Large pond dam breach causes water surge down stream
Вставка
- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- #ponds #dambreach#water March 7, 2022 just after noon this pond damn breaks after a rain storm passes. The water level keeps rising until it tops the bad area of this dam. The cause of this is Muskrats and Beavers over the years that chewed the pipes up. Those pipes have been in place for 30 years. We had 6 of them and 4 washed out down stream. I will get the ones that washed away when the water goes down. I plan on making a new spillway out of concrete. Will also be digging many years of leaf rot and silt out.
The way this fella is getting so close over the pipes, I figure they found this video posthumously.
Anyone else feel guilty watching this because you find it soothing and calming? I have watched this a half dozen times since it was posted. I always end up feeling a little guilty. I am receiving comfort (I hate to say pleasure) from a video that was obviously taken at a difficult and disappointing time for the owner. So, I am sorry for enjoying this Paw.
As an aside, can I point out how much I cannot stand the comments by people who feel the need to demonstrate their smug superiority? I mean, it's obvious this guy is having a rough time and you go out of your way to basically call him stupid without knowing the entire story? That tells me more about their character than anything else.
Thanks for the comment and view. Go to the end screen and see the new video of me explaining why I didn't fix it and why I couldn't get the equipment for rent.
No I don't feel guilty at all. I was enjoying the fascinating and intriguing process. Except for all the gagging and yakking noises this guy, was making in the background... lol tf 😂... No I'm just playing, it was a good video. I mean you hate to watch a lot of nature's work headed down stream and got to be all redone. I reckon though, after a few years and some repairs, she'll fill back up again eventually....
In the back of my mind, I can hear Post 10..."Beavers gonna be angry."
And this is why when you are confronted with water flowing across the road, the best thing to do is "Turn around, don't drown."
Yeah it’s done this for 30 years since my grandfather built this pond. He built it with what he had at the time. But this time the amount of rainfall we had was way more then usual though.
This video popped up in my recommended watches and I sat here in the shed and watched the entire thing. That area looks like a lot of fun to be in, I love the landscape!
Thanks for watching. I posted a video today explaining everything about it also.
Recommend to me also.
I have Binging on the Japanese 2011 Tsunami.
I was searching for 2011 tsunami video and this popped up
@@JakeStarAstrella lol
What I find amazing is how all that vegetation held that bank together for as long as it did. Also how much the presence of all the grass and other plants limited the size of the breach.
I gotta say that our videographer here has a lot more balls than I'd ever have, standing next to a failing dam bank like that.
I like to live dangerously. I do way more dangerous stuff at my job. That ground is rock solid Ohio clay.
Looks like the Ohio Clay wasn’t properly rammed into place. Then a skimped cover layer allowed the frost to get into it.
@@Dave5843-d9m huh? You must have not watched to see why it broke. Undermining is why it broke
@@robertdenslow1557 yes I made one not long ago on my channel.
"That ground is rock solid Ohio clay."
@@Paw95 That ground wasn't too hard
for it to give way like it did.
In November 1977, while I was stationed in California with the USAF, a colleague brought in a local newspaper that featured a small headline about a dam break in Georgia. Nearly 40 people had perished. The name Toccoa Falls struck me immediately; I grew up just 30 minutes away and had often stood atop that very earthen dam. Among my old photos is one of me at the dam, taken in the late 1960s. During my subsequent leave, I returned to Georgia and spoke with someone who had monitored the Kelly Barnes Dam during the persistent rains. Tragically, most of the victims were affiliated with Toccoa Falls College. That memory came flooding back as I watched the events unfold.
The power of water. Never to be underestimated.
tsunamis are fun to watch terribly sad but makes you realize what a little pressure differential can do to all the stuff humans think will last forever.
questioning the wisdom of standing on a weakened earthen dam in failure.
In 2019, national news spoke of flooding in Nebraska & Iowa + and referenced it was because a dam broke. I grew up near that dam--Spencer Dam. It was a puny dam but it's inconceivable how much death & destruction resulted. Whole bridges were swept away. Weirdest of all is it was caused by a freaking GLACIER in the middle of the Continent! Okay... actually fallen snow had turned to ice as things had warmed. Then an extreme rain washed gigantic slabs of ice down the hills & into the river where it piled up, possibly 15 feet high. When all that hit the dam it was like an instant annihilation of all the earth & concrete.
The bluffs of Kansas City Missouri were carved by the Missouri river. The river must've been really wide at one point
Correct dude, water is the most powerful force on earth. Water made the Grand Canyon !!
Thanks for the great footage ..and the bravery to stand so close ...for some reason I am fascinated by draining waters ..
Wasn’t in any danger. That ground around it was solid as rock.
Fascinated too but short of bravery. Standing in the middle of the stream would be brave.
@@MaxMax-di8kx brave? More like stupid
Nothing like watching nature take back what man has tried to contain.
My buddy bought a nice big piece of property on top of a hill. He also decided to build a big pond on his plot. He didn't do what he was supposed to do and have some one with the EPA talk to him and view the property so it get's done right. 3 years after he filled the pond the dam failed and unfortunately there was a home at the bottom of the hill below the dam area. All that water ran right through their home. Good thing he has a lot of money because he had a helluva bill to pay and he is so lucky no one was in the home when it happened. The EPA fined the crap out of him also.
He should be fined, frankly.
@@VeteranVandalactually thrown in jail
Once in a while, you got to drain the pond to recharge the ecosystem of the pond.
From the looks of the erosion over the pipes, it looks like it has been eroding for a while. That is what lack of maintenance gets you.
Holes in them from muskrats. Can't get equipment on rent either. The big companies have it all right now. Also all the contractors are overwhelmed with work.
@@Paw95
That is true now but the muskrats did not do all that damage overnight and the spillway did not get that way overnight either. Probably not your doing but dams, just like everything else people build, need require regular inspections, regular maintenance, and repairs as soon as possible after they are needed.
It took a lot of work and expense to build that dam. And maintenance and repairs are always cheaper than rebuilding.
Yep, that was totally preventable with maintenance.
That’s been eroding for a very long time. NO SYMPATHY
I agree I’d be shoveling dirt and rock hell a trap draped over the bank would slow it down while you add dirt to it
I dont see the problem here. One should expect that being by a river. As long as the houses are on higher ground all is good.
This is why it is useful to plan for overtopping of dams, such as by installing surfaces on the top of the dam and creating an intentional dip in the middle, extreme overflow like this would then only pour through a given channel
Yea like Oroville dam where the entire overflow spillway almost washed out. lol
Yes, all dams must have a spillway to allow water to bypass when at capacity. The Oroville dam spillway eroded its concrete liner but the bedrock below it held.
did you watch the video, there literally is an overflow
@@leofisher407 the overflow handling system was insufficient and was based on bundles of narrow high resistance pipes, it would be much easier, more effective, and stable to just excavate a dip in the reservoir wall and coat all surfaces of the dip in material very resistant to erosion, the overtopping based overflow handling system would then have capacity to handle this event at cost only of requiring more complicated maintenance on occasion.
@@samuels1123 1:05 He shows his overflow spillway.
19:55 He shows muskrat holes which undermined his plastic culverts.
I have 2 ponds, one 1 and a half acre 25 feet deep and the other 1 and a third acre 17 feet deep both have large overflow tubes. I clean all the vegetation from the overflow every month and before every storm. All over flows are secure with field rocks to mitigate erosion. Having ponds is great, but be prepared to work.
I grew up on a small property with a pond of probably half acre or so, 10-12' at the deepest. You're not lying, be prepared to be out in storms clearing drains so your pond doesn't overtop. Ours did a couple times, luckily nothing terrible, extremely low volume
Is this pond man made? we call them dams in Australia
I admire your ability to just stand there and watch - I'd have been away looking for a big stick to poke a bigger breach to release the water 😀
And yeah, you'd be in the afterlife wondering why we're you an idiot
@@O.G.LIL-MAN 🤣🤣🤣
It wasn't needed. Besides, you don't want to increase flow here.
@@VeteranVandal I bow to your superior knowledge 🙂
@@joangordon3376 that's not actually my knowledge, I just saw how the experimental attempts work. For instance in ua-cam.com/video/pJfeTrAb4Io/v-deo.html they simulate one, a small breach.
Awsome video. I'm amazed you were able to catch it as it happened. Well at least the water is drained so you can fix it correctly.
