Hazardous Metropolis: Flooding and Urban Ecology in Los Angeles

Notes

Notes ABBREVIATIONS CDPW: CDW: CHR: CHSM: DSCUCLA: EhTR: FoLhR: GPS: HBL: HL: HWRS: California Department of Public Works. Charles Dwight Willard Papers, Huntington Library, San Marino, California. California History Room, California State Library, Sacramento , California. City Hall, Sierra Madre, California. Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Libsary, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California. Engineering News-Record. Friends of the Los Angeles River. Government Publications Section, California State Library, Sacramento, California. Henry Baker Lynch Papers, Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California. Huntington Library, San Marino, California. Harriet Williams Russell Strong Papers, Huntington Library, San Marino, California. 186 JhF: JBL: JDR: JPO: LAACC: LACA: LXCBS: LACDPW: LACDPWTL: LACFCA: LACFCD: LAD: LAE: LAPL: LAT: NXPR: i'iRC: PAO: RNL: TBE: TPL: USGS: WRCA: Note to Page I John Aimon Ford Collection. Huntington Library, San hlarino, California. J. B. Lippincott Collection, Water Resources Center Archives, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California. J. David Rogers Private Historical Collections, Pleasant Hill, California. 1l.lanuscripts in the possession of Jared Orsi. Los Angeles Area Chambers ot Commerce Collection, Regional History Center, University of Southern California, Los Angeles , California. Los Angeles City Archives, Los Angeles, California. Los Xngeles County Board of Supervisors, Executive Office, Los Angeles, California. Los Angeles County Department of Public Works. Los Angeles County Department of Public Works Technical Library, Alhambra, California. Los Angeles County Flood Control Association. Los Angeles County Flood Control District. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Los Angeles District. Los Angeles Exatnitzeu. Los Angeles Public Lihrar!., Los Angeles, California. Los Angeles Timej. National Archives, Pacific Region, Laguna Niguel, California. Kational Research Council. Public Affairs Ofice, Los Angeles District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Los Angeles, California. Richard M.Kison Library, Yorha Linda, California. Thomas Balch Elliott Papers, Huntington Library, San hlarino, California. Theodore Parker Lukens Papers, Huntington Library, San 1Marino , California. United States Geological Survey. Water Resources Center Archives, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California. P R O L O G U E . WATER I K L O S ANGELES r . Nat~onalResearch Council, Cornnuttee on Natural Disasters, and Ervlronmental Quallty Laborator), California Institute of Technology, Stoms, Notes to Pages 2-3 787 Floods, and Debris Flows in Sorrthern California and Arizona, 1978 and 1980: Ozwview a d Surnmary of a Sympositinz, September I 7-1 8, I 980 (Washington , D.C.: National Academy Press, 1982), I I . There is some dispute ahout how the debris got there. Flood-control officials maintained that the water nearly overflowed the levees, leaving the debris behind as evidence. One Long Beach resident, however, claimed that waves well below the levees could have tossed it there; Friends of the Los Angeles River, "Proposed Flood Control Strategy for the Los Angeles and San Gabriel River Systen~s"1199 j ] , unpaginated appendix , manuscript, LAPL; D. J. Waldie, "The Myth of the L.A. River," B u z , April 1996, 84; George Stein, "Study Widens Risk Zone of Hypothetical Major Flood," LAT, I j September 1987, sec. 1 1 , I , 6. 2. This is a study about n~etropolitan Los Angeles. Given the amorphousness of that entity, a word on meaning is in order. For the most part, this study covers the coastal plain and mountain areas within Los Angeles County (excluding the Channel Islands and the high desert north of the San Gabriel Mountains). This spatial scope coincides with the jurisdiction of the Los Angeles County Flood Control District, the local government agency charged with flood control during the period covered by this study. In the pages that follow, therefore, the names "Los Angeles" and "southern California" are used more or less interchangeably to refer to the contiguously urbanized area within Los Angeles County. The people who live in this area I refer to as "southern Californians." I use "city of Los Angeles" to refer to the municipality of Los Angeles, and I use "Los Angeles Basin" to refer to the drainage area of the Los Angeles and San Gabriel rivers. Although urban southern California is centered in the city of Los Angeles, the contiguously urbanized space has expanded during the period covered by this study, as development has spread beyond the boundaries of Los Angeles County. Consequently, although the study does not systematically examine the adjacent counties of Ventura, Orange, Riverside, or San Bernardino, it does occasionally range into those places, especially in covering the recent period , when...