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martyb writes:

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.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

A few weeks ago, I submitted a story about NASCAR scheduling virtual races in iRacing to provide entertainment for fans during the pandemic. NASCAR's virtual racing series ends this weekend at North Wilkesboro Speedway, a track that hasn't hosted a Cup Series race since 1996 and any racing since 2011. North Wilkesboro was one of NASCAR's oldest and most unique tracks, a 0.625 mile short track built on an incline, with an uphill backstretch and downhill frontstretch. The historic track has sat largely abandoned in rural North Carolina since NASCAR left, falling into disrepair and decay. In December, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and many other volunteers cleaned the surface of the race track to allow it to be scanned into iRacing. This 15 minute video shows North Wilkesboro Speedway was cleaned up and describes the laser scanning process used to capture the track surface for iRacing, which is why the story may be of interest for SoylentNews readers. The first race at the virtual North Wilkesboro Speedway is at 3 PM EDT and will be televised on Fox and FS1. For those who cannot watch the race on TV, NASCAR generally streams races on YouTube within a few days of the race.

Original Submission