Mid Michigan Flooding and 2 Dam Failures (lots of pics)

[ps2fixer]

No deaths, no major injuries reported. We are still under the state wide lock down too. Most people in this area ignored that to see what happened and such including myself. I have a couple pics of right before the dam went, but dark crappy shots so didn't bother posting.

I live on high and dryish land so I didn't have much for flood problems. I do know people in Sanford area that had their house under water though, from what I've seen their houses should be fairly easy to repair, basically a major remodel, structure looks intact. Kind of a pain to get around with a ton of local roads washed out from the flood/rain plus the major bridges in the area all down from the dams. Couple days ago it was about a 60 mile trip to get to the other side of the river, one of the bridges reopened near Sanford that was recently built and was very tall vs the others in the area so that cuts the trip down to like 30 miles or so.

The real kicker is we just had a "100 year" flood in 2017 and this event was worse.

Figured I'd post some photos of the area, stuff you likely won't see on the news. Kind of wish I would have taken pics right when I got news the dam washed out, I was around 3 miles from the M30 bridge at that time and heard it on the radio for the local fire department effectively right when it went.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHlpsW8RW7o


Here's a few pics I took. This is the major road that goes through the area just south of the first dam that broke called M30.

https://i.gyazo.com/02f2041383dc0c3c7ee9abea8d63fea1.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/6b9d99385b28a46621fc233716902d9f.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/8eb43c82670a104b64070aa3e5817370.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/46ab9de391cdbb72579da76a47aa632a.jpg

This is the 2nd bridge down stream of the first dam, Curtis road.

https://i.gyazo.com/51f6b3b8eff635948ef1a44a430978d3.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/a1ce5e201c2a6ac81ef3b1fe91c5613b.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/f87523f2ace1d7c0d6a0696cab903572.jpg

https://i.gyazo.com/e5fe9e2a87ae23184cd2c750a08fbf94.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/eb3342a8d53314a9cd465d2d6be2de29.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/53855abce19037cdd8f70e6ecf64b00a.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/eda1af116195c20b83ff873f72f4f337.jpg

This is what's left of Wixom Lake after 2 days of draining.

https://i.gyazo.com/ce280964d7d3c3452846a91ffaf466e1.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/ef3d52b6a2271d0f80b0c4afc8db1564.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/b4f0e6ab0256b19df6cd2af982835e3a.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/3d21f6ce84136df7b25fc401ce7662ef.jpg

About a mile upstream from the last shot (roughly 2 miles from the dam). The last pic is the first dam that failed with 42x zoom from that
https://i.gyazo.com/43264dae6875218cf85d939362acc0f8.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/134fed559f97fa3190514604d0cc3b1d.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/66f5092ccd3c880282b1c2c4bb4961c5.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/6ebed5d20c097e42b18d7a3320827549.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/1da9a80ac1d0cb8dc7b404c2680560e7.jpg

Some misc pics farther yet up stream. The good spot I was heading to was closed down by the state police.
https://i.gyazo.com/45a90de4da5138c3a44d37f7633c771d.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/7ff095e0d32f99b7a3cf1e84710f1a5c.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/706b92e4e61f873bf6e2e8ff563b6a73.jpg


Sanford Dam (2nd one that burst), couldn't get an angle to see the failure point due to a few guys in uniforms. This lake (Sanford Lake) is also drained now like Wixom, I haven't taken photos yet though.

https://i.gyazo.com/c94bf012f49ac6aff88b9b82c6262560.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/5bbb85b862faa34bf287ef4ac16ec96d.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/b85ada6a4f6e1a999572bacd0cd985ed.jpg


Back down stream (between Sanford and Edenville dams) near a friend's 2nd home.

https://i.gyazo.com/32a28fe255fa90a4adfdf06d2048987a.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/7b630df1cbc9f8ed00fbe8c3aad7ae1b.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/97f21f5dd28606e29fa0bcd25c84ca9a.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/9d15bbf7654bcb4697c49b2325f15c6a.jpg

Same spot, still not sure what this is, looks like a grass patch... in the middle of the lake though? Maybe a section of sod washed and settled there? Maybe just the weeds and such from the lake that didn't wash away.
https://i.gyazo.com/85b9b154b2acc241a2d3a9d5c0702c5f.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/9501a06faa5462639816a8dfbe9174d0.jpg

[ps2fixer]

Drone footage before the dam went (something like 6hr before it went)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMcf-El1xcI

[ps2fixer]

2 days after. That bridge that's completely wiped out is after the M30 Bridge I book pics of, I can't get to that area. The bridge was always a pain to get under on boats since the height was always so close. Hopefully when it's rebuilt the bridge will be higher and potentially longer so it doesn't have such a risk of being washed out again.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMCOgSAG6ww

[fabiodriven]

Boy oh boy, someone dropped the ball there. Thanks for sharing. It seems the only news reaching anyone anymore is mostly political.

[ps2fixer]

Well this can be political too. Dams are privately owned, they lowered to lake not long ago and the state sued them over destroying wet lands. Lake was drained for federal inspection which the Hydro dams failed and their federal operating license revoked in 2018. Dams have been known to have problems since 1999. Who's at fault, I think it's shared, private owners and the state. Federal already determined the dams were unsafe.

Dams were built in the 1920's, there's a steam powered "shovel" that fell in the lake when it was constructed and it's still there on the dry lake bed now, my dad got pics of it.

M30 is a state highway, 1 damaged bridge, 1 bridge completely wiped out
US10 bridge got damaged (minor wash out)
Curtis road I'd assume is a county road, huge section of the road washed out after the bridge including the bridge approach

I haven't seen it myself, but Saginaw road that runs through sanford is majorly wiped out too, saw that in a drone vid.

There was something like $300k of repairs done on the Edenville dam berm not too long ago, the dams were currently in process of being sold to the 4 counties and there's documents I found of plans for repair and building a new spill way for this winter. I guess as the saying goes, day late and a dollar short.

The raw power of that water is crazy, it's a fairly small dam since it's a man made lake on a stream bed. I couldn't imagine the destructive forces of a much larger dam failing. I heard in one of the random videos I watched that 10mph water as the destructive force of 300mph winds. Who knows the flow rate when the dam went, but I'm sure it was a lot more than 10mph.

Looks like there's a current lawsuit being built against the dam owner.

https://www.forthepeople.com/dam-flood-attorneys/?ads_cmpid=10107606157&ads_adid=103963800200&ads_matchtype=b&ads_network=g&ads_creative=436746624671&utm_term=%2Bdam%20%2Bfailure&ads_targetid=kwd-341081010411&utm_kxconfid=ty6howcay&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIqobxvPzK6QIVj4bACh1DdAjdEAAYASAA EgIXQfD_BwE

Here's a pretty good unbiased reporting on the situation.

https://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-bay-city/2020/05/troubled-dam-breaks-sends-floodwaters-hurtling-toward-midland.html

Either case, this will likely take years to repair everything. I don't expect the bridges to be fixed by winter, the gov moves too slow here for that to happen. Trump did declare a federal emergency here, so maybe with the federal level of help they can beat my expectations.

Here's the steam powered shovel if you wanted to see it. Besides that, there's some misc junk on the lake bottom, found an old bike, old wash tub but nothing of super interest. Up north at another dam (different water way I'm pretty sure), there's two old cars on the river bottom, when the dam is closed off you can get to the cars. I think they both have straight 8's in them, looks like 40's-50's era. Don't know the story behind them, but there's a short bit of woods then a road, guessing maybe they were stolen and ditched there, or someone missed the road corner in bad weather or something like that.

There's also an old rail way that's closed now but the train was in Sanford yet. Not sure if it's still there, it was quite close to the river. The towns around here popped up because of the valuable wood being cut and floated down the river.

https://www.ourmidland.com/news/article/Wixom-Lake-reveals-nearly-100-year-old-artifact-15289315.php#photo-19446157

To give a little context, another town east of the Edenville dam was known for the logging camps. They don't make horses like they used to xD.

http://www.culturalequity.org/sites/default/files/inline-images/bigload_0.jpg

I've seen photos of logs floating down the river before the dams were constructed and I remember one pic that I never fully understood what it was. It was a massive area clear cut and hilly ground. The towns are flat where the main buildings are for the most part, but now I'm thinking that was the Wixom lake bottom or Sanford lake bottom before it was flooded. Sadly I couldn't find the pic, I bet it was from around 1923-1925.

[El Camexican]

Glad to hear you’re all right:beer

[ps2fixer]

Yea I'm fine, directly family didn't live in the path. I have a cousin in Sanford that had around 10-12ft of water at their house, he waded through the water to check the house, interior is trashed, structure seems ok. Another person my dad knows lived about 1/4 from the river and his house had about 5ft at it. He was working on that place to retire in. Another guy my dad knows has major damage to his house, I haven't seen the place, but the water was in his yard in the 2017 flood so I suspect it is a similar story to my cousin's house.

This is the worst I got in my yard, the sandy part under water is part of a drive I'm building up, there's also a ditch there.

https://i.gyazo.com/1adbcba50b78a5c125ca25c7e714e278.jpg

Here's an after shot 1 day later. You can't really see the ditch, it's really small, never had flooding problems before like that, just drainage problems. Couldn't do much since the swamp on the other side of the drive was full as well as the ditch along the road.

https://i.gyazo.com/0a2b6867918d32af46e2ea6c6542cf88.jpg



Here's the major ditch across my road.


https://i.gyazo.com/e5862196da1d4108807cdd80a3af0334.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/abaec30b884a4e79900dfae315e961ae.jpg


For the pics in the first post of the tube draining out, this is the opposite side of that. I heard it was flooding over the road. The night before while it was still raining it was real close to that point.

https://i.gyazo.com/0eef0cff9e7f5e0546a3cff87b8aed82.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/3d00050078cc680daa8e9baa48844665.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/e018f4c9ae0cf2760c9c10a5ba0eaf5e.jpg


Here's a link to my youtube with some videos showing what happened.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRvul6EJ1RwXATlTTKIToDQ

[Scootertrash]

Glad you're OK

Did you wear a mask?:naughty::rolleyes::lol:

[ps2fixer]

Nope, no one had masks on, I wasn't within the 6ft hazard zone either lol. State police no masks, the only people around here with masks is when you go into the store because businesses can refuse to let you shop with out one. I also heard some stores refusing cash payments too, but that was like a month ago.

I heard there was thermo imaging done via satellite and whoever determined that the Governor's stay at home order was being ignored.

[coolpool]

Wow Cory that's just crazy! Wonder how many old firearms are buried in the drained lake bed, you might be surprised. I'm glad we're boring when it comes to weather events like this......and we'll keep it that way!

[ps2fixer]

Normally it's pretty boring here too, flooding once in a while but nothing major. My dad walked a fair bit of the lake bed and all he found was the steam powered shovel and a golf ball. Bunch of people have been riding quads on the lake, I guess updated news is that the ground is unstable and not allowed there any more, sink holes possible and such since it's a sand based lake. I guess there's a bunch of underground lakes and such, I've herd of plenty of stories about that but never seen anything first hand.

[big specht]

Well if you need any really good top soil that’s where to get it ! Man I bet there’s alot of finger-pointing as too is responsible for this.

[ps2fixer]

Yea, it's hard to really know. Most I know is the company that owns the dam lowered it around 2018 for federal inspection, it failed so the hydro license was removed. State sued over the lowering of the lake and from my understanding the judge ordered them to raise the lake to normal levels. You can point your finger at the company for not building the extra spill way and repairs, but they claim they didn't have enough funds for that, or you can blame the state for ordering the lake level to be increased when the dam was known to have issues. If the lake level was kept low this might have been avoided somewhat. Midland and Sanford would get their "normal" flooding, but not wiping out houses and such.

One thing is for sure, no one can blame Federal gov for it, they already deemed the dam unsafe in 2018 and turned regulation back to the state (no power generation allowed).

As for top soil, down stream of the dam might be good, but up stream it's all sand, nothing grows in sand till something is added to it. My parent's front yard has taken years of throwing apple cores, banana peals, etc in their front yard to get any grass to grow. There's wood land all over here, the top soil in the woods is the best top soil I've seen around, but it's also very hard to extract with all the roots and plants in it. Swamp bottoms are very thick with black dirt/mud, stinks a bit but I'm sure the smell would go away in time.

My dad and I have been helping people long the effected area we know by fixing their small engines. My old bus driver's dad's bother has like 15 engines at my dad's place right now including a small side by side, quad, go cart, power washer, mowers, etc. His garage was under about 3ft of water, the house was around 4ft or so. Another guy we know has his house as a total loss. He has flood insurance but I guess they have a ton of things they don't cover. Hopefully FEMA does a better job than he's dealing with currently. He's living in a 5th wheel camper in a parking lot currently.

I heard there's a group of volunteers coming up to help with the clean up too, there's several donation funds setup for this too.

Consumers must have been working on the power circuit in my area, my road had no power yesterday, I saw one of the sub power stations light up like a football game at night time. It's near the dam so guessing it was flooded.

There's a road near my parents that was being worked on yesterday too, it has the shoulder washed out a tiny bit, looks like they were doing inspections and such to see what all was needed to fix it, road completely closed off.

Also, there's tons of traffic on my road, one point of the road you can see the lake from and there's a bunch of cars parked in the road.. even though there's a store on the corner they could park at and walk 15ft to see it w\o effecting traffic.

I heard there's some law or something that people can't pick up flood related items from the side of the road, not sure how true that is. Metal scrapers wouldn't like that. I'm sure my garbage schedule will be delayed since there's so much junk for the truck to pick up.

Oh, when I was working on helping yesterday, the smell of the lake is getting pretty bad, lots of fish on the ground sun baking. Pike, bluegill, etc.

[ATCKevin]

I drove through there the other day on my way to deliver a trike to a guy. I couldn’t believe what I saw. It’s heartbreaking to see everyone’s lives and homes devastated like that. I couldn’t believe it


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[ATC King]

There will be more dam failures for the next several generations. The US went on a dam building frenzy in the early-mid 20th century, without much thought as to what subsequent generations will have to endure financially to maintain or remove them.

Here is a website showing past dam removals, and that group continues to work on removing more. https://www.americanrivers.org/threats-solutions/restoring-damaged-rivers/dam-removal-map/

Something to think about before buying expensive lakefront property, or living below a dam.

[ps2fixer]

Yea, lake front never appealed to me, so I live next to a swamp lol. House and main yard area high and dry which is what really counts and the area is nice and quite, no crime to speak of, etc.

Michigan has a lot of dams, and a sizeable percentage need major work.

I didn't take any pics, but took a quick drive around to see how things were doing north of me, the road that was washed out from the rain has been temp fixed, the filled the hole in and gravel topped it for now, lot better than driving around the block which is all dirt roads. I saw a crane sticking up above the tree line when driving back, I suspect that's for the M30 bridge, so progress there. Saw a video of Sanford and US10 is being worked on. The main road in Sanford is untouched besides being swept off for the part that isn't washed out. Looks like consumer's ran a temp power line on the side of the road to power the other half of the town

[ATC King]

Trying add a little perspective, not derail the thread, but it's a catch 22 with most dams, bridges, and building. At a certain point they're too far gone and too expensive to repair, but also too expensive to remove. They can't just be left to decay and fail either, seeing the aftermath of that.

In Hagerman, Idaho, there was a bridge given to the county/city, but it's now derelict. Owsley Bridge, which is over the Snake River, a protected river. The bridge is closed to vehicle traffic and in a terrible state of disrepair. The cost to remove it is very expensive, complicated by the fact none of it can be allowed to fall into/pollute the river. The cost to repair it, also prohibitive. It'll rot until it falls into the river.

Next to Index bridge on Highway 71, over the Red River near Texarkana, is the old truss style railroad bridge. The old bridge used to rotate on a central pillar to allow barge traffic through. That was many moons ago, when that section of the Red was navigable by barge. A new railroad bridge was built right next to it, but the old, rusted, decayed bridge remains.

I've seen several old steel truss bridges near here disappear. Old one lane bridges that carried traffic from a different era. Many of them I used as a teenager. These were short bridges over narrow creeks and rivers, so fairly easily removed and sold for scrap, some nearly a 100 years after their construction with little maintenance other than new wood decking. Many of them were visible from the new highway for decades, and now most people forgot they were even there.

The short human lifespan and likewise thought process, keeps burdening subsequent generations without penalty.

It's impossible to build your way out of a population problem. Build more highways, and more people will fill them. Build more power plants, and people will use more power. The term is included demand. I'm not proposing I know of any one solution to the whole problem, just that it's beneficial to understand these things to help oneself determine where to live, if they want to avoid somewhere with these problems, or identify the places building into these problems in the near future. House by a major roadway in a growing city, bam, Eminent Domain. Guess you'll have to move somewhere else now, how convenient. You're just outside the limits of a growing city, bam, now you've been annexed. The city recently declared your neighborhood as a flood area, after decades of increased concrete and pavement has increased runoff and flooding, bam, increased insurance or no coverage for flood damage. The once nice apartments downtown are now low rent housing, plagued with crime, but you can't afford to live like the mayor, just afford to pay the mayor's salary through taxes.


Cat's in the Cradle...Eat the Rich...Feed the Tree

[Jd110]

Owsley bridge is on the list of historic places. It’s 100 years old and build to withstand 20ton engine. The asphalt deck has deteriorated, but has passed ultrasonic test in 2015 or so, on the pins holding it together. I heard it may be turned into part of a bike trail. I’ve never heard anything about it be removed or protected river there, though. Who says that?

[ps2fixer]

Midland has quite a few probably 100 year old bridges too, ones that go under water every flood (they flood atleast a little almost every year). Some of the bridges you can see physically needs major work, some of the footings are rusted out badly, yet still open to traffic (single lane bridge). Top is fine and the rest of the bridge appears good, just the footing area seems to be the weak point. No semis can drive over them, so probably partly why it's lower concern, the hump in the bridge is way too much for a semi or a truck with a long trailer. That also reminds me of a bridge in Sanford, same size of bridge but was constructed from concrete. It looked old when I was a kid, never really stopped and looked at the structure of it. There's also an old rail bridge in Sanford that was turned into a walk way bridge.

On the funds to fix/maintain the dams in the area, there's a lot of houses on the lake with elevated taxes just due to the higher valued property. I don't have exact numbers but I'm pretty sure the properties are 30-100% increased in value because of the lake vs other properties in the area. Add that up for miles of houses and there should be a fair sized chunk of money for the city to push to keeping the dams good (if they owned it). The Dam system here goes across 4 counties, basically 1 county that's effectively rich (for this area of standards atleast), and 3 that are pretty poor (lack of quality/high paying jobs). For them to buy the dams, then repair also defo will be a huge investment, before this all happened it was estimated purchase plus repairs was something like 20-30 mil.

As for safely disabling a dam, maybe I don't understand them well enough, but atleast for the ones here, the places where they washed out seems to be where they were designed to wash out. Seems like to disable with out the major flood problem, they'd just have to lower the lake as much as possible, and dig out the berm where the fail point normally would be. Still costs money but not as much as removing the whole dam system. Every situation is probably different so maybe that doesn't work for most of them.

[ATC King]

Owsley bridge is on the list of historic places. It’s 100 years old and build to withstand 20ton engine. The asphalt deck has deteriorated, but has passed ultrasonic test in 2015 or so, on the pins holding it together. I heard it may be turned into part of a bike trail. I’ve never heard anything about it be removed or protected river there, though. Who says that?


When I was staying in Hagerman, it was in local news about the financial problem of removing the bridge or renovating it and something about a containment under the bridge if it were to be dismantled. I'll have to find the article.

I biked across it a lot, as I rode up to the wind farm then hauled rump down, coasting. That was a good workout. I really enjoyed staying in Hagerman and the Thousand Springs area. I biked from there to Boise and back for a extended weekend ride. Rode the mountain bike trails at Boise, with touring bike. Camped a night at the sand dunes on the way back. Biked to the salmon farm and the box valley several times. Idaho is a great state for cycling.

263015

A picture for people who haven't been to Idaho. That state is magical.

263016

Those are mountains in the background, not clouds.
263017

[Jd110]

I could imagine it’d be quite the feat. You’re right, they will all eventually crumble.

[ps2fixer]

I kind of wonder what the story is of the first two bridges there existed in this area. The curtis road bridge has existed for ages, but atleast has been rebuild/repaired 3 times, it was just rebuild something like 10-15 years ago. there was another bridge closer to where my parents live that used to go across the river but it's been taken down long ago. It was a really weird design, let me see if I can pull up a pic of it.

This one is labeled as the curis road bridge, it's the weird designed one I was thinking of.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/pastperfectonline/images/museum_501/012/20055650220.jpg

This bridge is labeled as being in Edenville, not sure if this is the bridge I'm thinking of or not, looks like a short life span style of bridge/construction to me.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/pastperfectonline/images/museum_501/020/20191000009.jpg

Realistically, anything built will eventually will need repaired or replaced, roads, bridges, dams, buildings, electronics, etc. Clearly some things are built better than other things. Like the dams in this area the guy had investors and was on limited funds so they were built on the cheap side. It has also generated power and income for 90+ years too.

Michigan doesn't have much for hills or scenery, we have trees and water, that's about it lol. Up north there's copper mines, around my area and south there's salt pits. That's why Detroit didn't build very tall, the ground wasn't stable enough for skyscrapers of massive scale like new york has, atleast that's what I've been told over the years.

[ATC King]

Modern concrete uses rebar. That's the problem.

Ancient Roman concrete lasted because it's all concrete, no rebar to rust and destroy the concrete.

Native stone lasts because it's stable.


There is no modern technique capable of lasting nearly as long as things built with stone thousands of years ago. Whether ancient builders knew that or didn't have access to iron or steel is irrelevant, because modern society chooses to be ignorant and ignore the past. Brave New World.

[ps2fixer]

There's a lot of rumor, stories, conspircity theories etc around those building styles, but I did see in one spot where a stone was removed and under was chiseled I shape holding the chunks together that was made of metal. I can't remember what type of metal it was, like bronze. No clue if it's real or not but the concept makes sense. According to "experts" the build styles from that era are impossible even with today's advanced tools. That's a whole different can of worms to open up though lol.

Also, some modern concrete doesn't use rebar, instead it uses some sort of fibers, I don't know anything else about it though.

Even the stone structures are in disrepair, but the fact that they are standing after so long is still amazing. Today, everything is about profit, time is money etc. Back then I suspect a lot more weight was given to things that last even if it's a ton of work to complete a project.

[El Camexican]

The short human lifespan and likewise thought process, keeps burdening subsequent generations without penalty.

Great post, but these particular words should be chipped into stone.

[ATC King]

I was reading some about the Michigan dam failure flooding and found an article about a memorial that was washed away.

https://apnews.com/66f638e59a5b0ca06619956ea0e55052


Also found one about another dam that was damaged, but it seems like the dam owners tried to deny it.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/05/28/feds-boyce-hydro-wrong-smallwood-dam-damaged-midland-edenville/5268745002/

[ps2fixer]

Smallwood is the dam up stream of the Wixom Lake dam (Edenville). It over topped in the storm, I've heard both it failed and it didn't fail. There's also another dam in the area I heard failed, but haven't seen anything about it. I think it's called Chapel dam. Secord dam didn't over top from my understanding, but it's the most up stream dam of the system. When I heard the radio call that edenville dam went, the guy also said smallwood was reported as failed too.

Not sure if I posted it before or not, but here's a video of a drone show of the dam when it was over topping at smallwood. You can see some damage but no clear failures. Hard to really tell until the water is gone to really know though. There's clear erosion damage in the video. Smallwood lake is quite small, I think the smallest of the lakes and Wixom I'm pretty sure is the biggest. Smallwood dam was updated to federal regulations (more spill way capacity I think was required), and the dam repairs edenville dam needed was done on the smallwood dam. The updates probably saved the dam, but also didn't help down stream (either case would have been problems).


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLuZuUwCyRA


The memorial must be something fairly new, I don't recall Sanford having one before but I rarely get in the down town section, just the edge of it that didn't get hit or hit much, like near the post office area.