need help from more and more animals, it seems.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
But we are here because obviously we're staring at this. Damn.
It smells real bad around here too. I feel sad
but this place doesn't feel good.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
It's a very eerie.

Speaker 5 (01:21):
It feels damned.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
It's dang.

Speaker 6 (01:24):
My spider sense is ting audio hashtags, spriders, trademark.

Speaker 4 (01:31):
Aren't damn supposed to stop water?

Speaker 1 (01:33):
What's going on here? Yeah, most dams aren't cracked with
a gushing rivulet of water going right now.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
It's not supposed to do the opposite of that.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
A beaver would not like this, dame. A beaver would
see this damn and be like, oh no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
I would imagine. I would imagine that this entire bay
was probably underwater. If there are artifacts, let's just check
them out. Maybe this happened before the dam or I
mean that dam doesn't look brand new, I'll tell you
that much, and massive disrepair was just start looking.

Speaker 5 (02:04):
Little.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
I like a different sort of danky, But I'll have
to deal.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
With this shirking can from nineteen ten.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Still it's still closed. Probably there you go. If aaron
never touches that, you can eat it. That's how it
is meat.

Speaker 5 (02:19):
You can try it.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
You just found anything else over there?

Speaker 4 (02:21):
No, I just uh find some weird markings in random areas.
You guys seen this.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
I always try to avoid seeing weird markings, so that
as a cuthoolaist, that kind of creeps me out.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yeah, well that's a graffito tag over there. That's not
to say that.

Speaker 4 (02:35):
On next to that, next to that though, Oh yeah,
the other side.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Oh yeah, what is that? I've got a This looks
like what's a skybox? Yeah, rookie, Michael Jordan, car what.

Speaker 4 (02:47):
Let me let me just hold on to that.

Speaker 7 (02:49):
No, no, my bad, bad, Michael B.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Jordan's okay, it's pretty good. Though.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
He had known for the basketball skills.

Speaker 8 (03:00):
Okay, so.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Okay, guys, look over there those what are those things
popping up?

Speaker 1 (03:05):
I'm not falling for that again.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Come over here and smell it. I'm gonna trunch through
this muck over here, runching, crunching, and white baby.

Speaker 8 (03:19):
Getting states are into tombstone.

Speaker 5 (03:21):
Into toomstone, disrespectful.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
And uh it's life was from seventeen seventy eight to
seventeen seventy.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Nine with the whole century.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
No, no, just a year a year, wipe off some more.
There's another one here. This one's eighteen forty three, eighteen
forty four, what just baby, Yeah, this is like a
baby cemetery. This is kind of.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Terrible remote.

Speaker 8 (03:50):
Many are there?

Speaker 2 (03:51):
I did I count at least like twenty three?

Speaker 8 (03:53):
Oh my god, right here? I told you, I told
you they're all babies.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Damn.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Wait, there's a damn. There's a children's cemetery.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah, I don't like this.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
You think something bad happened.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
I know that something bad.

Speaker 4 (04:13):
There's something bad happened here.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Have you all ever heard of the hales Bar Dam?
The Halls Bar, the Halls Bar Damn. So, the Hell's
Bar Dam is a former hydro facility located below Chattanooga
in Marion County. Now, according a lot of websites and
a lot of different researchers, it ranks among the top

(04:35):
in the haunted damn category here in the US.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
There's more.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Evidently, there's a bunch of dams that are haunted.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Damns are terrifying.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yeah, and they and back in the day, they take
so long to make, and they're so dangerous to make
that there's always gonna be some issues and there's gonna
be some death. Even though dams are already dangerous intrinsically
to make, maybe you shouldn't make it an area that
it's already been cursed, because in seventeen seventy five. According
to some historical accounts of American warrior chief name Chief
Dragging Canoe. I love that name, Chief Dragging Canoe. He

(05:06):
was upset that those tribes lands, or his hunting grounds
actually were being given to European settlers in what is
now Kentucky and Tennessee, and he angrily warned that this
land would be quote dark and bloody, dark and bloody.
Let's have a big construction thing there. And at the
place it is on the Tennessee River, it's called the Narrows,

(05:27):
and it was a very dangerous area because there's a
lot of whirlpools in different there's are phenomenon, and so
some of the different dangers in the Narrows go by
different names, such as the boiling pot, the skillet, the frying.

Speaker 8 (05:40):
Pans, so.

Speaker 3 (05:43):
Hot hot imagery there, and the worst.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
One, the suck.

Speaker 8 (05:47):
Oh my god, the suck.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Is that the worst one?

Speaker 8 (05:51):
Well?

Speaker 2 (05:52):
Maybe according to the Native Americans, because the whirlpool named
the suck. Said that Native Americans who live on the
land say they can see the soul of their ancestors
swirling around in the suck, and that if you get
too close to the suck, your own soul will be
sucked into the suck. It's a lot of suck sucking there.
So that's, you know, once again, not a great place
to maybe put a damn, but they went for it anyway.

Speaker 7 (06:14):
Okay, well, you know this Native America chief probably was
just like, damn you white people.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah, literally, I guess we are. We are damning it.

Speaker 4 (06:23):
What we were doing?

Speaker 1 (06:24):
What are these idiots know?

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Don't you build a damn hereck them? So the construction
began in nineteen oh five and went on until nineteen thirteen.
Now in that time there was plenty of death. So
kick back and let's hear a list of death. Chow.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
We This is a long time ago too, So they
didn't know too much about damn building.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
I would imagine, Oh yeah, it's I mean, and especially
when you're doing a construction project that large. And it
was nineteen nineteen oh five to nineteen yet now a
boiler explosion took the life of one man. A falling
derek crushed two people. One poor soul had his foot
wrapped in a rope and he was pulled underwater drowned.
Of course. Uh, there's also murders at the camps. They

(07:07):
were shootings.

Speaker 5 (07:08):
Oh my god, all that they're still like, you know what, let's.

Speaker 8 (07:11):
Just add in like just like people and people killing.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
Yeah, why wouldn't you? Uh? And this is my personal favorite,
and a bar fight. A guy got hit when a
bench hit his neck. So one hits one with a bench,
just picked hup a bench and wailed on him.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
It's kind of like Titanic when they're trying to get
through that locked area, you know, and they're like Flo
Brazil and they pick up the bench.

Speaker 7 (07:30):
I mean, how else are you supposed to become the
hardcore champion of the damn Builders.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
You know union you light it on fire and power
bombs on it through it?

Speaker 3 (07:36):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (07:36):
Is that? Is that a family history thing for you?
Do you like? Are you part of that? Click?

Speaker 3 (07:40):
Oh no no, no, I'm very much, very very afraid
of everything bench.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
There was a project engineer that died from an ear infection,
the body of one of the people in the Hill's family. Yeah,
that'd be a real to go.

Speaker 8 (07:56):
Yeah really did he die?

Speaker 6 (07:58):
Wow?

Speaker 5 (07:58):
An ear infection?

Speaker 3 (08:00):
Bruce Carls air infection.

Speaker 4 (08:05):
He's embarrassed to compare that story.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
The body of one of the members of the Hales
family was found on railroad tracks run over?

Speaker 1 (08:11):
So was it a Hale's family construction Hales and bar Okay, gotcha.

Speaker 8 (08:15):
Now.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
The one that gets really creepy is that three workers
fell into the concrete while it was being poured and
they just left him there and so their bodies are
still in the walls of the concrete somewhere, kind of
like the Philadelphia experiment I talked about last week, because
people frozen in walls dead.

Speaker 7 (08:30):
They were alive when they fell in, and they just
kept pouring the concrete.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
They couldn't stop it, yes, but they continued on and
they made it in nineteen thirteen. And it was always
had problems. It was always a leaky thing. Really yeah,
it always had issues for some reason, almost like it
was cursed and bloody. And they even had a team
called the Rag Brigade that would walk around and shove
whatever they had into little leaks and everything, like just

(08:57):
little handkerchiefs or hats or whatever they had for a
dollar a.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
Point.

Speaker 4 (09:01):
Did they just pay people to shove their thumb in
a hole.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
And be like, I wouldn't be surprised at this point.
I wouldn't be surprised the way they treated this thing. Jesus,
and so after all that, they finally about nineteen in
the nineteen sixties, I think it was nineteen sixty four.
So the TVA made the decision that just we're gonna
shut it down. So they decommissioned it and build another
dam about a few miles down the river, six and
a half miles downstream.

Speaker 3 (09:25):
Quick questions, what's the TVA.

Speaker 2 (09:26):
That's the Tennessee Valley Authority, not the Time Variants Association
of Marvel.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
So did they? So it was in operation starting in
nineteen thirteen, and then in nineteen sixty four it was
shut down.

Speaker 2 (09:38):
Yes, so because of just just because it was just
obviously poorly constructed. Well, obviously by the sixties we had
better technology and there's no way we're going to allow
something like this. It's obviously dangerous.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
Was this an energy generating dam.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yes, it did have that, and they actually did move
some of the hydroelectric parts down the river. Because of
all this bad juju going around, people say that that
it's been haunted, it's always been haunted. Then you go
there now where they've still a lot of it is
still up, it's gutted and everything, and it's just completely derelict,
but you can still go there. And they say you

(10:13):
can always hear a lot of sounds of children, a
lot of footsteps. People have said they've actually seen footsteps
happen in front of them where the dust rises, and
they'll see the footprints. And so why is that because
ghosts be walking and they hear children. I have a
reason for the children. But some of the other they
of course, they think that the workers trapped in the
wall or maybe there. They think that there are some

(10:35):
people that they've seen Chief dragging canoe songs canoe. But
they say they've seen a Native American man walking across
these uh walkways, and they've seen that. And here's my
favorite I saw somewhere. There's also allegedly a murdered young
girl named Linda. Apparitions of school children, all this, and
then in the middle of said a presence called Chris.

(10:57):
That is my favorite thing I've ever seen. When we.

Speaker 8 (11:01):
Have Chief dragon canoo, we have dead children. That's Chris.

Speaker 4 (11:06):
We have It goes by a mononym.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
Only the reason for their possibly being a bunch of
dead children is twofold. One is there was a tunnel
that was dug beneath the dam so people could work
on both sides and traverse back and forth. And also
people working on this side their children were going to
school over here, so the kids had to go through it.
And it was notoriously always just dark and with you know,

(11:30):
foot deep puddles that you had to traverse around. And
there is a little bit debate whether children died in there,
but there is a story of about four children that
died in the tunnel just by getting lost and in
the darkness, falling and no one finding them.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
Oh my god, kind of likes and so.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
That's that's bad enough. And like I said, that's debated.
But one thing that did happen, why wouldn't you just.

Speaker 3 (11:53):
Build a bridge instead of digging a tunnel under a dam?

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Because it's nineteen thirteen, Okay, I did answered. When the
dam was finished, there was a decision made to flood
the area below the dam, covering an entire city, including
the town cemetery. So the people got out, but they
left all the bodies.

Speaker 1 (12:14):
So this is kind of like when they filmed Deliverance
in the early eighties, the waterfall that like Burt Reynolds
went down and almost died in they were opening up
the dam and they flooded an entire valley. Whoa like
that was the last time that that's on camera?

Speaker 2 (12:29):
Wow? Or the fact that in Poulter Guys, they made
the whole movie about having to move the bodies and
then they used real skeletons in the pool scene. So
it's like, I'm three, And then that film became so
cursed because of that, and so you know, I think
that the gods were like, look, you guys were trying
to make a point. Now we're going to make it
for you.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
And so when they did that, it flooded the entire cemetery,
not as long cemetery. No bodies were removed, and that
was where a bunch of children's bodies were buried. Because
that was the time of polio. There's a time of
all different childhood diseases, so it was a lot more
rampid to have child death and so up until the
late nineties, you could still see three headstones peering out
of the water seventy yards from the bank.

Speaker 8 (13:09):
Really.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah, so you can still see the headstones, and so
everyone that goes there. Another thing that they experience is
of course the auditory things, the sense of dread, but
they always get touched on the face. Yeah, what do
you mean when people have always reported being touched on
their face and like either hands or things in the
back of the head or things like that. And so
for some reason, the ghosts there just really want to

(13:31):
just really want to make a personal connections. That's Chris.
That's Chris's thing. That's just Chris. All the other ghosts like, look,
we don't like touching faces, but that's Chris's thing. We
just don't know.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
One of my favorite ghosts paranormal explanations is that the
spiritual realm that was encased by the body is now
in another dimension and they still want to be human,
so they wanted just to try to feel flesh again.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
But now that you see, when you go to a
damn like this, especially an old damn like this, a
dare like damn like this, you know that was involved
in hurting the lives of other people. Usually poor people
were exploited, and so there's usually going to be a
lot of bad energy and a lot of bad spirits.
And that's why places like the hails Barre Dam can
be some of the scariest places you can go.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
Definitely getting those vibes here, guys, how about you looking
at the stone tablets too. It does look like someone
gouged him out. Someone was very angry about whatever is
written here.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
Yeah, it's not. It's not in like really nice chiseled
out handwriting. It's like stabbed in it.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
With a nice, angry looking This eminate some bad I'm
just gonna say at all, I like.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
I said, any dam is not going to be good.
But an old decommissioned dam with a bunch of baby
graves right over here. And by the way, we did
open for baby graves in Tampa. They're really nice guys.
But I can just feel it. I mean right now,
I hate to say, I feel like Nick Fry.

Speaker 8 (14:48):
Like Nick Fry, how does it feel. I don't like it.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
I don't like it.

Speaker 8 (14:51):
I want to I just want to get out of
his face.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
Man, he's obviously dealing with some stuff.

Speaker 3 (14:57):
Favorite's face a little bit, he thrashes.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
Let's take a little break and then let's get back
to it. You are listening to Fort Fritz. Welcome back
to Fort Fritz. I am your host Fritz, joined as

(15:21):
always by co host Man Daddy, Hi, Marie, Nick Sprye Hi,
and Angela.

Speaker 4 (15:26):
Hello.

Speaker 1 (15:27):
You've just been kind of kicking up the soil here.
We know we've got to get over this, damn at
some point.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
But damn, damn, damn.

Speaker 1 (15:35):
We have been taking the time to kind of make
sure every stone is uncovered and looking for artifacts, a
lot of millipedes.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yeah, it's always good when you're in a possibly cursed
place to upset as much as you can. So just
move things around, must it up and everything. That's always
the best thing to do in a cursed area.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
Oh that's a headstone.

Speaker 3 (15:55):
Well no, no, no, put that back, taking that over?

Speaker 2 (15:58):
Come on, watch us you ever someone parkour off a headstone?

Speaker 3 (16:03):
That was pretty good.

Speaker 1 (16:06):
Jesus lot, it was funny. Though.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
I know it's worth it. I'm gonna be limping for
three weeks, it's still worth it.

Speaker 4 (16:13):
Let's let's just kind of move on from this area.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
I don't like the worst idea. That's not the worst
idea of birthname.

Speaker 4 (16:19):
Do you guys see the stuff hanging from the trees.
It's like totems.

Speaker 5 (16:24):
What does that mean?

Speaker 3 (16:25):
Twigs and bones or may not be hair?

Speaker 2 (16:28):
Human?

Speaker 4 (16:29):
All right, speaking of this.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
Does look like an entirely different cemetery.

Speaker 4 (16:36):
Does it come as the cemetery. There's only two headstones.

Speaker 1 (16:40):
It's a secondary cemetery, secondary cemetery additional cemetery to the
main cemetery. Let me take a look at this.

Speaker 4 (16:47):
All these headstones have the same lost name on them.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
Whoa I mean? Is that romantic or tragic?

Speaker 4 (16:53):
They got different birth dates though, I'm assuming they're family
of some sort.

Speaker 3 (16:56):
Well maybe it's like mother, godter, father's son. But who
would be buried here on the back forty of.

Speaker 2 (17:01):
Felix's property is the last name for it?

Speaker 4 (17:03):
It's right at the foot of the damn.

Speaker 3 (17:05):
Well, we didn't even know this dam was here.

Speaker 1 (17:06):
There's a lot. There's a lot hitting us right now.

Speaker 5 (17:09):
Because there is always so much going on.

Speaker 3 (17:11):
Okay, I do know she would know better than anybody.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
I do, But I forget there's like forty of you
out there experience all other things that they've got to
all be inside your hide mind making everything.

Speaker 5 (17:21):
I don't always remember exactly where it is.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
So why would this be of import if two family
members were buried right next to a dam?

Speaker 2 (17:28):
I mean, family plots are kind of a normal thing.
A dam in front of a damn, that's kind of weird.
That'd be like putting out there like your ex wife
and a golf course.

Speaker 4 (17:36):
Have you guys heard of the Tyranneyes and the Hoover Dam.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
I have heard of damn but tearing.

Speaker 5 (17:43):
There's more to this, there is.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
That'd be a really weird story if there wasn't to
tell us.

Speaker 4 (17:48):
The Hoover Dam is one of the seven modern engineering
Wonders of the World and arguably the most well known
of the four most haunted dams in the country. Haunted
visitors to the dam and workers alike have reported numerous
accounts of paranormal activity since the dam has been completed.
It is said that the Hoover Dam holds something back

(18:08):
more sinister than just the waters of the Colorado River.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
Oh good look uh.

Speaker 4 (18:14):
People exploring the inner tunnels of the dam have often
heard whispering, voices and crying in the dark. The sounds
of gates creaking open, and clothes tend to follow people
who tread through these tunnels. Individuals will hear footsteps coming
up on them from behind and then turn around.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
To no one being there inside the dam.

Speaker 4 (18:35):
Inside the inner tunnel with the dam, people have also
reported seeing a male figure meandering about that appears to
be wearing old fashioned clothing.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
Did you have a canoe? He did not.

Speaker 8 (18:46):
Oh, what is his name?

Speaker 2 (18:47):
Chris? I don't think it was a big ups to Chris.
I think we need to find out more about Chris.

Speaker 4 (18:54):
Ghost Hunters from all over the world have come to
the dam in hopes of catching a specter on film.
There have been multiple audio recordings taking of chilling, disembodied
voices talking in the dark, and photos of shadowy human
figures in empty corners.

Speaker 1 (19:08):
Evp Helieah.

Speaker 4 (19:10):
To understand why these ghostly apparitions may exist in this world,
we need to go back to the beginning. Construction on
the dam occurred between nineteen thirty one and nineteen thirty six,
in the midst of the Great Depression. It is built
on the Colorado River on the board of Nevada and Arizona.
The planning and land negotiations for the dam was completed
by President Hoover. However, actual construction did not begin until

(19:34):
during Franklin Roosevelt's presidency and was originally named the Boulder
Dam after the project's original name, the Boulder Canyon Project Act.
It was renamed to the Hoover Dam eleven years later
in nineteen forty seven by an Act of Congress, as
it was originally President Hoover's project, and to honor him
as an engineer.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
Yeah that's a good idea, man, Yeah, that's cool.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
You're like, here's one of the worst presidents of the
twentieth century. Let's name it. Damn about it.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah, he did one good thing.

Speaker 4 (20:02):
He did one good thing.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
Pull of dam.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
I want to I want naming rights to be sold
to like Camping World Stadium dam. Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (20:12):
Let us not forget the rival dam, the Dyson Dam
from the Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
Exactly, the Power Aid Dam.

Speaker 4 (20:18):
The goal of this dam was at least threefold. First,
it was to control flooding of the Colorado River, which
happened frequently. It was disastrous to surrounding.

Speaker 3 (20:27):
Areas so much polar bear piss.

Speaker 4 (20:29):
In addition, the dam provides a solid water supply to
about forty million people in Arizona, California, Nevada, and Mexico.

Speaker 3 (20:39):
They need what water? Well, no one should have heard
built towns in a desert.

Speaker 4 (20:43):
It's the bill of the desert. You gotta do what
you gotta do.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
Palm springs should not exist as agree.

Speaker 4 (20:49):
It also provides hydro electric power to about one point
three million people in the area, with an output of
about four billion kilowatt hours of electricity year at the time.
It also provided much needed jobs for those in the
surrounding area and beyond.

Speaker 3 (21:06):
This thing is a beast.

Speaker 6 (21:08):
What year is this again, thirty one to thirty five,
So during this is during the Great Depression, So part
of jobs.

Speaker 4 (21:13):
Yeah, very much needed.

Speaker 3 (21:15):
Deal with Roosevelt.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
Yeah, this was all going actually using infrastructure to help
the nation.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
Yeah, because Roosevelt I think was thirty three to forty five.
I think JG.

Speaker 4 (21:26):
Tierney was one of the surveyors working on the preliminary
stages of the dam project. He drowns on December twentieth,
nineteen twenty two, while surveying the Colorado River for an
ideal spot to place the dam, when a flash flood
arose out of nowhere.

Speaker 5 (21:41):
Oh wow, this is that's why they needed the dam.

Speaker 4 (21:45):
This marks the very first death attributed to this initially
calamitous landmark. Over twenty thousand men were involved in the
construction of the massive dam, and it is documented that
ninety six of them died during the work due to
industrial accidents. I'm using air quotes here. Oh yeah, this

(22:06):
number alone gave a person a one to two hundred
and twenty odds of becoming one of the ghosts that
are thought to haunt the damn to this day.

Speaker 3 (22:13):
The worst game of Duck duck goose.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
D dead.

Speaker 4 (22:19):
Now, these deaths ranged from explosions, rock slides, drowning balls,
or getting stuck or crushed by construction equipment.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
A lot of that with dams, a lot of people
getting crushed.

Speaker 4 (22:31):
Now, if you include the lives loss of workers involved
with the dam before construction began, such as JG. Tierney,
the death toll rises to one to twelve. Now, this
number does not account for those who also died during
construction by heat stroke or other natural causes such as heart.

Speaker 7 (22:49):
Attack, syphilis, and a really bad case of pink eye poison.

