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2 Dams Fail in Michigan, Forcing Thousands to Evacuate :
Severe flooding struck central Michigan on Wednesday after two dams were breached and days of heavy rainfall, forcing the evacuation of thousands of residents and prompting officials to warn of life-threatening danger.
The failures on Tuesday of the Edenville Dam and the Sanford Dam, about 140 miles northwest of Detroit, led the National Weather Service to issue a flash flood warning for areas near the Tittabawassee River, with downstream effects expected from Midland to Saginaw overnight. Residents in nearby towns, including Edenville, Sanford and Midland, were evacuated.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said at a news conference on Tuesday that downtown Midland, with a population of more than 41,000, could be under nine feet of water by Wednesday morning.
[...] The Tittabawassee River was expected to crest at 38 feet by 8 a.m. Wednesday, more than four feet higher than its record of 34 feet set in 1986. The flood stage is at 24 feet.
Dow Chemical Company, based in Midland, has activated its emergency operations center and will be adjusting operations, Rachelle Schikorra, a spokeswoman, told The Associated Press.
According to Detroit Free Press:
In 2018, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission revoked the license of the company that operated the Edenville Dam due to non-compliance issues that included spillway capacity and the inability to pass the most severe flood reasonably possible in the area.
The Edenville Dam, which was built in 1924, was rated in unsatisfactory condition in 2018 by the state. The Sanford Dam, which was built in 1925, received a fair condition rating.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 20 2020, @02:27PM (12 children)
Scariest thing to me about the Hurricane Rita evacuation was being stuck in an eternal traffic jam downstream from a big ass dam - that could have gone so very very poorly...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2020, @02:33PM
But fast.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2020, @02:41PM (1 child)
Scariest thing to me about the Hurricane Katrina evacuation was being stuck downstream from a big ass dam - that could have gone so very very poorly...
FTFY.... oh nvm
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 20 2020, @03:57PM
Interestingly enough, we had coincidentally evacuated for Katrina with prior plans - so when Rita hit we were just driving back to the same place we hung out during the Katrina strike - but waited too long to evac - should have left a day earlier, but a day earlier the forecast was for Rita to be a clean miss to the West - instead of the clean miss to the East she ended up being for Houston - all through the panic the forecast was for a direct hit more or less pumping up Galveston bay +30'.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday May 20 2020, @03:04PM (8 children)
Ehhhh - I survived Maine, when 5 dams broke on the same day. 2 dams should be a breeze, lol.
OK, to be fair, none of those dams were very big, but five did give way in the aftermath of a hurricane torrential downpour.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2020, @03:09PM
Ehhhh - luckily, the number of dams still standing are finite, after a while all of them will be down. One needs only to survive until then.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 20 2020, @03:53PM
We had been stuck in traffic since 6:45am, had traveled all of about 75 miles in the previous 14 hours, and was stopped dead just under the Lake Conroe dam on the 105 with nothing better to do than read the contour lines on the map and calculate how many hours remained before the hurricane overtook us at present rates of travel... Luckily, around midnight things broke up and we started making normal 50mph progress inland - then we ran out of gas...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2020, @04:48PM
On a related note, Trump threatens Michigan over mail in votes, whatever happened to the "states rights" party?
Keep buckling for fascism, totally doesn't make you look stupid.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2020, @05:53PM (3 children)
Sweet! Not all conservatives are lost to the current madness.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday May 21 2020, @12:20AM (2 children)
When motherloving Kristol is (the closest thing to...) a voice of reason and compassion in the party, they've sunk so low they have to look up to see a snake's gut in a wagon rut. And salute it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2020, @12:50AM (1 child)
I knew nothing about him but that sounds about right. We can be happy then, if someone that bad is calling out Trump then there is actually hope for our future. I've been worried that conservatives would en masse goose step us into disaster, but 2020 is looking like Trump will suffer similarly to Clinton. The only thing keeping him appearing relevant is the sheer number of bots, shills, and clueless idiots like Runaway :)
BTW so glad you pushed Runaway into admitting he's a homophobe, still not quite sure why he did. I guess that isn't as bad as the R-word yet lol. Also he admitted his kids don't talk to him. I almost feel bad trashing him so I have to remind myself how gleeful he was about the chance to murder him some libs and support shitstains like Trump.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday May 21 2020, @01:07PM
Being a homophobe is way, way far down the list of his sins. I don't care that he hates queer people; all it means is I do better with women than he does, and he's eatin' his cirrhotic old liver over it, LOL! And the fixation on gay men doing butt stuff he's got is really, really telling. IMO this is a closeted bisexual with some serious psych issues.
Don't feel bad about trashing him. He's voluntarily shredded his human card, and he'll be dead of circulatory issues in ~5 years anyway if I haven't missed the tells :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2020, @09:38PM
Strangely, even this is all about Runaway. OK, Boomer!