“Yep… these culvert pipes are too small for a dam this large. It’s the second time I’ve notified the D.O.T and they still haven’t fixed it” - Post10 probably 😂
Love that guy lol
Hahaha for real
I like his videos, but I think Post10 has a few issues upstairs. He will never have the experience to actually work for the DOT/Public Works and doesn't seem to understand the complexities, rules, design process, etc., for cities. He thinks it's just about going to "clean a drain" here and there. In his mind, he's the 'authority figure' that doesn't have any authority elsewhere among people who actually do the jobs for a living. He'd need a specific college degree to work with them. I doubt that he ever will in his lifetime.
an alcoholic with beer provoked a flood....
if they were not full of debris it might be enough to keep check on the water but they have to be unobstructed.
Highly satisfying to watch the water doing its thing.
no idea why this was in my recommended but im glad it was. i understand this is a dangerous and probably annoying thing but it was also strangely beautiful?? like idk how to describe it, nature is cool and it kind of does whatever it wants and there's not a lot we can do to stop it sometimes.
thanks for taking the risk and recording this for us!! very interesting to watch :]
it was really good of you to let the county know that was happening!
It will be good to give the pond a good clean out every once in a while it breaks and then like a beaver, just build it back up. Cool video. Would be cool to see ya rebuild it all.
All things considered that held up way better than I though it would at least, I thought you were gonna lose your pump sitting on the dam for sure, not awesome to have happen to you, but awesome to watch so I appreciate that buddy 👍
Thanks for stopping in today. Yeah it’s not actually too bad even today.
Very cool. Thanks for documenting. I enjoyed watching this very much. Such a pretty place.
Thanks for watching
That dirt looks so soft I'm surprised it ever held back the water in the first place. The water just carved it right away. The whole time I had the opposite reaction to you... you kept saying "oh no" and I kept saying "come on baby break." It's exciting. Not great for the fish though I guess
Hi I’m watching this from an area where we have drought most of the year and we import our water. Feels like I’m watching heaven seeing so much water from rain.
Importing water? No where I’d wanna live…
im sorry this happened to you, but this is an amazing video. thanks for posting it.
Thanks for watching!
I kept wanting to reach out and pull you away from the edge. Omg. 😳
This was so satisfying. Thank you!!!👍👍
Yep those are drain coil they are not culvert pipes, they are designed for field drainage or behind a retaining wall. They just clog up with debris especially if there are bends in the coils which it appears there were. Concrete open shoot is the best bet like you say, much easier to manage and to see whats going on.
Not sure why the culvert failed, clearly state of the art construction with the 5 12" felx pipes and sand holding it all back.
That’s not sand. That’s Ohio clay dirt.
@@Paw95 what part of Ohio?
N⬆️S⬇️E➡️W⬅️
@@kellystephens077 south central Ohio
Thats nice to be able to have a pond that big. Even if it does get breeched and emptied once in a while.
Thanks for being so aware of what was happening and took the time and risk to record it.
But he didn't take the time to properly maintain the dam after it was weakened by prior overflows that washed out large parts of the dam in the past
Should build the dam with your piping 3 1/2 feet thick retaining dam wall. With piping through the wall of the dam bigger diameter pipes will work. I'd incorporate these pipes into the 3 1/2 foot thick dam wall as well as rebar for additional structural strength for the dam wall that was washed away. For the piping on the wall you may want to add a pressure plate at the end. Maybe a water level sensor will help as well so that when the water gets too high it'll automatically open the pressure plate and let water flow out safely. Hope this information helps you out.
this while tragic is so satisfying to watch.. the power of water is incredible
Tragic?
@@FirstLadyDonald was trhinking the same, tragic is the wrong word to use, nothing tragic about a pond draining
@@jtwin1000 a dam like that ain't cheap, getting the pond to its previous state will require a lot of money and manpower. Also I assume the pond had a population of fish, which is now somewhere downstream and partially on the flooded field.
It is now completed and i have a video up on me fixing it. It cost me around $10,000 and it's still full of fish.
I would have NOT been standing that close, especially after it got going. That whole piece, 10 feet on either side, could have gone all at once.
if this was a man-made pond and originally not naturally made, then cannot be mad. Nature will always have a way to bringing things back to what is naturally to be. Man just has to learn to change and adapt. This would still have happened if you were not there to film it, so thank you for sharing this small force of nature with us. You witnessed the creation of a new river! Better get your name stamped on it!! River Paw95
thank you for sharing this amazing video with us
@hust_man thanks for watching!
