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Torrential rain in the Midlands and North of England that saw half a month's rain fall in one day caused such volumes of water to pass through the spillway of the Toddbrook Reservoir dam, above the town of Whaley Bridge in Derbyshire, that the protective concrete facing was damaged—badly enough to put the dam at risk of a full collapse.
Were the dam to fail this would be the first dam breech in the UK since 1925, when the Llyn Eigiau dam burst when its foundations failed in Wales, and its floodwaters overtopped the Coedty reservoir dam downstream, causing it to also fail and flood the valley at the cost of 16 lives. With emergency work underway and more rain forecast, this is still a very real possibility for the Whaley Bridge dam.
The dam above Whaley Bridge is an earthfill or embankment dam built in the 1830s using a mix of soil and gravel. The massive volume of water cascading down through the hills of Derbyshire's Peak District from the heavy rain meant the floodwaters increased the reservoir water level up to the dam's crest and onto the concrete spillway. Most dams are equipped with these concrete structures for the safe and controlled release of excessive flood water downstream.
But in Whaley Bridge the concrete spillway has collapsed under the torrent of high-speed waters, leaving a substantial hole across about a fifth of the face of the spillway. In fact, the current concrete spillway was installed at Whaley Bridge in around 1969 after it suffered similar damage in the winter of 1964.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday August 07 2019, @04:34PM
Currently, there's been more trouble with new construction. Such as, the pedestrian bridge in Florida.
In recent years, we've been building an awful lot of infrastructure that someday may be too burdensome to maintain. Lately, the DFW area has been mad for highway bridges. Got all these new toll lanes that are entirely elevated. The bridge work goes on and on for miles.
And they've been upgrading the major interchanges, such as the Texas state highway 360 interchange with I30. Admittedly, to change highways there, the old interchange is an embarrassing slog through as many as 2 traffic lights, as well as lots of backtracking. You'd think to go from southbound 360 to westbound I30 would be a simple right turn, but no. Officially, you exit at the street before I30, cross it at grade through a stoplight, go under I30, turn left at the next light, go under 360 and east about a quarter mile, then curve left, go over I30, then another left to point you westwards and then you get to merge with I30, passing under 360 again after merging. It's actually faster to ignore the signs and turn right at that first light, taking that cross street west to the next interchange with I30. The new one is going to be the latest in interchange fashion, the stack interchange, of which the High Five in Dallas seems to be somewhat famous for being among the first to have five levels.