Ethical Issues from the St. Francis Dam Collapse

Course Description:

This course will examine the ethical issues that arose from the 1928 failure of the St. Francis Dam near Los Angeles, California.  Near midnight on March 12 of that year the 195-feet high concrete arch dam collapsed catastrophically, releasing 12 billion gallons of flood waters downstream in a flood wave that reached a depth of 140 feet with average velocities estimated at 26 feet per second.  By 5:30 AM on March 13 flood waters nearly two miles wide reached the Pacific Ocean near Ventura, California.  The flood killed more than 450 people and was the worst civil engineering failure in U.S. history.  In this course you will learn about the political and economic forces behind the project, the people who controlled the project, the ethical issues that were raised by the tragedy, and lessons the engineering profession learned from the tragedy.  This course is intended for engineers, architects and other design and construction professionals wanting to learn about the ethical issues that were raised by the failure of the St. Francis Dam, and lessons that have been learned from the incident.  Although this was a civil engineering incident, the ethical issues and lessons apply to all engineering disciplines.

Learning Objectives:

Upon successful completion of this course, participants will be able to:

• Understand the historical context
• Understand the human factors
• Know the lessons learned