John Wilkman, author of Floodpath: The Deadliest Man Made Disaster of 20th Century America (Bloomsbury Press)

How does a man-made disaster that killed 500 innocents near a burgeoning metropolis become a historical footnote? In 1928, the St. Francis dam, part of William Mulholland’s ambitious plan to siphon water to young Los Angeles, suddenly disintegrated, releasing a wall of water that obliterated everything in its path. The story has been told before, but Jon Wilkman is the first to separate the disaster from its larger, triumphant context. Floodpath applies Wilkman’s skills as an award-winning documentarian to produce a factual-yet-compelling account – one that still resonates in the wake of the recent Oroville Dam spillway failure.
Bio: In addition to a career as a producer, director and writer, Jon Wilkman has lectured on film history and the production of documentaries at Fordham University. Jon is co-author of two books with his wife Nancy: Picturing Los Angeles and Los Angeles: A Pictorial Celebration, and author of Black Americans: From Colonial Days to the Present. , Floodpath has been optioned for an eight-part television mini-series by Joel Silver Productions, and was written as a companion to a Wilkman Productions documentary in development, "The St. Francis Dam Disaster."