Dam Failure Lesson Learned: Wind loading can have a significant impact on dam safety.

Several historic incidents demonstrate that wind-driven waves and wind setup can be primary drivers of dam risk. The 1972 Kingsley Dam near-miss, the 1951 Lily Lake Dam failure, and the catastrophic 1926 and 1928 Lake Okeechobee levee/dike breaches all show how sustained winds, and storm surge can damage or fail embankment structures even at normal reservoir levels. These events illustrate vulnerabilities in upstream slope protection, freeboard, access, and operations, and they underscore how wind can simultaneously degrade warning and response capabilities. Current FEMA, USACE, NRCS, and Reclamation guidance reflects the need to account for wind in freeboard, slope armoring, and horizontal loads on gates. For coastal and hurricane-prone reservoirs, wind and surge must be evaluated together. In risk analyses, wind-induced erosion and overtopping should be explicitly considered as viable failure modes. Collectively, these lessons emphasize that wind loading is not a secondary effect but a critical design and dam safety consideration across a wide range of reservoir settings.