Santa Paula and the Willard Bridge

Santa Paula had a population of about four thousand inhabitants when the five foot wall of debris and boulders and mud plowed through at 3:05 in the morning on March 13th.

Many lives were saved in Santa Paula due to the early warning provided by patrolmen Thornton Edwards and his brave motorcycle ride up and down the streets of the town and then outlying areas until the flood was upon him.

Patrolman Edwards got a call from the Santa Paula night shift telephone operator, Louise Gipe at 1:30 AM. Her switchboard had been quiet as the midnight to 6 AM shift usually was. Ms. Gipe had been notified just one minute before by Miss Hibbard of the Pacific Long Distance Telephone Company of the dire situation for all the people in low-lying areas of the valley. 

The St. Francis Dam had collapsed and people close to the trickling Santa Clara river in the valley needed to be warned of the danger coming.  Neither she nor patrolman Edwards had ever heard of the St. Francis Dam, much less considered their town to be in the potential path of its failure and release...

As Edwards fired up his motorcycle, Louise called all the homes in the low lying areas to warn them of the water and debris coming at them in the morning darkness. Edwards had his wife head next door to the autocourt as he took off and she woke everyone and had them head out and warn others. She then went back home and started calling everyone she knew in town to spread the word to evacuate immediately.

Meanwhile, patrolman Edwards was racing from door to door awakening people from deep slumbers. After a dozen homes, he realized time was becoming scarce and he switched to awakening every third house and having the occupants wake up their neighbors. He was then joined by fellow trooper Stanley Baker at 2 AM as the "Paul Revere of Santa Paula" continued spreading the alarm.

The flood, though only a foot and a half high by the time it reached the small city, nonetheless cleared Santa Paula homes off their foundations and the accumulation of debris from up the valley got caught on bridges crossing the santa clara riverbed and after time, destroyed them by clogging their flow. 

Just east of Santa Paula, the Willard bridge and its majestic steel and rivet trestles was struck five minutes before the town itself and was completely demolished by a relentless 5 foot wall of debris and boulders and mud.

Unfortunately, by 4 AM. on the 13th, 11 souls from Santa Paula had been lost and 300 families were without their homes and the beds they slept in on March 12th, a full one third of the thriving little town. Many homes were not pulverized by the floodwater, but rather lifted off their foundations and floated to a rest several city blocks downstream. The early warning saved many lives in Santa Paula and all the cities west of it to the ocean, about ten miles from where you are.