@@Paw95 my brother loved it too
Strangely hypnotic watching this mini disaster 👀
Man, that’s a beautiful lake. Sorry about the dam, but I hope you got it fixed up nicely afterwards.
@@tjlastname5192 it’s been fixed and holding water for over a year now.
@@Paw95 good to hear man. I dream of having a decent sized pond one day.
@ it’s about 2 acres big now. I have a video of me fixing it and a video of me in a boat going around when it reached full level. Also have one of me adding yellow perch.
@ yeah I’d love to have one 2-4. I’ll check out the other video.
Post10 did you do that?
when I was young Ivied by a swamp on the Chesapeake bay and when we get high tides with rough waves the bay would cut off the swamp from draining by pushing sand up with waves, I always loved unblocking it and the waves or rapids were huge rolling waves wasn't as big as your pond but still was a lot of water couldn't walk in it you would be pushed over
This water got pretty wild about 7 years ago because they clear cut 110 acres of trees near by. That caused a tremendous amount of water runoff since the trees disappeared.
That happened to me as well and the best way is to prevent this is spill ways on top of the dam about the full with of the dam make about 5-6 of them 5ft wide and 2-3 foot deep and pave the top. It's going to be expensive but it will likely to last you for decades
"decades" isn't really good enough with a dam like this. You really need centuries - or until the dam has silted up and no longer holds enough water to be a threat to anything downstream.
Did you contact someone to intervene right away? Emergency crew.?
No need to.
Nothing like getting the dirt-first hand.
Thank you for posting this...
Auf Wiedersehen.
Thanks for watching
I wonder if this guy knew, when he made this video, the internet’s fascination with large amounts of fast-moving water
I didn’t know but I got lucky on this one.
@@Paw95 when you Tripp on somthing and it turned out to be a golden chalice. Turns out you stepped on a gold mine for influx of views
I think I see where your new drain improvements need to be. In fact it looks like the digging has begun already.
I have already moved tons of dirt. So far I’ve added about 1 foot to the top of the dam and put four big brand new stronger culvert pipes in the other end.
@@Paw95 Is that your job or is it on your land?
@@Blackadder75 on my dads land. I work heavy highway and bridge construction for a living. Union operating engineer
@@Paw95 I was going to suggest watching some of letsdig18's videos. He makes a lot of pond dams with over flows and spillways.
@@mrpenn4613 agree, Letsdig18 or DirtPerfect. Not trying to be rude but i wouldn’t have claimed to be any kind of engineer if i had installed those cheap single wall spaghetti pipes in the dam
It is amazing how quickly it went too. Water will always find a way.
Thats some long term neglect and shoddy repairs that finally caused this dam failure, even the overflow was built with a failure point built in. You never leave a waterfall at the end of a spill way because for how far it is off the geound the water will eventually take 3-4x that much dirt out from under it and cause constant collapse at the end working its way all way back to the dam.
Agreed. You can see the difference between and around where the plastic culverts were laid. Cheap work today equals more expensive work tomorrow.
Exactly.
You can tell this pond has NEVER had a bit of maintenance and this is the result...
I bet you just know everything then.
@@Paw95 🤣🤣🤣🤣not even close but i do know how a dam should be built and maintained
The guy's narration is priceless.
I had my banjo all tuned up and ready
This is a good example why unregulated earthen dams can be so dangerous, luckily there weren’t people downstream. And thru a lot of work it can be built back up and restocked, but it will be a whole lot of work!
You can never control nature, it will always find weakness.
I keep wondering what’s happening to homes and farms down stream. That’s a lot of water.
There’s nothing down stream but lots and lots of forest land
At least you are doing ya part and stocking the river with fish mate 👍
You got that right
8:00 Nature at it's finest, doing what it's going to do, regardless.
That’s a fact
Erosion teaching video! @@Paw95
7 minutes in, I’m loving this video! Total ASMR!
"Won't be long before that things gonna go" *Stands directly in front of it*
Yeah and guess what? Nothing bad happened
@@Paw95 well no shit. The video shows that. Lol
Last dam break I witnessed a lady asked me how far will the lake go down. I said all the way to the bottom, ma’am
Watch the ground behind you ,we were watching a similar event and dad felt the ground move ,we ran and a 10' section slid into channel the crack was behind us !!