Speaker 4 (22:55):
Ivy heart attack, pneumonia, and other illnesses. These men number
in the dozens. There's also some scandal as how to
have some of these workers died. Forty two people were
said to have perished you pneumonia, but no single person
directly out of the worksite ever contracted it, so it

(23:16):
is believed that this is a cover up for common
monoxide poisonings.

Speaker 1 (23:20):
Oh jeez.

Speaker 4 (23:21):
From the trucks and equipment operating inside of enclosed areas.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
Oh my god. Yeah, with no ventilation working.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
It's like slowly when I'm really kind of tired right now.

Speaker 3 (23:30):
And yeah, looks why miners bring like canaries.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
I was just about to say that canary hasn't sung
in a line.

Speaker 2 (23:38):
He's been sleeping for They actually did have devices that
would save the canary though. There was an oxygen supply
where if the canary started acting slow, they could shut
it off and save the canary, and everybody get out there,
and so they would save the canary. So a lot
of times they did find a way to save the canary.
Thank you for that.

Speaker 4 (23:53):
This is where it gets even crazier. The very last
recorded industrial death was that of an old twenty five
year old electrician working on the finishing touches of the damn.
This last casualty occurred on December twentieth, nineteen thirty five,
the same day exactly thirteen years the day that JG.

(24:16):
Tierney had died.

Speaker 7 (24:17):
What a break to be the guy who's like, all right, now,
this last brick's got to go in and then we're
all deny.

Speaker 4 (24:25):
This man was Patrick Tierney JG. Tierney's only son.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
Oh wow, that damn pissed off somebody. That damn pissed
off some spirit is like, I'm going to get your
family and I'm gonna get geez.

Speaker 1 (24:37):
Does it like, say, how he died?

Speaker 3 (24:39):
Did he slip?

Speaker 4 (24:40):
He fell from a pesti pit, like right at the
very top of the damn he fell?

Speaker 2 (24:44):
Oh he went all the way down.

Speaker 4 (24:46):
A low relaf panel by sculptor Oscar J. Hansen was
dedicated in nineteen thirty five to those who gave their
lives building this dam. So this is when it was
opened or yeah, it's like the same year it opens.
It depicts a mill you're rising up through waves. Above
him is a cloud with lightning, seemingly sprouting grains and vegetables.

(25:06):
It is inscribed with they died to make the desert bloom.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
Oh wow, okay, powerful, right right, Well you don't.

Speaker 5 (25:14):
Like that, Angela, Oh no, I don't really feel like
those guys really care about that. They probably just want
to go back to home with their families.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
Oh that's a good part.

Speaker 2 (25:21):
But if they have vegetables. Well.

Speaker 3 (25:23):
It was the inspiration for Cloudy with a Chance of Eatballs.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
Cloudy with a Chance of zucchini.

Speaker 4 (25:29):
It brought a lot of life to the area and
continues to do so to this day. So popular lore
surrounding the Hoover Dam is that people were actually stuck
in concrete and buried into the dam once again.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
Once again, that's why damn suck. There's always at least
three or four dead people in that dam.

Speaker 4 (25:44):
However, this has been disproven. Although there is a record
of people getting stuck in concrete, sometimes even up to
their ankles, Engineers would go to great lengths to ensure
that these people, dead or alive, did not become a
permanent part of the structure.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
Battering there app construction to get them.

Speaker 4 (26:01):
Out they did. The reason behind this is actually scientific
rather than compassionate. Human bodies are made of organic material
that one's decay and release gas over time. Yeah, great
space in the rock, and if a pocket of gas
like this was allowed to develop inside the concrete, it
would cause structural weakness in that spot. This weak spot,

(26:22):
plus the force of the restrained water of the rivers
and the weight of the surrounding concrete would cause large
leaks and even blowouts of a section of the dam wall.

Speaker 3 (26:31):
Death far from the river.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
Not only is it break.

Speaker 8 (26:35):
It's like whoa, hey, man, that's a little foul.

Speaker 4 (26:39):
And they even went so far as to try to
avoid this from happening that when concrete was being poured,
they would only do it two inches at a time
and only in groups so everybody can keep an eye
on each other. So they went to great lengths to
make sure that this was not going to be a
thing that happens with this particular dam.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
Seeing people in that kind of production too, it's crazy
because they're wearing boots that come up to their thigh
and as soon as the concrete is poured, they're immediately
trying to get it level, and then they get out,
and then someone else tries to make it level, and
then they get out because you have to get out quickly,
and then they're just waiting for the net. You just
see them like wearing as quickly as possible, like fly fishing.

(27:16):
Whae ye yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:17):
Yeah, it's like a river runs into it.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (27:20):
At is Hyatt's point, it's twelve hundred thirty two feet.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
Wow, is that above sea level or above the river?

Speaker 4 (27:27):
That's just from above the Rep. Jesus And it's about
twelve hundred and forty four foot wide, so it is
the second highest in the country and the eighteenth highest
in the whole world. Now, even though bodies in the
walls have been disproven, the death toll of the Hoover
Dam continues to rise. To this day, approximately four people
per year commits suicide from jumping off the top of

(27:49):
the dam.

Speaker 2 (27:50):
Why that always fascinates me as the choice because you,
I mean, suicide is a horrible thing and you're you're
hurting more people than you can ever imagine a lot
of people that have jumped off bridges, like ninety eight
percent of them, if they survived, they're like, yeah, what
the first My first thought was what am I doing?

Speaker 4 (28:08):
So given all these deaths that number in the hundreds
at this point, Wow, it is pretty easy to justify
how it could be possible that there are a bunch
of restless spirits wandering the inner tunnels of the Hoover Dam.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
To this day, that is a very powerful story. Jesus.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
It's just these giant construction projects there, there's always a
human toll having a tragic death, and it's going to
be in that location. You could understand being like me
be pissed at that dam. Yeah, I'll be really mad
at that dam.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
I can also see why these bodies were buried away
from what seems like consecrated ground with the cemetery over
here in this Native American burial, so I can see
the separation now. But that definitely means we need to
get over the dam.

Speaker 3 (28:50):
So we get to the next side, over the top. Yeah, yeah,
this dam damn.

Speaker 4 (28:56):
It looks like the only way out though, is up
and overstally don't see any other their way.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
It's blocking the sun.

Speaker 8 (29:03):
There, like an escalator.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
Do you have a hot air balloon around here somewhere?

Speaker 2 (29:08):
Why would she have a random?

Speaker 1 (29:12):
Damn?

Speaker 2 (29:14):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (29:16):
I've actually had one, It's just not anywhere near here.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
Okay, thank you?

Speaker 2 (29:21):
Was that so bad?

Speaker 1 (29:23):
There's a lot of time, don't you think.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
I personally assumed that Angela, but I didn't think she'd
have one that she could produce, like flash outfit out
of his rain or something.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
Sometimes I do that, Marie, same question.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
I do not.

Speaker 4 (29:37):
It looks like, uh, we're gonna have to go up
these stairs off to the right here.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
Stairs, hot air balloon.

Speaker 8 (29:46):
He's going, I'm like, wow, stairs just broken escalator, I know.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
But at least they're still doing their job.

Speaker 3 (29:53):
I was not gonna free solo this. No, that would
be bad.

Speaker 5 (29:56):
No, absolutely not.

Speaker 1 (29:58):
There's a lot of stairs. This is probably what twelve stories,
I would imagine a couple of hundred feet. Let's keep.

