6/8/2023 0 Comments Reisner cadillac desert![]() When the dam crumbled, it sent a 200-ft high wall of water to the sea, killing more than 400 people and destroying 1,200 homes. It had been built by the legendary William Mulholland, a self-taught hydro-engineer, who presided over the aqueduct from Owens valley and was a popular hero. Reisner recounted the drama of the collapse of the Saint Francis dam in a valley of shale, north-west of Los Angeles, in 1928. They have read Reisner's book, which describes how the water was stolen, how the Owens lake, which once bore paddle steamers, was turned into a dustbowl, and how the canal was bombed by local people in the 1920s. ![]() Tourists on their way to Death Valley today sometimes pause to look at the aqueduct that carries water from the once-fertile Owens valley more than 300 miles to Los Angeles. Reisner had the remarkable ability to explain entertainingly the complex, and often numbing, deals and disputes in the "water wars" that have plagued the west, particularly California, for nearly 200 years. Its black and white photographs of the men who built the massive Hoover dam, on the Colorado river near Las Vegas, were as compelling por traits of human endeavour and courage as images from the second world war. ![]() As a television documentary series, often beautiful as well as revelatory, it was screened in America in 1997, and was shown abroad, including in Britain. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |