OP
OP
fossyant
Ride It Like You Stole It!
- Location
- South Manchester
Water overflow yesterday pulled it apart. If it continues to flow over then more earth will be lost.
Whaley Bridge - Toddbrook Reservoir Damage
- Thread starter fossyant
- Start date
Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.
Water overflow yesterday pulled it apart. If it continues to flow over then more earth will be lost.
Drago
Legendary Member
- Location
- Suburban Poshshire
An eye opening graphic showing the areas at risk.
PaulSB
Squire
- Location
- Chorley, Lancashire
The local evening news said the dam was built in 1838. The town and/or earlier settlements will have been there for centuries. Surely the question is what idiot would build a reservoir above and on the doorstep of a town? Apparently the major issue is the wall construction which is simply earth covered with concrete. If the concrete fails or water gets underneath the soil will eventually wash away and further weaken the dam wall till it collapses.
Joey Shabadoo
My pronouns are "He", "Him" and "buggerlugs"
Doesn't Edwina Currie live there?
Drago
Legendary Member
- Location
- Suburban Poshshire
She does indeed. She was interviewed by the Beeb this avo. No mention of eggs or snogging John Major.
Joey Shabadoo
My pronouns are "He", "Him" and "buggerlugs"
Couldn't she stick a finger in it?
There are a lot of them about - I had to research the collapse of a small medieval dam a while back and found this aging PhD:
https://theses.ncl.ac.uk/jspui/handle/10443/1118
Volume 2 has a list of UK dam incidents from about page 426 onwards. A lot of them are near forgotten tragedies, at least forgotten outside the immediate area. The 29m high Dale Dyke dam at Bradfield failed in 1864, killng 245 people, destroying 798 houses and damaging 4,000 more. Calling water from a dam failure a flood is understating what actually happens when a complete collapse occurs.
Pale Rider
Legendary Member
I believe last night the water was spilling over the outside of the dam, which it does 'once in a lifetime'.
The damage visible on the pics was therefore caused from the outside.
Hopefully what's been washed away is, in effect, concrete cladding which doesn't have much impact on the structural integrity of the dam.
I would be more worried, well, as worried at least, by the channel that's opened up in the earth bank to one side of the spillway. It's visible on the BBC site and has water flow visible at its base, although I can't make out if it is still flowing.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-49189955
Any water flow through an earth embankment is very bad news for a dam, even a small channel as harmless-looking as that.
Dayvo
just passin' through
- Location
- 59° 50′ 5.55″ N, 10° 47′ 41.89″ E
Love this reporter spoke to a woman who was relived to be out of danger
"She just made sure she got the dog out, got her husband and made her way to the school."
Too right the dog comes 1st
They are now working flat out sandbagging the top of the dam wall to try and protect the slip way.
Until they get the water level down they can't tell what the damage really is.
Even with high flow pumps thats going to take same time a long night awaits many I think.
"She just made sure she got the dog out, got her husband and made her way to the school."
Too right the dog comes 1st
They are now working flat out sandbagging the top of the dam wall to try and protect the slip way.
Until they get the water level down they can't tell what the damage really is.
Even with high flow pumps thats going to take same time a long night awaits many I think.
Globalti
Legendary Member
They only need to move the overflow away from the damaged area and the danger is reduced. It's not too different from the spillway collapse at the Oroville Dam in the USA in 2017 where the breakup of the spillway surface allowed water to weaken the earth dam. That was hundreds of times bigger than this though.
The question has to be: how did the spillway fail to do the exact job it was designed to do? The answer can only be neglect and lack of regular close inspection. If you happen to walk close to Victorian dams you will often see signs of deterioration in the spillways if they're not built from stone.
I wonder if things like dams and bridges are insured against weather damage?
The question has to be: how did the spillway fail to do the exact job it was designed to do? The answer can only be neglect and lack of regular close inspection. If you happen to walk close to Victorian dams you will often see signs of deterioration in the spillways if they're not built from stone.
I wonder if things like dams and bridges are insured against weather damage?
Last edited:
KneesUp
Guru
I wonder if they’ve had to open the sluice gates at Fletcher Moss already?
Harrison 1000
New Member
Be under no illusion that repairs to a damn can be counted in days or weeks .The entire structure will have to be emptied to even be evaluated . Those poor people are not going home this month.
