Andrew Davidson- Super Blog 2- The Flood of 1938

In my preliminary research I have found many sources that helped me get a better understanding of the Flood of 1938. This week I decided to look for different sources that discuss more of the specifics of the Flood of 1938. Also, through my research I am beginning to see a major difference of the impact and reactions to the massive flood between Los Angeles and areas such as Riverside.

My first source I found this week was “Southern California Rain and Flood, February 27 to March 4, 1938” by Lawrence H. Daingerfield. I actually found this source in another article where I mined the author’s footnotes. The author of this piece is from the Los Angeles Weather Bureau and he discusses why the increase of rain waters and the condition of the soil produced so much run-off (139). In the end of the report the author gives the amount of rain in all major counties within southern California and what the average elevation of each area. Overall, this source provides data of the flood to place a numerical value on the amount of rainfall each area received.
 
My next source is a newspaper article called “1938: A Watershed for the County” by Scott Gold (Gold's Article). This source was helpful this week for it changed the direction of my research for the author talks more about how Orange Country was affected instead of Los Angeles. There is an apparent difference between the scale of the damages from the flood in Los Angeles county and Orange county. This article is more contemporary and was written in 1999, but it provides a detailed timeline of other major flooding events that can help me find changes in flood control over time.


My next two sources are both photographs that were taken after the flood. This photo is titled “Flood of 1938, Aerial View of Homes in the Santa Ana River Break” taken by Watson Airfotos. This photo was taken in Anaheim and shows properties that were caught within the flood basin. The entire properties are engulfed in water and it seems that zero precautions were taken to try and protect the homes. This is a good example of how areas with little to no flood control were heavily damaged by the Flood of 1938. This photo is far different from the next photo that I have found.

This photo is titled “Los Angeles River - flood of 1938 - confluence of Tujunga Wash and LA River” taken by the United States Army corps of Engineers on March 4, 1938. Instead of miles of property engulfed in water like the photo above this area of the Tujunga Wash has held up fairly well. The city of Los Angeles had set up concrete structures to decrease the chance of the floodplain from flooding. The concrete structure took damage in the photo but it seems to be performing it’s job effectively with a massive amount of water flowing down its waterways

The Last source that I found was the newspaper clipping “Compared to Other Sections Tujunga, Sunland Escape with Minor Loss in Flood Last Week” by Robert Frampton (Newspaper Clippings). This source is a little difficult to read due to low image quality but after sometime I found that this article talks about how different communities reacted. This source provides how members of communities were affected in different ways. Even a few days after the flood the author mentions that while Sunland held up fairly well, many other areas did not (Frampton). From the perspective of a reporter, it was still obvious that there was need to increase flood control devices to help mitigate flood damages (Frampton). After only a week this news reporter made the conclusion that the flood was destructive due to the lack of flood control.

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