Water Resources: Hydraulics and Hydrology
Hydraulic Engineer
Q ..
Let's go back to the Los Angeles District now. You went to Los Angeles District in 1939
as a hydraulic engineer. Were you hired to do general hydraulic design work in the
district or were you specifically hired for some of that flood control work in Los Angeles?
A:
Jimmy Jobes was Chief of the Hydraulics Branch, which had hydrology and hydraulic
design sections. There was a small laboratory along the river in the park, about six miles
from the office, which also was under the Hydraulics Branch.
Bill Cassidy was in charge of the hydraulic design section, and I worked under Bill. We
designed flood control channels for the Los Angeles River, San Gabriel, and other rivers.
These channels were mostly concrete-lined, but some were lined with rock
We
also did the hydraulic design and model studies for Santa Fe, Hansen, Sepulveda, and
several other dams and debris basins.
After a year or so, Bill Cassidy was promoted up to the Division office, and Jimmy
Jobes got promoted to Assistant Chief of the Engineering Division. I got promoted and
I got Bill's job. I was chief of the hydraulic design section, and had the hydraulics
laboratory under me. Al Gildea was in charge of conducting the model tests, which were
mostly on river channels then.
Flood Control Dams and Channels
These flood control dams were a little different for you, weren't they?
They were a little different dams; they weren't as high and were designed to store debris
as well as water. Dams which were designed mainly to store debris were called debris
basins. The mountain streams carried large volumes of gravel, which, if not kept from
passing through the concrete outlet works, would cause severe erosion damage to the
outlet.
Another problem had to do with trash racks in front of the outlet works. Normally, large
quantities of floating trash would be carried by flood flows to the trash racks. At
Sepulveda Dam, during one big flood, there was so much trash blocking the trash racks
that only about 20 percent of the design flow was passing through the outlet works. When
I went out to study the problem, the reservoir water level was about 30 to 40 feet higher
upstream from the trash rack than the water level on the downstream side of the trash rack.
This was caused by the large amount of trash blocking the rack.
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