Wow, thank you for posting this! Where did you come across the footage?

@michaelstrahan2.0

8 жыл бұрын

+Armchair Engineer Agreed. Very interesting footage.

@am95405

8 жыл бұрын

Short answer: Bureau of Reclamation's library Long answer: Read below It actually took some work to get the video, but I really wanted to see it, so in this case persistence paid. I had read about the dam breach in the book Nature Noir, and how the breach had been videotaped. The book was required reading for an outdoor recreation and parks management class I took. I highly recommend the book. Anyway, being an engineer (I take these classes just because I like them ), and living in Northern California, I became very curious about the dam. All I could find online was a reference to the National Archives copy of the video, and they are in DC, I am in California, and to get a copy from them would cost a lot of money. It was an archival copy and it would take a lot of work to get me a copy; I would have to go through a third party, lots of paperwork, etc. I called various universities and thought they may have a copy (everyone thought Berkeley would have a copy). None did. In the end, it was the librarian at the Bureau of Reclamation's Sacramento office that found me the video and made me a copy. She was really wonderful. I did have a hard time uploading it and am still not sure if it all got uploaded. Glad others find it interesting too.

@tackssherbo7104

8 жыл бұрын

+Afsi Moaveni Thank you VERY much for sharing. And every now and then, you find someone who genuinely wants to share knowledge and educate others. Bravo for that librarian for her unselfish efforts!!

@elpmurc

8 жыл бұрын

+Afsi Moaveni Thank you for your persistence in obtaining this video, I found it very interesting.

@deseminvoller

8 жыл бұрын

This is one of the coolest vids on you tube for me. I've enjoyed making dams on creeks since childhood and enjoy/ enjoyed busting them. I've busted a lagoon/ estuary wall before at Corindi beach Northern NSW, Australia after heavy rains. The lagoon, estuary was full one time with the tide only starting to come back in. It took me a long time to dig and bust the wall. Though a little rivulet slowly but surely ate its way back up the beach until the potential energy of the lagoon started to do all the work for me. After about 30 mins to an hour familiar horseshoe shaped erosion started eating back into the fine sand of the lagoon until a torrent was unleashed (though the horshoe shape was much more well defined and the water looking like mercury). Large enough for someone in a canoe to travel down.

That old school 80's learning music really churns up some nostalgia

Short, clear, to the point. Cable TV would take 90 minutes to explain this, including repeating everything that's already been said every time they come back from commercial.

@SvendleBerries

3 жыл бұрын

Or having a few of the people involved be the center of attention and then needlessly doing a back story on all of them lol With dramatic zooms and pans around them when they are introduced like they are in a comic book movie.

@Gustav4

3 жыл бұрын

Muddy water=poor land management. There can never be a healthy dam unless the catchment area is healthy.

@nashvillain171

3 жыл бұрын

Cable TV? What's that?

@zancrus9629

3 жыл бұрын

lol this is why I can't watch the news especially if there is something big going on. Because you watch the same story every time with models for everything.

@aktchungrabanio6467

3 жыл бұрын

omg yes!!

This is a very clear success. The engineers who planned this breach progression, and the controllers of the dam systems downstream who monitored the situation and handled the huge influx in a timely fashion, earned their pay and then some. This was well done. It's a shame I never heard about it until nearly 40 years later.

@hilham89

5 жыл бұрын

Here it is 2019 and I'm just hearing about it.

@califdad4

5 жыл бұрын

and for the 2nd time Folsom Dam saved Sacramento first time was in 1955

@brenobacci

4 жыл бұрын

As far as dam failures go, I'd say you could call it a success, just like the government did here. I suppose Trump is indeed like Reagan.

@califdad4

4 жыл бұрын

@@hilham89 anyone who lived in the area knew about this, it was a fairly big news day

@badandy102

4 жыл бұрын

Dare I say, It's a dam great success?

That was so cool. Hats off to the engineers and those who fulfilled the expectations of the engineering design.

This is kind of info doco that I used to see at school. To the point, yet and clear and concise and something a kid could learn from.

I didnt realize how much I missed my childhood until I heard his voice, saw the video quality, and just straight to the information. The nostalgia almost hurts, such different times, such a short time

@Jaecht88

3 жыл бұрын

You looking damn good

@yashsvidixit7169

3 жыл бұрын

How are you doing now Veghead Cat? You look like a blast in your profile pic.

I have no idea why i watched this,i also have no idea why i enjoyed it so much

@stiimuli

6 жыл бұрын

You enjoyed it because it was really interesting =)

@benjaminharold5154

5 жыл бұрын

You enjoyed it because it wasn't filled with opinions , finger pointing and drama. it was informative and strait forward, I miss that.

@listen2meokidoki264

5 жыл бұрын

Yo enjoyed watching the dam collapse. Destruction is in your blood. That's why you love explosions. That's why love watching Hitler's exploding pencil. kzread.info/dash/bejne/fIShusmvpaiThZc.html

@danielrupe4768

5 жыл бұрын

It would have even better with all those #me too. demonstrators and george soros at the base of the spillway when it gave way

@johntuttle3245

5 жыл бұрын

filthy animal I was standing up on the hill on the north west and watched it

Thanks for posting this ! My dad came and got me out of school that day and we took a sack lunch and watched it happen live. It was quite a flood I remember.

@johntuttle3245

5 жыл бұрын

bigrigJim I had just gotten home at lunch time from sierra collage.....saw the very beginning on channel 3 and jumped into the car from home on Racetrack and rushed over too the dam overlook to watch.....was amazing.....and really loud

@jessauser2812

4 жыл бұрын

What a cool dad.

@newbee509

4 жыл бұрын

@scott matthew tea bagging I think.

@Kharnellius

3 жыл бұрын

@scott matthew A lunch you pack in a brown paper bag.

“Designed to fail.” Gotta use that line next time I mess something up. Thanks for sharing.

@SpartacusColo

3 жыл бұрын

I just blame it on the guy who was there before me. Either him, or the retired electrician.

@lilrask9464

3 жыл бұрын

That's gold bro LOL

@finscreenname

3 жыл бұрын

A lot of things are designed to fail. Just like this dam your car has things called fusible links that are designed to fail if they get an electric over load saving the rest of your electrical system....like the "plug" in the dam.

@karpabla

3 жыл бұрын

I, myself, am designed to fail, I guess.

@finscreenname

3 жыл бұрын

@@karpabla Ya but you want to out live your expected life span like the B-52 or the A-10 if possible. 😊

Wow, I saw this tape after a Folsom Dam tour in 1988, and I've always longed to share it with others. Great work getting it online!

Absolutely fascinating. I love it when I fall into an educational rabbit hole.

I was going to UNR during those storms. There wasn't good information interchange in that era, and many incredible stories like this were simply lost to time. Thanks for posting this video.

It failed by design, in a controlled way - Excellent engineering work!

@Badhands55

2 жыл бұрын

Designed to fail

@michaelburke7143

Жыл бұрын

@@Badhands55> failed to design

They don't make informational videos like this anymore. Everything is all high drama with lots of shots being shown over and over and hysterical people running around yelling. Now, there is 10X more drama if a mechanic on a discovery channel show can't find his wrench.

@JamieS1992

6 жыл бұрын

and real footage is the best no matter how old it is

@dirkdiggler2507

6 жыл бұрын

Clearanceman2 word.

@_JoeMomma

6 жыл бұрын

This is so true

@santeebandit3246

6 жыл бұрын

So so true. I’m over all this drama crap. History channel is the worst imo

@killianoshaughnessy1174

6 жыл бұрын

I agree. This has a more "informational" feel to it.

I lived down stream from that in rancho Cordova, not far from the American river. I remember the flood, it was so cool. Thanks for this post!

I lived in Granite Bay on Folsom Lake at the time and it was pretty amazing. It sure resulted in some very cautious boating that spring in Folsom Lake because of all the debris.

"Task Failed Successfully"

if you reading this the world is on lockdown and we are trying hard to find good videos like this 10 stars to the narrator

@russellking9762

2 жыл бұрын

Yes...in the same league as those 50's and 60's machine shop tutorial films...clear. ...concise...well explained ...

Excellent narration without the usual acid head music to ruin it.

@EgorKochelev

7 жыл бұрын

joeylawn36111 when ?

@phillip_mcguinness7025

7 жыл бұрын

Rumor has it, they're still halfway through their set.

@davehallett3128

6 жыл бұрын

They should say. Auburn cofferdam. Another 160 times though

@josephsavage4390

6 жыл бұрын

Rumor has it the bags that the swiggity swooty guy threw up came back down and caused the dam to give.

@shanelmurray3448

5 жыл бұрын

That is probably on the rubbish music for engineering videos record. It could be purchased with annoying music to play in elevators as a box set

It's unfortunate that when civil engineers save hundreds of millions of dollars and dozens of lives with fantastic engineering and management like this it's not headline news. Bad news on a tenth of that scale would be the lead story for the best part of a week.

@sancho7863

7 жыл бұрын

BobElHat whatever, it's their job. They don't need special recognition for doing their dam jobs. Plus, they get paid pretty handsomely.

@coolbionicle

7 жыл бұрын

Liked for the pun

@hannawaldify

7 жыл бұрын

Sancho - As far as getting paid handsomely, do you have any idea what kind of rigorous program they go thru in college to obtain that degree, not too mention the money they paid for tuition and expenses? Also, if that sort of care had been taken in the construction of the Oroville Dam maybe hundreds of thousands of lives would not be at risk today. Agree with BobElHat.

@judsonkr

6 жыл бұрын

Only the most dimwitted of persons would think that the media shouild run stories about all of the things that did not happen today.

@awesomelyshorticles

6 жыл бұрын

"Hundreds of lives continue on as absolutely nothing in particular happens to them" doesn't make for a very good headline.

I dunno why videos like this fascinate me and for some reason I watch them late at night. LOL! The power of the water at the diversion tunnel and the sound would be overwhelming.

@chasbodaniels1744

3 жыл бұрын

I’m sure you’re right. Anyone who’s visited Niagara Falls and driven along the Niagara River on the American side, can attest to the eerie power and sound of that much rushing water.

@lilrask9464

3 жыл бұрын

@@chasbodaniels1744 That's why I'm glad there's videos out there like these because I get to see places I'll probably never get to visit in my life.

I have to say, this is one fascinating video. Incredibly educational and professional. I had no idea they make/made dams like this, where the structure erodes and fails in a predicted manner. Beside obvious fail safes and backups, this is just VERY interesting how they predict the erosion.

@oBseSsIoNPC

3 жыл бұрын

@bass & pickrel slayer Hello Ali, yes it is. Once the people of Earth get passed greed and arrogance, they will start to really learn about the workings of the universe. Until then, stay safe!

So thats what its like when no one screws up and tries to hide it.

This was excellently produced and highly informative!

i was born February 19th 1986 at 4:45pm.. its cool to see the things that were going on right as i was coming into the world. Im glad nobody was hurt. I;m glad whoever designed this coffer dam had the smarts to make it do what it did.

@chooseknowledge2859

Жыл бұрын

13 people died...

The triumphant music bit at the end was well deserved. Congrats to engineering team! :)

Thanks for a fascinating video!

There are not many videos worth watching from start to finish. This was a really eye opening look at a damn well planned dam failure.

@qazmatron

5 жыл бұрын

Not strictly a catastrophic failure. I'm surprised the move mentioned the word (at the end). It was an engineered controlled breach. They could call it a fail-safe.

@qazmatron

5 жыл бұрын

Not strictly a catastrophic failure. I'm surprised the move mentioned the word (at the end). It was an engineered controlled breach. They could call it a fail-safe.

@qazmatron

5 жыл бұрын

Not strictly a catastrophic failure. I'm surprised the move mentioned the word (at the end). It was an engineered controlled breach. They could call it a fail-safe.

@qazmatron

5 жыл бұрын

Not strictly a catastrophic failure. I'm surprised the move mentioned the word (at the end). It was an engineered controlled breach. They could call it a fail-safe.

Thank you for such a great video and also to the good people who built a damn that had a amazing safety feature.

Actually had a teacher in high school who was a hydraulic engineer who worked on this project. All these years later it's still cool to learn about. We actually did several experiments where we built model dams (out of dirt, stick, what have you) and saw when they would fail.

@BluesJamFan

6 жыл бұрын

That's neat. Did your teacher also include steelhead throwing themselves at the dam so they wouldn't fail?

The Three Gorges Dam brought me to this. Thanks for this upload!

Direct and to the point. No music. I used to watch National Geographic for things like this..now there's anything BUT educational content.

09:06 Good to know that the structure itself was built to minimize damage in the event of a catastrophic failure.

Not a failure, worked as designed. Title should read breach

Bravo to those engineers. Didn’t know you could mitigate something like that. Clever way to approach that problem.

A dramatic failure that was a complete success! Great video.

I was living just below this dam and going to school in Auburn in 1986. This was quite a storm indeed.

Thanx for the share. One can never know too much.

This is really a good piece of engineering design and built by some very outstanding engineers.

So this happened a year after I was born. Interesting KZread. Thanks on making me feel old :(

Thank you for this!

Engineer 1: Sir we have a problem. Engineer 2: Damn! Engineer 1: Yes sir. How did you know?

Great video. Very well explained. Thank you

Great video. Thank you.

This was very interesting. Thank you. Smiles

Fascinating. Thank you.

Voice from old days time gone so fast my mother now is old my step father died 💔 god bless him I remember this 💔😢

Excellent engineering. And hats off to the government for funding the needed safety plug!!!

@atomicwedgie8176

5 жыл бұрын

Californians are proud of their 'plugs'! hehe

This style takes me back to childhood. I love it

Made in 1986 and still looks beautiful. That narrators voice is classic!!

Good engineering saved lives by having a controlled failure of that plug.

I was living near Auburn at that time and was watching from the Forest Hill bridge. I watched the high water in the canyon up stream at the confluence take whole trees downriver when the coffer dam finally broke.

These kind of films take me back to high school. I've never slept as good as when one of these films would play in class.

@raymondfrye5017

4 жыл бұрын

What?...you went to sleep in class instead of checking out all those babes? Make friends and a network.

Really good video and it's amazing the power of water

Well done to the engineers and management team of this dam system!

LOVE the French horns in the overture!

Wow! That was amazing!

Incredible! It was scary and beautiful at the same time. It worked though and was amazing!

Great engineering.

Wow, cheers mate, this vid was very interesting, cool design

Stellar content.

Brilliant work of engineering....good job!

Very interesting. Thank you.

Wow! I never heard about this one!

These are the kind of videos I like. It prompted me to go read about the proposed Auburn Dam, and why it was never finished. A seismic fault under the dam halted construction work on the project.

@QuantumRift

5 жыл бұрын

A seismic fault. In California. Go figure. Lots of money wasted.

@paulriddle7818

5 жыл бұрын

@@QuantumRift they believed there were no faults along the Sierra Nevada mountain range. They found one right under the dam site.

@QuantumRift

5 жыл бұрын

@@paulriddle7818 Yea...isn't California "riddled" with seismic faults? LOL...

@paulriddle7818

5 жыл бұрын

@@QuantumRift that's just terrible man...... 🤣😝

@QuantumRift

5 жыл бұрын

@@paulriddle7818 I try. 🤣😝

This wasn't a failure at all, any more than a blown fuse is a failure. The safety plug did what it was supposed to do - gave its life to protect the coffer dam from catastrophic collapse.

The gold uncovered from this must have been amazing when found!

Well done on the design!

Amazing how different Folsom Dam looks now. I never knew you could drive a cross it.

That rainbow distortion in the video oh how it brings back memories good ol VHS

When I was a kid, whenever it rained, I made all kinds of “cofferdams” out of rocks and dirt - just like the one in the video only smaller. None of them worked either. Sometimes even concrete fails....

Cool Vid, I was drinking Coffee and watching the Coffer Dam

By the way, loved the video, hope you post more of these.

I was up on the hill at the Overlook site watching when it broke in 86.......used too fish a lot on the folsom side of the diversion tunnel when I was a kid in 70s and early 80s

Fascinating footage, thank you for posting. The power of erosion is enormous and much more than I thought. This along with the Glen Canyon erosion incident for me shows that large canyons probably did form in hundreds of years rather than hundreds of thousands of years like some suspect. Given the waterflow of course....

@bobbypatton4903

6 жыл бұрын

Hahaha... you're funny 😂

@duradim1

6 жыл бұрын

Large canyons can for in days, example Mt. Saint Helen.

I grew up in Auburn. If you go to the canyon today, you'll see the huge concrete footings for the Auburn Dam in both sides of the canyon. The Auburn-Forresthill bridge was built to go across Lake Auburn, but today it stands high above the river. The bridge was used on the movie XXX when he drives the corvette off the bridge...That's the Auburn-Forresthill bridge. My friends dad operated one of the cranes that built that bridge and when it was completed, we would crawl in the girders and onto the concrete pillars...there was no railing and we stood 450 feet above the river, throwing things off. If you ever look at the bridge, think about crawling out to those pillars...It was a blast at 13 years old! I was gone when this dam collapse happened but remember hearing about it from my Father.

Great work

We lived above the American River with a view of Lake Clementine. We fought tooth and nail against this monstrosity and was so happy to see it fail. Just reliving good times here.

Had no idea any of this had happened while living in the Bay Area. But I certainly remember all that rain in 86 as well as around 81.

Oh god a film they show you in school.

I love this dam video!

This was great to know all the fail safe considerations that are taken. I feel safer just knowing this

so get your metal detectors and go and see what you can find ? nuggets of GOLD !

This was recommended to me I watched it cause quarantine got my mind floating like a boat

Very significant soundtrack at the title and end! :-)

And now after they rerouted the diversion tunnel back to its original river rout, the nightmare threat of an Auburn dam is years behind,. This canyon is my home and I would literally die for it! Save our American River. No Auburn dam!,,

I was in my last year at Cal St Sacramento in 1986. The level of water flow was amazing. I feel lucky the levy held. My apartment on 1st floor was next to the levy and I would likely have drowned.

Hats off to the folks that designed and constructed that dam.

Very nice video!

The dam lived up to its design 😀

1986, I was only 6 years old and living in Stockton, CA at the time... I bet fishing was great that year of 86'... =D

Excellent doco

It's amazing how much energy is stored in a reservoir

Reminded me of videos shown at school in the 1980s.

Unfortunately, it washed away the Shady Rest hotel , Hooterville, & uncle Joe but Oliver's farming operation quadrupled in size making Lisa happy and everyone in Green Acres .

Brilliant movie!

I remember this like it was yesterday. I was one month old.

They're going to have to redo this so it can be filmed in 4K.

When this started, I was thinking the music choice a bit chipper for the subject matter, as I assumed it was a disaster, but it was a triumph.