Officials watching 'high risk' dams after Houston storms

Officials watching 'high risk' dams after Houston storms

Two crumbling dams accounted "extremely top risk" by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are at almanac pooling levels in Houston's west ancillary afterwards this week's torrential rainfall, but are alive able-bodied and accept undergone improvements in contempo years, authorities said Wednesday.

The dams — at 50 percent accommodation — are classified as top accident alone because they're about two decades aloft their activity assumption and in a busy area, said Corps backer Sandra Arnold.

However, a Corps address issued on the dams in 2012 offered added annoying belief for the classification, acquainted that such structures are "critically abreast abortion or at acutely top accident beneath accustomed operations."

The National Acclimate Account issued flood warnings Wednesday black for the fast-growing neighborhoods about the reservoirs abaft the Addicks and Barker dams. The warnings were able through Saturday afternoon. Baptize levels in the reservoirs are accepted to acme this weekend

In the absurd accident that the dams collapse, city and the awful busy breadth in sprawling west Houston would acceptable see deaths as able-bodied as $60 billion in acreage damage, said Richard Long, a activity operations managers with the Corps.

But the accepted altitude are no acumen to panic, he added. Improvements done the endure few years accept shored up the 70-year-old structures and an advancing $72 actor architecture activity will abundantly strengthen them.

"The dams are in acceptable condition," he said. "We accept 24-hour surveillance occurring."

The ecology of the dams comes as the Houston-area deals with the furnishings of abundant rain — 18 inches in some spots — that walloped the breadth Sunday night and Monday. Creeks and streams accepting runoff from the rain accept connected to acceleration aloft their banks, bidding adjacency calamity and added evacuations on Wednesday by association from homes and accommodation complexes.

Officials said addition being had died in the Houston-area flooding, adopting the assessment to eight.

Kim Jackson, backer for the Harris County Flood Ascendancy District, said crews assessing accident on Wednesday were still hindered by rain and floodwaters in some areas. Admiral accept so far catalogued about 1,000 homes with flood accident — a amount she said "will go up considerably."

Long said it will yield a continued time to cesspool the reservoirs abaft the Addicks and Barker dams in controlled releases. There is about two months' account of baptize to get rid of. Each dam captivated about 100,000 acre anxiety of baptize on Wednesday.

The dams were complete in the mid-1940s to aggregate boundless amounts of rainfall. The baptize is appear after at a controlled rate, preventing calamity in city Houston and added burghal areas to the east.

A acclimate account account says the baptize akin in the Addicks Backlog was abstinent Wednesday night at 101.4 feet. It's accepted to acme at 103.2 feet, far before the antecedent almanac for the backlog of 97.46 anxiety set in March 1992. The baptize in Barker Backlog was 93.8 anxiety and accepted to acme at 97.7 feet, beyond the March 1992 almanac of 93.6 feet.

While the dams are not accepted to adeptness 100 percent capacity, allotment of the reservoirs are on accessible property, acceptation that added baptize that comes into the reservoirs from rivers and streams is accepted to breeze into surrounding accessible roadways and some subdivisions, possibly calamity a amount of homes, Continued said.

Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said admiral are because accepting sandbags for deployment on "non-governmental land" abaft the Addicks and Barker reservoirs due to the abeyant calamity of homes.

But he said the accident should be limited.

"I apperceive people's fretfulness are on edge," he said. "There should be actual few homes.

"We apparently are, or actually are accomplished the affliction of this. And we accept to accomplish abiding we do the accretion right."

The Corps of Engineers' contempo improvements on the dams cover added filters to ascendancy seepage, added lighting and emergency adeptness "to accept about the alarm adeptness to accomplish the dams and to ensure their inspections and action if we get pools like we're accepting appropriate now," Continued said.

"From this one flood accident ... the operations of (the dams) ... accept prevented over $3 billion in accident after of these projects," he said.

Despite reassurances by the Corps on the candor of the dams, there still charcoal a anguish the structures ability fail, said Jim Blackburn, a Houston ecology advocate who in 2011 filed a accusation on account of the Sierra Club accompanying to abbreviation runoff into the two reservoirs.

"If we lose Addicks and Barker, that will be actually catastrophic," he said. "And we should be accomplishing as a association aggregate we can to assure them. They are the best flood ascendancy investments we accept in this community."

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