Lake Lewisville Dam potential failure

[Texas Dawg]

With this seasons El Nino and projected higher than average rainfall things are not looking promising. From what the article said, downtown Dallas would pretty much be washed away. The death toll and economic damage could potentially exceed anything this country has ever seen.

 

[square1]

Save Sneaky Petes!

 

[EddieWalker]

What's probably behind seeing posts about this on Facebook is the storm we are getting hit by right now. My county is expecting up to 6 inches of rain in the next 24 hours. I think I'm in the heaviest of it, but there will still be a lot of rain that comes down the Lake Lewisville area. Seeing that they are relying on plastic sheets to keep the water from eroding the dam makes me very nervous.

The other thing that caught my eye in the article was that this was the number 8 worse dam in the country. Who and where are the other top ten failing dams?

 

[jlgurr]

Eddie, are you in its path?

Sent from my iPhone 2.0 using TractorByNet

 

[EddieWalker]

No, I'm over 100 miles to the East. I have some friends in the DFW area who posted information about it on Facebook. I know there are quire a few guys on here that live in that area, but I also just thought it was really interesting and wanted to share it with everyone on here.

The storm that's hitting us right now has proven to be very destructive. Two tornadoes hit the town I do all my shopping in, Lindale TX. No idea of the size of the tornadoes, just where they hit and that one of my wife's good friends had her roof torn off. This is 12 miles to the West of where we are. I was out bush hogging before it hit, listing to the reports and watching the sky.

Lights are flickering and I wouldn't be surprised if we lose power before this is over.

 

[mapper]

I find it interesting that near the end of the article the Core of Engineers representative is quoted saying that the dam is well past its design life. One would think that when designing and building such a structure that you would have the assumption that it was going to be there for many generations, it's not like you can easily tear it down and build a new one.

Earth fill dams always make me a bit nervous, I mapped a lot of slope failures both natural and structural during my career. With the mix of droughts, floods and other exceptional weather events we are currently experiencing it becomes very difficult to design for every possibility.

 

[jerrybob]

I find it interesting that near the end of the article the Core of Engineers representative is quoted saying that the dam is well past its design life. One would think that when designing and building such a structure that you would have the assumption that it was going to be there for many generations, it's not like you can easily tear it down and build a new one.

Earth fill dams always make me a bit nervous, I mapped a lot of slope failures both natural and structural during my career. With the mix of droughts, floods and other exceptional weather events we are currently experiencing it becomes very difficult to design for every possibility.

Kinda like Mt Rainer.....up the road from you. When that mountain erupts.....your town and few others may not be here.

 

[mapper]

MT Rainer is more likely to go down the Puyallup or Nisqually river valleys. I am well above the Nisqually flood plain to the south, probably not likely to be directly affected unless there is an east wind. We northwest residents do have our share of natural hazards such as volcanoes and earthquakes, more recently a few small tornadoes. Not much compared to the middle of the country but the one Thursday tore the roofs off of a lot of homes in Battleground, glad for those folks it was not worse. Heard of more tornadoes here in the last couple of years than in my previous sixty years.

 

[turnkey4099]

Kinda like Mt Rainer.....up the road from you. When that mountain erupts.....your town and few others may not be here.

I was in Seattle right after St Helens blew. Just looking at Rainer scared me! They have evacuation plans in place but realism says it won't work.

Harry K

 

[Bird]

Sure seems odd that this is the first I've heard of there even being a problem with the Lewisville Dam. Of course I remember when they were first building that dam, and I've lived, in the past, in places that a dam failure would destroy, but at least where I live now would not be affect . . . EXCEPT . . . we could sure have a severe shortage of drinking water.