Corps of Engineers Field Investigations, Evaluation, and Assessment – Kelly Barnes Dam Failure, November 6, 1977

Foreword: When the Kelly Barnes Dam failed in the early hours of November 6, 1977, the author was the Chief, Soils Section within the Geotechnical and Materials Branch of the Savannah District, Army Corps of Engineers (Corps). The Soils Section was assigned the dam safety responsibility for five Corps embankment dams within the district boundaries. Consequently, when a request for assistance was received from Georgia Governor, George Busbee, the author accompanied the Savannah District Engineer on the initial response effort on the morning of November 6. As such, he was the first engineer or Corps official to visit the failure site.
Immediately after the disaster the Corps was assigned the lead role in determining the cause of the failure. A Federal Investigative Board (the Board) was soon formed. It was chaired by Robert L. Crisp Jr. of the Corps’ South Atlantic Division in Atlanta, Georgia and included representatives from the; The U. S Geological Survey (USGS), National Weather Service (NWS), and Department of Agriculture’s Soil Conservation Service (SCS).
This paper is presented from the perspective of the Savannah District team who coordinated the failure site investigations and performed the technical evaluations for the draft report submitted to the Federal Investigative Board. The final investigative board report (presented on 21 December 1977) was largely coordinated at the board level and was published by the Savannah District. At the time, the the Corps personnel involved considered the investigative work to be like any other high priority mission and there was no thought given to how this event might shape future of dam safety policy in the United States.
During 2016, when an ASDSO presentation was being considered for the 2017 40th anniversary of the failure, an archive of field notes and photographs was found in the Savanah District. The district graciously allowed the material to be copied. This data, particularly the site photographs, was used in preparation of this article to augment previously published materials from the disaster. The technical evaluation contains few surprises for dam safety engineers. This article serves primarily to summarize the investigative process though much of the data presented is available elsewhere. The real story of Kelly Barnes lies in what happened subsequent to failure. The poignant and inspirational human story of the disaster is contained in the book by K Neill Foster, “Dam Break in Georgia”. 22 pp.