It was almost 45 years to the month that a dam situated at the top of Cloverdale Road, and built by the DWP between 1947 and 1951, began to give way. Within two hours it would leave Los Angeles with one of America's great urban disasters — although the occasion is seldom commemorated. Here's one film of the catastrophe, which claimed five lives and 277 homes, as more than 250 million gallons of water surged into a valley below.

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