20th Anniversary of the Timberlake Dam Failure, Virginia

The 75 year old Timberlake Dam overtopped and failed on June 22, 1995, 2 lives were lost after being washed off of two highways downstream of the dam.
The Timberlake Dam was constructed in 1920 to provide recreation to serve a residential community just South of the City of Lynchburg Virginia. The dam had a long history of not having any problems with capacity and was generally thought to be in a safe condition.
From 4:00 pm to 11:00 pm on June 22, 1995, 8.7 inches of rainfall fell, exceeding the spillway capacity, the dam overtopped and failed at 10:30pm sending a floodwave downstream. Although there were only two lives lost from the failure, it was the first dam failure in Virginia resulting in lives lost in the age of major news T.V. coverage. This failure resulted in a general public awareness of dam safety issues and major improvements to the Dam Safety Program in Virginia.
This same dam failed again during reconstruction, but failed in a semi-controlled manner due to actions taken by the contractor to prevent sudden failure by erosion of the unfinished dam while being rebuilt.
This presentation will show how an attitude of complacency led to the failure, a lack of knowledge of the dams appropriate hazard classification contributed to the complacency, the human factors involved with the deaths resulting from the dam failure, and the lives saved by actions taken by emergency services just prior to the failure.