"Of adversity we of St. Johns have had more than our share, but no one is giving up."
I have been going through more of my research files and came across this follow-up article to the Lyman Dam break in 1915. It was a very devastating time.
St. Johns Herald and Apache News
Thursday, April 29, 1915
Report of Committee on Flood Situation
It is now two weeks since the breaking of the Lyman
reservoir, the financial losses have been pretty accurately computer, the
people are busy repairing the lower ditches and dams, riddle fences are being
reconstructed, preparations to put in as much crop as possible are in progress,
plans are being formulated to put water into the higher Lyman canal for
irrigation of the bench land, six of the eight bodies of the drowned have been
recovered and buried, so that the town is somewhat normal again.
The direct losses total up about as follows:
- Lyman dam and injuries to canal….$90,000.00
- Houses washed down at St. Johns…$7,000.00
- St. Johns irrigation company…$3,000.00
- Bridge at St. Johns…$2,500.00
- Bridge at Hunt…$2,600.00
- Crops & Fences ruined at St. Johns and Meadows…$10,000.00
- Meadows dam…$3,000.00
- Udall dam…$18,000.00
- Crops, fences, and ditches at Hunt…$8,000.00
- Woodruff dam…$17,000.00
- Crops and other injuries at Woodruff…$13,000.00
- Three-Mile steel bridge…$4,500.00
- Holbrook bridge…$3,000.00
- Other damage as livestock, etc….$5,000.00
- Total Direct Loss…$186,600.00
- Crop loss at St. Johns…$60,000.00
- Crop loss at Meadows…$5,000.00
- Crop loss at Hunt…$12,000.00
- Crop loss at Woodruff or extra cost if pumping is resorted to…$10,000.00
Yet it is safe to say that other direct losses will make the total up to a full hundred thousand, though in event that the Lyman dam were never again built it would reach over half a million.
George H. Crosby, Jr.
A.V. Gibbons
F.W. Nelson,
Committee.
Little "snippet" underneath this article:
"The Little Colorado is some creek when there is nothing to obstruct it. There wasn't much need of the bridge before it went out, but now it is hardly safe to try to cross in a boat. The water is deep and muddy."
Image from Cameron Udall's book - "Images Across America, St. Johns, Arizona" |
I also had a file I had saved entitled: Dam Failures, Dam Incidents (near failures) Association of State Dam Safety Officials www.damsafety.org. That gives this little bit of information about the failure: