Bearwallow Dam
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The Bearwallow Dam (or Bear Wallow) was a dam near Canton in Buncombe County in North Carolina , United States . The dam failed on February 22, 1976, resulting in four deaths.
The dam, built in 1963, was 10 to 11 m high, 152 m long and the reservoir had a water surface of 1.5 hectares. The catchment area was 25 hectares. It was a very small dam in every way . It was not included in any state dam list and was not subject to any monitoring guidelines. The purpose of the facility was irrigation, groundwater regulation and recreational recreation.
After heavy rains, which were not unusual, the water level rose quickly. It had not yet reached the overflow edge, which was 70 cm below the crest of the dam, when at 2:30 a.m. a 6 m wide and 6 m deep section of the airside embankment slipped away. The water, about 37,000 cubic meters in total, shot through the breach in a 5 m high tidal wave . The wave reached a high speed in the steep gorge that followed. A 2 m deep and 6 m wide erosion channel was created in which boulders were also swept away. Two and a half kilometers further and 330 m lower, the terrain became flatter. There were about a dozen houses near the river, two of which were damaged and one collapsed. A street was also washed away. The sludge deposits were up to 3 m high.
There were four deaths, all from the same family, but their dog survived.
See also
literature
- George F. Sowers : Earth dam failures in the United States: Mechanisms of failure and their consequences , Mitteilungen des Institut für Wasserbau und Wasserwirtschaft, Issue 18, Aachen, 1977