Saticoy - 4:05 AM; 48 miles downstream

Samuel Alexander, resident of Saticoy penned the following letter to his cousin, Elizabeth days after the flood...

"Miss Elizabeth Black: Dear Cousin, at 3 o’clock, Tuesday morning, March 13, 1928, I was awakened by a most frightful roaring noise. I thought the world was coming to an end and I couldn’t imagine what caused it. When daylight broke, we could see Santa Clara River covered with dead people, horses, cattle, sheep, swine, dogs, cats, poultry, barns, houses, telephone, telegraph, electric wire poles, orange, lemon, walnut, apricot and all kinds of fruit and forest trees rushing to the sea. Soon the air was full of planes to the giant Saint Francis dam. They gave us the first information that the dam had collapsed as the wires were all down and there was no other communication. Airplanes for days carried passengers to see the ruins the furious waters had wrought. We live in the middle of Santa Clara Valley within half a mile of the river on land that slopes to the river 75 feet above it, so we were not in any danger. Santa Paula, seven miles east of us, was the worst hit by the great disaster. 700 houses on River Street were swept away with their occupants"