11-foot wall of water: One dam breaks, three counties suffer

[Igel]

27. Not much there to lose.

And given the public mood for decommissioning (and not replacing) hydroelectric plants, it's unlikely it would have been rebuilt.

At some point somebody would have come along and brought the dam down after draining it. Or perhaps it would have been "blessed" by a natural resources group because it provided wetlands or lay-over space for migratory birds.

But it was one of the many private dams in the country; many younger people, esp. those who were born and raised in cities or suburbs, don't realize that a lot of infrastructure wasn't built by the federal government. Some were local public/private partnerships, some local and public (with organizations formed just for building the dam or towns/counties that responded to local needs). Some were purely private endeavors, and often in the Depression or afterwards those private organizations went bankrupt or simply dissolved; or they're too poor now to do anything but routine maintenance.


Many sources say the Spencer dam didn't die from (liquid) water alone but because of ice. I've lived near large bodies of water that froze over and yet had piers and docks, sometimes shipping terminals. They survived hurricanes and large-scale flooding with minimal damage; the terminal could be under 4 feet of water and everything's recoverable fairly quickly. But when the Bay or lake froze over, the wind would cause the 6" or 10" sheets to overlap, freeze in place, and form thick layers. You get a piece of ice 2 miles across and 2' thick moving and it'll do damage the likes of which tidal surge a mere 4' deep over land could only fantasize about. The Spencer dam may not have have a surface area and ice mass that big, but if a big chunk of ice was pounded against 90-year-old concrete ...