The 1911 Bayless Dam Failure: Physical and Human Factors

Through various venues such as ASDSO’s DamFailures.org website, many today in the dam engineering community know the basic story of the Bayless Dam failure that occurred over 100 years ago in the small town of Austin in north central Pennsylvania. The dam failed on September 30, 1911, resulting in the loss of 78 lives. In the immediate wake of this disaster, investigations to identify the contributing factors to this concrete dam failure were hastily prepared to quickly appease the public with answers. Limitations in the technological advancement of dam engineering at the time further prevented a comprehensive understanding of the failure’s contributing factors.
Despite technological shortcomings, perhaps the most troubling aspect of this event is the fact that the disaster could have easily been prevented if warning signs had been correctly interpreted and there had not been a cascading series of flawed judgments and decisions over a span of more than two years. It also illustrates why effective dam safety regulatory programs are so important. This case study will revisit the lessons learned from both a physical and human factors perspective in hopes of providing a sobering reminder in how immature technology coupled with one or more unchecked flawed judgments and decisions, made by people who lack adequate technical expertise, can result in catastrophic consequences. Given that newsworthy dam failures have recently occurred which also likely involved flawed judgments and decisions, and which were preventable, it is evident that the profession still needs to learn from history in order to reduce the rate of future dam failures.