Speaker 4 (30:06):
Better start.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Here's here's my back. Listen to my back. Oh yeah,
it's a lot than I thought.

Speaker 4 (30:15):
How many years I get some yoga stretching into.

Speaker 1 (30:19):
Anybody?

Speaker 8 (30:19):
Want a mouth mint?

Speaker 2 (30:21):
You know?

Speaker 3 (30:22):
Is there any other coming?

Speaker 9 (30:27):
Well?

Speaker 1 (30:28):
Go?

Speaker 2 (30:28):
Well? Where do you normally put your mints? Is what
I'm wondering.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
You'll thank me later winter.

Speaker 5 (30:34):
Look, what you did is spry.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
All right, We're gonna take a little break. It might
take longer than usual. You're listening to Ford Frits.

Speaker 10 (30:43):
Hey, Hey, hey, it's that mortgage guy Don. My two
decades of experience and dozens of wholesale loan options give
you a competitive edge when shopping for a home loan.
It's so easy to get a free quote at that
mortgage guy Don dot com already have a loan estimate.
Hit to compare my quote button. We'll interpret your fee
sheet and tell you right away if you can get

(31:03):
a better deal. Don't miss the boat. Compare your quote
today at that mortgage guy Don dot com.

Speaker 8 (31:09):
Don't miss the boat.

Speaker 1 (31:12):
Mortgage dot com.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
I'm tired.

Speaker 10 (31:28):
I'm tired.

Speaker 1 (31:29):
Welcome back to for Fritz.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
I'm tired.

Speaker 1 (31:31):
I'm your host Fritz, as always, joined by co host Bandetti.

Speaker 8 (31:35):
Hi, I'm tired.

Speaker 1 (31:37):
That's a lot of sticks bray.

Speaker 4 (31:42):
Why why are they still going in Angela?

Speaker 2 (31:46):
Hello, my thighs and my calves are just bursting.

Speaker 8 (31:52):
In flavor everything.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
We're up to the top now. Thank you, by the way,
to that mortgage guy Don for the insightful read about
home loans and refinancing. That's that mortgage guide down dot com.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
That's very helpful. At the top of the cigarette.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
Oh my god, look at this nember what don't look
down if you're afraid of heights under one but.

Speaker 5 (32:18):
Away away?

Speaker 1 (32:19):
Thank you, step step back, step back.

Speaker 5 (32:21):
It is weird verdio right now. It just kind of
makes you just want to fall forward.

Speaker 2 (32:25):
Just eat yourself up to call the void, and I've
got a heavy call the void right.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
Now, just like hell, let's all take a step back,
close your eyes. I will explain what I'm looking at.
This dam is not stable, no, all right. It just
looks like a lot of water decimated what's in front
of us right now. There's a canyon as it.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
It's the trenches, trunches, tunes and trenches and canyons and caverns.

Speaker 3 (32:52):
Yeah, it's like a game of shoots and ladders up
here on the other side.

Speaker 1 (32:55):
Oh, I've never played it.

Speaker 8 (32:56):
Is it pretty good?

Speaker 1 (32:57):
I've heard good things.

Speaker 2 (32:58):
There's a lot of there's a lot of and there's
some shoots. That's about it.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
Well, this reminds me a lot catastrophic failure.

Speaker 2 (33:04):
Actually, can we go somewhere that doesn't remind one of
us of a horrible thing? I mean, we have gone
so many places. Every time we see someone's like, hey man,
here's something horrible that happened there. Look around, look at it.

Speaker 3 (33:16):
Look at it.

Speaker 7 (33:16):
On the shores here there's all of these like houses
half like they look like they've been rendered asunder, like
torn apart.

Speaker 5 (33:23):
This is absolutely a whole settlement here that was just.

Speaker 1 (33:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
I don't know if that's proper grammar, but it is.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
I love the term render to thunder. That none of
the things are rendered asunder nowadays.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
Twisted pipes and foundations, ripped from the very earth itself.
This reminds me of a story. Have you guys heard
of the happy fuzzy bunny. Damns?

Speaker 2 (33:47):
No, that does that?

Speaker 1 (33:52):
Trill?

Speaker 2 (33:53):
Trill is even confused by that, even confused like is
he making a joke?

Speaker 1 (33:58):
Well? I do have a plan be here. Okay, so
that's fine. Have you guys heard of the Saint Francis
dam Oh?

Speaker 5 (34:05):
Yeah, story now okay, So the.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
Best way to start the story is to give a
little backstory. In seventeen eighty one, Oh wow. In seventeen
eighty one, the Spanish brook ground on a small settlement
of eleven families. Its name was El Pueblo de Nuestra
Senora Lariena de Los Angeles. Within a month, an aqueduct
was dug into the earth to supply fresh water from

(34:29):
a local river. The town would be known, of course,
as Los Angeles as early as the eighteen thirties, as
the area bloomed from eleven families into a thriving city.
Over use of the natural aquifers and rivers meant less
water to go around for farms and residential use. Surprise, surprise,
So Los Angeles had a very dire problem quickly, not
enough for zero water during droughts or the opposite atmospheric

(34:52):
rivers that inundate the soil and make absorption impossible, leading
to floods. So still a lot of the former, not
much of the latter exactly. William Mholland. You've heard his name, Maholland,
Drive Holland Highway. William Moholland was working in the Los
Angeles Water Department, and he had extensive knowledge on irrigation.
After overseeing the first iron water pipeline in eighteen eighty, however,

(35:15):
the population skyrocketed from fifty thousand and eighteen ninety to
three hundred, twenty thousand and twenty years wow, the city
began to look to the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Moholland was
appointed chief engineer, and the plan was to purchase land
and slash or steal through underhanded shady means Owens River

(35:36):
in the Owens Valley.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
Oh I love that.

Speaker 3 (35:39):
That's you know, and door slash stealing steel.

Speaker 5 (35:44):
That's kind of a gray area.

Speaker 3 (35:45):
Wink wink written into the plant.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
The Los Angeles Aqueduct, which was the result of this,
opened in nineteen thirteen, a sprawling gravity fed aqueduct that
literally descended two hundred thirty three miles to the city
of Los Angeles from the Owens River Valley, taking all
of the water from Owens Lake and River and completely
devastating the farmers and livestock of Owens Valley. The same

(36:12):
water used by the Pyu Indians for over a thousand
years to grow their family's crop now watered lawns in
southern California. Since being bone dry for over a century,
Owens Lake is the number one source of dust pollution
in the US.

Speaker 3 (36:28):
But who cares?

Speaker 1 (36:30):
As William Mholland himself would say, over and over again,
like a boomer dad, if you don't get the water,
you won't need it. What else thing that says?

Speaker 2 (36:42):
That's because you'll die, you'll be bad. You'll be fine.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
Yeah, he said that.

Speaker 5 (36:47):
A yeah, I just love this whole like this like
unawareness of like, hey, we live in a place that
probably we shouldn't live because it doesn't have natural water
coming into Fine, it's.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
Fine, It's totally correct Angela and saying that so well,
now that Angelinos know that they can do whatever the
fuck they want, and practically so when HeLa, when he
opened the Cascades, he was a god in La. He
goes there, it is mister Mayor and after a pause, take.

Speaker 8 (37:15):
It from my cold, dead hand.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
Wouldn't you feel like a god in that moment?

Speaker 2 (37:21):
Yeah? Yeah, that's like when Tony Stark holds up his
arms and the all the explosions happened behind him, and
just like I am God.

Speaker 1 (37:28):
Yeah yeah. Well, now that Angelinos know that they can
do whatever they want and practically play god, the fifty
year water source was readily depleted in ten years wowow
and shot till. Droughts and floods were a major problem.
So was the population boom, which was now over in
just ten years, from three hundred and twenty thousand five

(37:50):
hundred seventy thousand people in nineteen twenty wow. So in
thirty years it went from fifty to five hundred seventy
thousand people. So the solution was to build a dam
to store water during wet seasons to use for lean years,
right like hey hey in the barn. And the first
one was the La Dam now known as Moholland Dam,
overlooking the city. The second would be a much larger

(38:14):
dam located forty miles away in San Francisquito Canyon. This
would be known as the Saint Francis Dam. Back in
Owens Valley. The migrant workers, indigenous people, farmers, and business
owners didn't take lightly to being choked off their land
by a heartless megalopolis hundreds of miles away. Vigilantes and
freedom fighters routinely dynamited and destroyed large sections of the

(38:36):
aqueduct as righteous acts of retribution.

Speaker 8 (38:39):
Wow, because of this.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
Self hatred, my goodness, well, think about it, like they
don't have that water anymore.

Speaker 3 (38:45):
Remember the big speak about the Alaskan Pipeline and all that.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
Or the Keystone.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
Because of this war to rights over water, many LA
newspapers didn't publicly cover the building of the Saint Francis
Dam out of security concerns. Really, this would prove to
be fatal. Surveying began in nineteen twenty two and Moholland
found a natural narrowing he found to be a suitable
location for the large gravity dam, so a gravity dam.

(39:11):
The gravity dam is designed. It's a straight wall and
that's the first piece of concrete, you know, kind of
like driven into the ground, and then underneath that, based
on mathematical calculations, you would do maybe two and a
half inches lower, you would do another straight vertical wall.
So each wall is independent, Okay, and then you would

(39:33):
just continue doing that, so you have a like Isosceles
triangle going down.

Speaker 6 (39:38):
So it's almost like a mini system of locks. Yes,
and in the canal, yeah, and the base of it
would be like there's no way.

Speaker 1 (39:45):
Waters getting out of it. Godt think one side of
the canyon consisted of conglomerate and sandstone, a bunch.

Speaker 3 (39:51):
Of failed businesses all put together, yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:53):
Exactly under one like Shell corporations. Yeah, while the other
side was mica schist in talc that is where you
have thin slots of rock overlaying thin slots of rock.
After extensive testing, there was no reason to believe the
site was not suitable for building. So one half of
the dam is a completely different geological sandstone from the

(40:15):
other half. Okay, So one side is different than the
other side. So while the Saint Francis Dam was being built,
by all accounts, Moholland was distracted with a bigger project.
And the following quote is from the documentary Flood in
the Desert. Even as the biggest dam he'd ever built
was rising in the San Francisquito Canyon, Moholland was on
the road for weeks at a time, mapping out routes

(40:37):
for a Colorado River aqueduct and lobbying in Sacramento. In Washington,
he was looking at plans the eventual site of the
Hoover Dam. So as this dam was being built, Moholland
had free rain. As the city savior, he brought water
into La and he was calling audibles. During construction, the

(40:57):
dam was raised ten feet higher to presume store more water. Okay,
and once again, a further ten feet was added while
work had already begun on the project, bringing the final
height of the dam to one hundred and eighty five
feet above the canyon floor eighteen hundred and thirty five
feet above sea level. But while the height was increased,
the base was never widened. So based on that mathematical

(41:20):
formula of how many an here, Oh.

Speaker 7 (41:24):
No, that's I get this a lot because I have
a you know, for a somewhat taller gentleman, I have
very small feet.

Speaker 1 (41:31):
I fall over a lot. San Francis Dam opened on
March twelfth, nineteen twenty six, and would be filled for
the next two years.

Speaker 3 (41:41):
That's it, that's it.

Speaker 2 (41:43):
Good run.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
Two vertical cracks. Two vertical cracks appeared on the face
of the dam within months, about fifty eight feet long.

Speaker 4 (41:52):
Wow, that's not a little crack.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
Yeah, but were.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
Deemed to be natural with the dam that size. Again,
this was nineteen twenty six.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
That's what happens.

Speaker 1 (42:01):
There's also seepage under the abutment and link.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
Always.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
In late nineteen twenty seven, a fracture was noticed starting
from the west abutment and traveling diagonally upwards into the center.
This was filled, as with all the other cracks, with oakum,
which is another massive mistake because ceiling with oakum would
have then placed all of the pressure internally on the
concrete it was fracturing to set go out more. Are

(42:28):
you sure it.

Speaker 3 (42:28):
Wasn't filled with hokum?

Speaker 2 (42:31):
It turned out to be hokum.

Speaker 1 (42:32):
Cracks and leakage were found after an eight inch spillway
was added to the center of the upstream face, so
that's where you know the water comes out. But then
like to like, the idea is to let a little
bit of water out to then make the abutment heavier
so there is no seepage pressure. But this was only

(42:54):
done to the center of the dam and not to
the right and left. The Hoover Dam has four the
entire or with the base to hold the abutment in
place to the bottom of the Colorado River. This was
just right in the center. This may have contributed to
upswell where the foundation is dislodged. On March twelfth, the

(43:14):
dam keeper, Tony Harnish figure alerted Mohalland to a new
leak in the western abutment. He lived about a quarter
of a mile away on the down river side, so
the dryer side. Obviously he's not living in lake. He
and Mohalland personally inspected the dam with another man, Van Norman,
for over two hours, and determined that corrective measures would

(43:35):
need to be taken at some time in the future.
The face of the dam was now tilting forward a
half of a degree from the pressure of over twelve
billion gallons of water.

Speaker 7 (43:46):
A two hour investigation for a damn that large, though,
means that obviously there was something wrong right away, and
they're like, well around.

Speaker 2 (43:54):
And oh, that's gonna kill everybody.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
He cracked there, crack, there'll lake Killarney and Winner Park. Yeah,
this would be the equivalent of twelve lake Colerneys.

Speaker 8 (44:03):
Wowow.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
Moholland returned to La This is at ten am, twelve
hours later, his career and reputation would be forever ruined.
The lights of Los Angeles flickered and went out, before
quickly being restored a few minutes before midnight on March twelfth,
nineteen twenty eight. Moholland was asleep and therefore was unaware
the St. Francis Dam had catastrophically failed, and because the

(44:29):
construction of the dam was intentionally marginalized in the press,
thousands of residents would be caught completely off guard.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
They never reported on They wanted to keep it out
of the price and not have people afraid it was.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
On like page six one, one hundred word article.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
By the way, you could you could die from catastrophic failure,
but worry about it. Go shopping.

Speaker 3 (44:51):
This dam is sponsored by Boeing.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
A one hundred and forty foot wall of water surged
forth as the concrete buckled and tore away from the
canyon due to landslide on the water saturated eastern abutment.
Five minutes later, the wall of water was one hundred
and twenty feet high and traveling at eighteen miles per hour.
It is power plant number two. A massive concrete structure

(45:16):
was located a mile downstream and completely leveled, killing sixty
four of its sixty seven workers and nearby family members
because they lived in this canyon.

Speaker 3 (45:25):
Yo Oh.

Speaker 1 (45:27):
The water continued unabated, and by one o'clock, the fifty
five foot high crest collided with the Santa Clara River,
partially destroying southern California Edison's Sawguss substation and let the
entire Santa Clara River Valley in parts of Ventura and
ox nerd without power. Raymond Starboard, a worker at the plant,

(45:48):
is able to escape and makes the first phone call
about the emergency. This is at around one am. I
believe over four miles of what is now Interstate five
are underwater as the town at Castaic Junction is swept
away entirely. At Camp, a temporary camp housing at least

(46:08):
one hundred and fifty Edison Company linemen, night watchman ed
Lock sees a rush of water at approximately twelve miles
per hour and rushes to alert the sleeping men. Some
are able to button their tents, successfully floating over the floodwaters. However,
the waters hit a geological outcropping called blue Cut, doubles

(46:28):
back over the area, creating a whirlpool. Oh No. Eighty
four workers perish, including the hero at.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
Lock Oh, I am a lineman for the car.

Speaker 1 (46:42):
At around one, telephone operator Luis Guitt gets a call
from the chief of Pacific Long Distance Telephone Company informing
her of the news. So an hour and a half later,
guy calls California Highway patrolman Thornton Edwards and Stanley Baker,
and they proceed to ride on their moods around Santa
Paula alerting, alerting residents.

Speaker 2 (47:04):
For an hour and a half year of a flood warning.

Speaker 1 (47:08):
Thank you for saying that. Guy then called residents in
the area to evacuate. Not her job to do that.
She was calling every line in the area to tell
people run spread the news.

Speaker 6 (47:18):
So wait, wait, this massive body water is traveling at
only twelve miles an hour start off at eighteen.

Speaker 3 (47:24):
That's crazy.

Speaker 4 (47:25):
It will do speed over time.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
That makes sense. Yes, it seems it seems slow now,
but when you realize it's a huge devastating force coming
for you, it's like, oh, wish you could be a.

Speaker 4 (47:34):
Little especially when you're not expecting it.

Speaker 1 (47:37):
It's also twelve billion gallons of water.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
Yeah, a lot of wet, A lot of wet and.

Speaker 1 (47:42):
That's a lot of force and water does yeah. At
two point thirty in the morning, Moholland is awakened to
a telephone call. He repeatedly says on the phone, Please, God,
don't let people be killed. He arrived to the scene
of death and destruction shortly afterwards, around two forty. By
five thirty in the morning, the waters carrying debris and

(48:03):
corpses had entered into the Pacific Ocean over fifty miles
away near Ventura. At Montalvo, the waters stretched over two
miles wide and were still traveling five and a half
hours later at six miles per hour.

Speaker 2 (48:19):
We stop, can't stop, won't stop.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
Some stop most somebodies are recovered and many more are not.
The official death toll stands at four hundred and thirty one,
so this is a conservative estimate because no one knows
exactly how many migrant families or workers might have been
in the surrounding areas that night. It's listed as the
worst American civil engineering disaster and the third largest loss
of life in the history of California.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
WOW.

Speaker 1 (48:42):
A coroner's inquest quickly released a seventy nine page report
five days later and families were given five thousand dollars
for each fatality. The report found geologic inconsistencies. Seeking to
shield most of the blame from the man who brought
water to Los Angeles, Mulholland placed all the blame on himself.
Is quoted as saying at the trial, the only people
I envy in this whole thing are the dead.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
Wow. Wow.

Speaker 6 (49:06):
So that the trial, the inquest was he brought up
on criminal charges manslaughter?

Speaker 4 (49:11):
So was that like first third degree?

Speaker 3 (49:13):
What is it when you're probably manslaughter?

Speaker 2 (49:18):
Didn't mean to kill him. I just didn't know what
I do him, But I'm still a dick.

Speaker 1 (49:21):
He was found not guilty. He withdrew from public life
and remained isolated, occasionally giving insight and advice. The Saint
Francis Dame would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Angelino's honored him by naming several things after him. Modern
assessment notes a paleolithic landslide on the Eastern abutment that
Mulholland would not have been able to account for in
nineteen twenty six. So it's just this ancient landslide. There's

(49:45):
an inactive fault there. It wasn't going to be very tenable. However,
this is the modern assessment. Mulholland was personally responsible for
twice raising the height of the dam, not widening the
base after, and not accounting for hydro lift, which they
would have known about by nineteen twelve.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
At least screw physics. Screw physics pass important.

Speaker 1 (50:06):
As for Moholland Dam, which was the first dam that
he built, which sits overlooking Hollywood where millions of people
live and work. The city worked to pack as much
earth and rock as possible over the face of the dam,
and anticipation of any future failure, that legacy of Mohollands
was buried by the City of Los Angeles in an

(50:27):
act of penance and forgetting. While in the city of
Santa Paula, a bronze sculpture now stands called The Warning.
It shows officers Edwards and Baker's selfless act of notifying
residents on their motorcycles immortalized forever in an act of
gratitude and remembrance.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
At least that I mean at least, I mean, yeah,
we can ignore the fact that this may destroy us
again and if there happens to be a giant earthquake
in California, which never happened.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
What terrifying is that the first day and he looked
as right next to the Hollywood Sign. You're like.

Speaker 4 (51:02):
Knowing, how howstraphic of a failure. The second one was
Can you imagine living underneath that original one?

Speaker 1 (51:09):
So here's the thing. It's been lowered to a third
of its capacity ever since, really.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
Just to commensate for the physics.

Speaker 1 (51:17):
They don't they don't trust it, and with good reason.

Speaker 3 (51:19):
That was the first one there.

Speaker 2 (51:21):
And there's been a lot of weird earthquakes happening in
different areas, I mean smaller ones, but it's still happening
a lot. And so with the the San Andreas fault,
there's always that prediction. And then you also have the
Yellowstone super volcano. So there's all these little things like
it could still becoming.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
You know what, I think we could probably because of
the gravity. Damn kind of looks like you can kind
of jump down.

Speaker 3 (51:48):
It's like like a weird staircase.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
It looks like the most painful water ride ever, Like
just go with your butt going all the way down.

Speaker 1 (51:55):
Can't you say this?

Speaker 4 (51:56):
But I mean you can use your feet and that
would probably be a lot better.

Speaker 1 (52:00):
Like walking downstairs.

Speaker 2 (52:01):
I mean yeah, I mean my feet are mighty by
my butt is mightier. So I might just ride down
on my ass if that's okay. If anyone wants to
hop up my bat and ride me down like being
on a bean bag chair, that's fine with shotgun, got it?
You got you ready? Okay? Okay? One, two and worth it?

Speaker 1 (52:33):
Oh god, I'm not gonna and that time we just
walked down so they well.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
You should have tried this. It's amazing missed out.

Speaker 1 (52:40):
It's actually easier. You guys are gonna have a back from.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
Already. Have you met me? God?

Speaker 3 (52:45):
Is there a gift shop where you can see reactions?

Speaker 5 (52:47):
And I have a whole VideA.

Speaker 3 (52:52):
Now that we're here looking around surrounding you know obviously milk.

Speaker 5 (52:55):
Are you talking about like the milk weed.

Speaker 1 (52:59):
There?

Speaker 2 (53:04):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (53:04):
Yeah, yeah, you can get drunk off that, I think, no,
I hear yes.

Speaker 3 (53:08):
Do you see that there's there's a movement, guys.

Speaker 1 (53:12):
Is horses horses can kill, but there's no fences here
and stuff.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
This looks like a branch, like a stables hop on
like a stable steal these horses walk out to put
your hand on her. Good you did it's biting my
hand a little bit. That's okay. It's taking one of
my fingers, but it's okay. Good boy, good boy, good
pulling back. They're not that bad. They're not bad.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
That sucks, all right? Hold on you riddling me this?
Why would a stable have five horses varying heights? Thank
you very much, and saddle be here with native and
non endemic plants. Angela, I'm looking at you on this one.
Is this something?

Speaker 2 (53:57):
That is this?

Speaker 5 (53:57):
I was a part of it, but I don't really
remember a lot of these decision guys.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
There was a treasure chest here.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
Hold on, looks you just bring up the treasure chest.

Speaker 5 (54:04):
Come on, where did you get that from?

Speaker 1 (54:06):
Their swords?

Speaker 8 (54:07):
Swords?

Speaker 1 (54:08):
Angela?

Speaker 5 (54:09):
Yeah, did you put swords here at some point?

Speaker 1 (54:12):
Yeah? Oh look that's a Bosta. I'm Donatello.

Speaker 2 (54:14):
I need size. Do you have size? I want to
be if you're going to beat Donna Tello or Raphael.
I want Look at this little horse.

Speaker 1 (54:19):
He's coming over to me. What's your name, little fellow? Oh,
that's a that's a girl.

Speaker 3 (54:24):
The girl horse looked at the closet of a here. Oh,
there's some sweet.

Speaker 8 (54:30):
Dusters in here.

Speaker 1 (54:31):
Yeah, look at this lever.

Speaker 3 (54:33):
Look from the matrix.

Speaker 8 (54:35):
Okay, I like that.

Speaker 1 (54:40):
Hey, guys, look at me. I'm an incel on Reddit.
Women are evil. I'm Jordan Peterson.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
They oh yeah, I've left the matrix buying a ferrari.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
And salt and water. I have a cake that's very,
very fibred.

Speaker 4 (54:57):
This one bright red. I'm gonna take this one.

Speaker 2 (54:59):
Yeah, I got a rock.

Speaker 1 (55:02):
Oh what's that? What it sounds like? No, that's not shot.

Speaker 3 (55:07):
That's like is that a car backfiring?

Speaker 1 (55:08):
No, that's your rapid fire.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
That's a lot of guns.

Speaker 5 (55:14):
All right, everybody hop on your steeds.

Speaker 1 (55:16):
Yeahs, do it?

Speaker 5 (55:19):
Horse, fence your leg over, man, daddy, hold on, hold.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
On over.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
Facing the wrong way, I'm facing the turn around. Hold
on to grab the reins. This way behind the ba.
Trust the horse.

Speaker 3 (55:36):
My horse is sweet. I'm gonna call them boots.

Speaker 9 (55:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:38):
My horse is called John Mitchell. The horse.

Speaker 5 (55:41):
My horse's name is Alan Ellen.

Speaker 3 (55:43):
Your an a. There's more gunshots, guys, gunshots?

Speaker 2 (55:55):
What could go wrong? What's right towards gunshots? All I'm
saying is horse aid a going forward? This could be great.

Speaker 9 (56:01):
Let me armful of.

Speaker 3 (56:03):
These weapons as we go into the unknowns.

Speaker 1 (56:04):
Give me a sword, and did you not take any
weapons from the chest?

Speaker 2 (56:08):
I asked for swords and I never got swords.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
You didn't take them.

Speaker 2 (56:11):
I asked for swords. Go back, there's a I don't
even know how to turn. Stop, stop stopping quick, I'm
gonna find more. Hello, get two simitars, get back bars,
were going the right way? Pulling? My horse's name, By
the way, is Alexander?

Speaker 1 (56:33):
Close the chest?

Speaker 3 (56:34):
Oh, I'm sorry, I'm Jesus right, raising a barn?

Speaker 5 (56:37):
All right? Everyone good? Everyone have everything?

Speaker 1 (56:39):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (56:39):
Even?

Speaker 1 (56:39):
But pee? I think so yeah?

Speaker 3 (56:41):
No, wait, I gotta go pee real quick.

Speaker 5 (56:44):
There are no boxes.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
I'll be ready in a second. Ready my horse, the
horse got checks.

Speaker 3 (56:53):
All out here we go move it or air?

Speaker 1 (56:56):
Go now, we'll roll. Whoa, This is a huge bit
in the river. Here looks like a dog led to
the right.

Speaker 2 (57:04):
I should have gone bare back. This is really.

Speaker 3 (57:07):
Said dust cloud off in the distance. Looks like there's
like I don't know that.

Speaker 7 (57:11):
It's either like one hundred pig pens from Phoenuts comic
strips in the distance or they're just kicking up a lot.

Speaker 1 (57:17):
Of dirty All right, Well, let's well more guns.

Speaker 2 (57:19):
More gunshots is not good. But we're still going towards it.
So let's just go towards violence.

Speaker 1 (57:27):
Figures.

Speaker 4 (57:27):
Those are definitely people.

Speaker 1 (57:31):
That sounds like a large group of zombies. Guys, what
how do you know? Look at them?

Speaker 8 (57:37):
Look at them.

Speaker 2 (57:38):
There's a whole batch of them and stuff, and there's
a bunch of them and they look old.

Speaker 7 (57:45):
No, no, no, we should see their survivors. Guys, we've
got to help out here that we've already seen baby
graves not.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
The band, such good guys, but we've seen plenty of.

Speaker 3 (57:54):
Life lost around this stand. We got to help out
whoever is down here that might be alive and need help.

Speaker 2 (57:59):
Are We got horses, and we got swords, and they
look like zombies and they're old. Man, come on, let's
just do this.

Speaker 5 (58:05):
I agree, it's a problem.

Speaker 2 (58:06):
Let's thank you.

Speaker 1 (58:07):
So the problem is to ride into a group of
people we don't know and commit mass atrocities.

Speaker 2 (58:12):
They're not atrocities. If they're you know, need to be done.

Speaker 4 (58:15):
Check it out. We're just curious.

Speaker 5 (58:17):
Let's just see what's going on.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
I got swords. I got to swords.

Speaker 1 (58:19):
You didn't have to convince me to kill people, man,
and daddy, I'm just saying I was trying to have
someone talk me off the cliff, and no one has
made an argument.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
Call the void, baby, that's good.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
All right, all right, ready your swords?

Speaker 8 (58:30):
How did I end up with a.

Speaker 2 (58:36):
Hear that sound?

Speaker 3 (58:36):
I can't climbing the pump of this chainsaw?

Speaker 2 (58:39):
Got on? All right, dad? Well done?

Speaker 1 (58:43):
More shots? Oh the crowd was walking away from us.

Speaker 9 (58:45):
Now right, all right, guys, we're gonna let's let's head
into this.

Speaker 1 (59:02):
You are listening to four Frits with your host, Fritz.

Speaker 8 (59:04):
I'm gonna decapitate.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
That's always called us man.

Speaker 8 (59:07):
Daddy, I'm gonna kill so many random people, Marie.

Speaker 4 (59:11):
How am I gonna hurt anybody with a kickleball racket?

Speaker 1 (59:14):
You gotta want it.

Speaker 8 (59:14):
I'm necked bright and we have Angela.

Speaker 5 (59:17):
I'm gonna dead head everybody.

Speaker 8 (59:19):
We'll see you next time.