http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20090325/D97558EG0.html
Fournately for me, we live in an area that will not be affected by the flooding. It’s just hard to believe that an ice jam 100 miles long is responsible for all this flooding.
For our home to be flooded, the Garrison dam would have to break and then nearly the entire town would be gone due to the water surge.
I have been keeping up with it somewhat. Sorry to hear this, but relieved it wont affect your home.
Is the dam sound, or are they worried of the possibility of failure at this time.
Heidi
The dam is sound. It’s just they built all these dams along the Missouri river to prevent flooding and now all these ice jams are causing the flooding.
They have suspended releases from the dam to try to alieviate (sp) the flooding, but whatever they do takes two days to show up here. The previous low release from the dam was 4,000 cfs back in 1997 and now it’s 0 cfs. The Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) is now buying electricity on the open market to make up for the loss from the dam. Normal minimum releases from the dam are in the 10,000 cfs range.
For those non-engineers, cfs = cubic feet per second so 4,000 cfs is 1,795,200 gallons per minute.
Best of luck for those in that area from someone two states to your south.
Fingers crossed! :xfinger: