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This giant model stopped a terrible plan

Tom Scott · 10M views · 2016-12-01 · 4:34

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Overview

Tom Scott tells how John Reber's plan to dam San Francisco Bay was disproved by the Army Corps of Engineers' giant hydraulic Bay Model in Sausalito. The model showed the plan would have been dangerously wrong.

On Hacker News

HN recommends it as a short, fascinating story of a scale model preventing a terrible engineering decision.

Recommended by 5 HN people across 4 months · HN mentions 2018–2026

Topics

Civil engineering & constructionWorld history
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san francisco bayhydraulic modelarmy corps of engineersjohn rebertom scott

What people said

LucasLanglois · 2026-06 · Recommendation

If you don't know Tom Scott, he has done a great video 4mn vide on the model where you can see it in action: [VIDEO]

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pmiller2 · 2020-12 · Recommendation

Yeaaaah, like that wouldn't have any unintended consequences. Meanwhile, I find this more interesting: [LINK] The Army Corps of Engineers literally built a scale model of the San Francisco Bay Area, and they used it to figure out that damming the SF Bay was a very, very bad idea: [VIDEO]

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scrollaway · 2020-11 · Recommendation

> It’s reminiscent of the plan suggested by a school teacher, to dam the San Francisco Bay, which was taken seriously enough to be modeled to scale by the military. For those unaware, I learned of this plan via this short Tom Scott video. Fascinating. [VIDEO] (4:33)

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Sources

Video by Tom Scott, played through YouTube.

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