Florence flooding puts dams, many high hazard, to the test
Devastating flooding in
State officials have been monitoring dam safety in cooperation with local authorities and say there has been at least one dam breach so far, with no homes affected. But there have been several other locations of concern and false alarms about dam failures that have caused panic.
According to data submitted to the National Inventory of Dams for this year's deadline and obtained by The Associated Press, the state has 1,445 dams rated high hazard out of about 5,700 dams total, ranging from large federally owned ones to small private ones. That hazard classification does not indicate the likelihood of failure — just that any failure would be likely to cause the loss of one or more human lives.
Of those high-hazard dams, 185 had conditions of poor or unsatisfactory during recent inspections, the data show. And many of those dams were in areas that have been inundated with water.
Ahead of the storm, workers with
Dam safety personnel have also been deployed to the state
On Sunday night, an
Soldiers who had been resting on cots starting donning boots, helmets and life vests, and a team deployed toward a nearby fire department. About halfway there, the call was canceled — another false alarm.
A Facebook post claiming a dam in
"It created a panic because people thought the dam had broken, and they didn't know which way the water would go," she said. Residents started calling asking if they needed to leave their homes, she said.
The dam held up just fine.
Rumors also spread Sunday night in nearby
In
"It was an overreaction, don't you think?"
"Very much so," said
Two of
One is at a cooling pond and the other at a coal ash pond. The dam at the coal ash pond was found to be in poor condition during an inspection last year, according to the data.
Both structures were performing well and no problems were expected, Duke spokeswoman
Catastrophic dam failures are infrequent, and age is a leading indicator of dam failure, with the exception of seismic or weather events, a 2008
The
"In general, dam safety has improved tremendously over the years but there's still a long way to go," Ogden said.
Rankin reported from
New Bern officials detail cleanup after Hurricane Florence
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