Wow that’s nuts!! Good thing you got out!
I watch this all the time this is probably the best video I’ve seen I’m right there havin a beer brother
Thanks for watching!
Post 10 probably dismantled a beavers home in a culvert upstream and caused this.
Watching that plastic culvert bounce and twist down the breach .. That's one helluva water slide! I bet the white water rafting people are sad they missed this one.
Would have been a wild ride lol
Thank you Paw95 for your reply to my comment I made to other posts. I have one more big comment I think will help people understand the volume of water, the "mass" of things we see here.
Look at the water level of the ,,, big pond. Begin to end. How much of it has it changed from the start of the video to the end.The water level doesn't seem to be changing much over the time of the recording. And yet it keeps on flowing.
Look at the size of that body of water. How many gallon jugs of water would fit in there? You know how heavy a one gallon jug of milk/water is. At the end of the video. How many jugs are pouring out in ten seconds? That's a lot of weight.
I’m going to post some pictures of what it looks like today.
The best water related video on you tube
I have a few more on here. Thanks for watching!
In my State. water empoundments of certain acreage ft, or w/ dams of certain height, or length and a number of other factors are required to be inspected annually. They must pass or be repaired or drained until repaired or removed entirely. The state has criteria of how the dam must be constructed, dimensions, materials etc. Galvanized pipes rust out, concrete pipes leak, plastic pipes get eaten. What a mess!!
What state is that
If you drop the existing spillway level, the pond will become a puddle. Defeats the purpose of having a pond. Build a second spillway at the same level as the other one. Maintain water depth, double the outflow.
It’s been fixed and holding water for almost a year now. I have newer videos about it.
@Paw95 Awesome! I'll go watch it! Interested in seeing how you decided to go about restoring the dam. 👍🏼
That fish will tell its relatives some God saved him but no one is gonna believe it.
Very interesting footage
Glad you enjoyed it
Wow man, that really sucks. I know what you mean about muskrats. My wife`s old place was an old fish hatchery and the muskrats tore the Hell out of the banks. When I moved in with her, I trapped or shot 17 of those little bastards. They destroy ponds like nobody`s business.
Yeah I’m definitely going to upgrade to concrete for sure. That way I’ll never have to worry about it again
@@Paw95 Concrete is forever if it is done right. No doubt about it! I got a long video coming out in the morning from Horseshoe Curve.
Wish I new you back in the day…I’d have taken those pelts from you! Lol
@@Paw95 Was there already a Healthly Fish Population? I can't even imagine the Years of Time & Work If you fished it... That's a Major bummer right now with all going on.
good for you knowing how to stop those lil bastards...most complain bout it but do nothing n cry bout it...
Thank god nobody lives out behind your pond wow a lot of water.
That's one way to clean the gunk out of the pond
I had one of my 15-acre ponds do this to me once overnight after a bunch of heavy raining and flooding got up that morning to an empty pond and fields full of water and fish.
Wow that is nuts! This pond is almost 2 acres big now. Many people don't realize when it's going to go it will and you will not stop it at all.
You might lose that generator/pump too. It's pretty close to the pond edge.
I moved it. Just fired it up yesterday also to pump some water.
@@Paw95 I'd try a narrow concrete spillway on top of the dam this time around. Hope the fishing improves after the rebuild
*Вывод:* Не закапывайте в дамбу пластмассовые шланги. Делайте нормальный бетонный водосброс, с гидротехническими задвижками :)
Bright side maybe!? If you have crops downstream they will love the rich soil next year
The only thing more blokey than drinking a beer watching it unfold, eiuld be a few mates drinking beer and observing with ya 😂
The effect of gravity on water is one insanely powerful phenomenon
call!
not everyday you can see it collapse from the beginning.
Oh my, I can hear your heart breaking. That’s the biggest manmade pond I’ve ever seen.
Nah that just the phlegm in his throat!
biggest pond you ever saw???? Ha ha. Really?
Nature has a way of reclaiming its original way so I assume there was an old river which it wanted back
Lot of work ahead after this spillage. Hope you find time n' material to recover the damage. If so would be nice to see what you done to now.
I’ve got it all patched up now. Got it done a week ago today actually. So far I’m $8,272 into the fix and still not totally done yet.
@@Paw95 Please show an "after".
@@vickietownsend5944 it’s already been fixed and the video posted on this channel.
You win this time, gravity.
Why not have fixed it before it failed? The tree growing next to the exposed culvert pipes shows it has been bad for at least a year if not longer.
Money and no equipment is why. None was available for rent and it still isn’t. All rentals are out.
Do you collect this trash? It's difficult but better than when the trash goes into a river an then into the sea..
Did when the water went down.
Should be looking for gold brother
I have looked in several streams around my area. I do have an in stream sluicebox and several gold pans. We only have flour good in southern Ohio left from glacier deposits.
I am sorry for he owner and understand his agony, he spent a lot of money and worked his ass off building that pond.
But you have to admit, it's fascinating watching Mother Nature at work.
It's lights out when the water starts spilling over an earthen dam.
Yep. If it spills over soil, you can't fix anymore. If it was a very big rock or concrete, tho, it'd be fine.
Would have liked to have a camera down stream. Pick up the fish from the field. May make a few good meals.
Next time!
The Title Should Be 'Erosion: Revenge Of The Creek'
Your work held for a long time.
My grandfathers actually. I wasn’t born till 1995 and he made it in 1992.
I own 6 ponds in WV we have to do monthly inspections on our overflows and emergency over flows. We have to keep the dams mowed and can't have trees or shrubs planted on the damn or overflows. We have to have a emergency plan of who to contact incase a breach of our dams. We have to immediately trap or kill muskrat and beavers and fix all holes ASAP.
You ever run into Delbert? If in the northern part of the state you would have. Worked with him for years. Inspected a bunch of dam construction myself. The comments on this video are so funny. A lot of people have no idea what the standard of care is if you own a dam.
@@awboat I know a couple Delbert's I'm about 45 minutes south of Morgantown. Yea the state makes us take care of ours we are a business so they are extra hard on us. They even are making us hire civil engineers to make us prove if one dam fails the others will hold the water back. It's the quickest $15k we ever spent.
That grass is helpping ,your not going to stop it but the grass is doing what you want . Its stabilizing the lip.
I love watching dirt bank erosion by fast moving water. Nature can be fascinating.
Well the positive out of this is that u got rid of those plastic culverts... amazing how fast water can destroy something.
I actually have this all fixed up now!!
@Paw95 I sure hope you didn't put those pipes back in, and instead lowered the spillway a couple of feet. :)
@@mathiasfriman8927 no I raised them up.
@@Paw95 yeah, I watched the latest video on the pond and saw the big new pipes. Is there a specific reason you chose pipes instead of an open spillway?
@@mathiasfriman8927 yes, a lot more money was one. Then I’d have to build a half mile long road that would hold a concrete truck. That requires lots of stone. Then build new wood forms.
Hope you get your pond back and restocked.
It’s actually about down to normal water level. It’s still full of fish also. I’ll make a post about it later and and many pictures of it.
Is this in western PA? Guessing based on your dialect. I miss that.
Would be south central Ohio. Thanks for watching.
That old spillway you made out of cinder blocks that is pretty neat and I feel bad for the poor fish that were in your pond and will end up in the field I'll pray for you God bless you sir
We had to move our spillway because once or twice a year when it would rain on and off for a week then comes hard storm, we had a yard full of fish and would have to go out with buckets and gather them up to get the back to the pond. 😂
@@goosenotmaverick1156 Wow it's definitely a good thing you guys moved it hopefully the next spillway does not fail at all do you guys think you might have added concrete or might add concrete to the next one
Don't know why that was so fascinating but it was.
Man, that's incredible to watch. Kinda sounds like you needed a drain to update the infrastructure anyway, as much as it probably hurt to watch it all flow away. I'm guessing you're into fishing?
But I guess you have a good idea for what to plan for next time and how to hopefully make it easier to maintain.
Hello bree badger, how are you doing?
How old is this infastructure? Now go get one big pipe and fix it! Mother Nature took care of the demo!
This is 30 years old. Notice how the backside went first that was because old pipes had holes in them from muskrats chewing them.
Is that in Pennsylvania
This is in southern Ohio
Looks like where I grew up fishing in osterburg Pennsylvania