This video shows significant flooding in and around the Manawa Dam in Waupaca County. A Flash Flood Warning for the failure of the Manawa Dam remains in effect until 9:30 p.m.
Thirty-six years of dam engineering experience here. I'm smart enough not to claim I know what's going on here without a lot more information, but will suggest an explanation: Some dams are built with a concrete gravity dam where it can sit on good bedrock at the maximum height, with embankment "wing dams" to fill in the space between the concrete dam and the river banks. If done well, this is okay. What MAY have happened both here and at the one near Blue Earth MN is a flood that exceeded the design capacity of the spillway from the extreme rains, causing water to flow over and erode the wing dam. Lacking design drawings, geology, performance monitoring data, and eye-witness accounts, I include the word "MAY" in all caps.
I was an eye witness, this dam usually has very still water with the mill pond commonly algae covered. Also the river upstream is low and rocky with steep banks, the topography near by was causing extreme run off from farm fields and ditches, over 5” of rain In a two hour period and the past few weeks having been very wet, was a perfect recipe for this to happen IMO but you would know much more about the dam aspect of this than me.
I'm going to tell you friend. They're all coming to the age. They're 50 years old and some are over. 100 years old. Are approaching 100 years. They all got to need service to be fixed and shored up so they don't leak into a county or town and flooded out. That's what I think is going on. Is this an opinion you sound like you know what you're talking about? Thank you.
One extra tidbit of info I've picked up from hearing about other road projects that have had impacts to dams: The Wisconsin DNR has changed their requirements for the required sizing of the spillway for these sized dams during reconstruction. They are concerned that the spillways maybe undersized now after modern modeling. So as part of any repairs/upgrades they are requiring larger ones to be installed that meet modern standards. It's not a life threatening concern, more of a preventative measure as part of the permit renewal process.
@@paulstecker5693 - You're right, Paul. Lots of "deferred maintenance" out there (which nobody wants to pay for). I knew the head of dam safety for the National Park Service some years back. His email signature included "Maintain 'em or drain 'em," trying to remind everyone about that.
It's interesting how the news reports almost never tell you which STATE; only the city/town/county...if you pay attention you will notice that also... it's ridiculous 🤔
"The City of Manawa Dam is on the Little Wolf River in Waupaca County, Wisconsin and is used for hydroelectric power and recreation purposes. Construction was completed in 1920."
mn could of been prevented hadn they got a crane there to remove debris and not built the ledge at top..seems goverment and officials want to wait till its to late then go oh shit.
They use the word "failure" to denote water getting past a dam. It can go over, under, or around and might include catastrophic failure of the dam itself.
@chuckjones2368 In this case Manawa got 5 inches of rain in approximately an hour. Combine that with the fact that we've been getting rained on roughly every other day for the last month, there was just way too much water arriving way too fast to a full reservoir.
I live in manawa and the operator for it doesn't live in town. By the time he got there it was too late. We got like 5 inches of rain in less than 2 hours.
Hopefully they are opening everything as wide as they can. Any water they can divert from undermining the left end will improve their chances of saving the dam from catastrophic collapse.
@@chuckjones2368 😀👍 Chuck Jones I couldn't have said a better comment about getting prepared earlier with a damn then waiting till they go and then you got to rush to fix the thing before it flood something else out like a whole town or city or something. I'll agree with you on that one my friend thank you. 👍👍👍.
@@Steve-bm2zm yeah I'll agree with you Steve. All damns might fail down the road. Some are reaching 50 years old and some are going to be near 100 years old. Something's got to give away to them after being that old and everything somewhat built the beginning of the last century and everything. Thank you. I like your comment on that.
@@FullFrontalExposurewhy do you expect the dam to hold when there over 5 inches of rain in less than two hours? The amount of water rushing into the area from all surrounding farm fields was wayyyy too much for that dam. Sh** happens.
Yeah boy I'm afraid they're too late with this. Damn if they can stop the water. It looks like it already breached the side and everything's too bad they got almost 100,000 dams in this world worldwide in the United States. I looked online one time they got almost $60,000 boy that going to have to start checking these things. That's a lot to check out there. I wish him good luck with this one.
I haven't yet heard of any dams "failing or breaking." The water has bypassed this dam, just like water bypassed Rapidan Dam, possibly due to incorrect surface drainage or subsurface piping. In neither case has the dam failed.
@@jasminelindros8923this isn't the same style dam as rapidan dam also. This is an earthen embankment dam. Meaning the bank is the dam, so when it fails, the dam failed. Rapidan is a concrete gravity dam, so yes it went around that dam and technically it didnt fail.
@@steven4315I witnessed this flood, the dam was last repaired in 2011-12, the area has had a lot of rain in the past couple weeks but just today from 8:30-10:30 there was 5 inches of rain, I think it wasn’t a matter of how well made the dam was.
This appears to be a carbon copy of the failure that just occurred at the Rapidan Dam in Minnesota where water overtopped the dam and scour cut a new channel through the left abutment contact. In this case, the scour and erosion occurred at the right abutment.
Little rural town of Manawa, WI. Known for our rodeo that was happening that same weekend. Obviously it was all canceled after this. Now we're gunna be known for as the town that had a big flood. Lol
Yes. The damn didn't fail at all. We got 6inches of rain that day and that's usually our total for all of July. Too much water in a short time made the mill pond fill up FAST and the operator doesn't live in town. So when he finally got there it was too late and it had already overtopped the dam and the north side towards the library which it then eroded the ground on that side and made a new path. If the dam is opened even half way as the rain got really heavy this would of been avoided. Our town still would of been flooded with all the rain we got but the dam wouldn't of been breached causing all that rushing water down stream and flooding other areas.
@@unknowntrademark9992right, we had water rushing down our streets from the hills around us. I am one block from the Millpond but above the dam, and were flooded before the breach even occurred. Water came rushing down our street from the opposite direction of the pond continued on down towards the pond.
That dam is not going anywhere…the water being held back by this dam is…downstream in a HURRY! That was REALLY good fishing!! The keyword being “was”!!
Fortunately this seems to be a rather small dam failing, and hopefully the consequences downstream will be minor. Nevertheless, this seems to be just another case of 'Murican infrastructure that may or may not have been built properly (greed being a factor), and almost certainly having been neglected since it was built. There seems to be an increasing cascade of badly or well-built 'Murican infrastructures (bridges, dams, roads, railroads) that are suffering from ignored inspections and preventive maintenance. 'Murica is in for a period of interesting times as increasing extremes in weather events will strain your neglected infrastructure to the point of failure.
Nah. The dam's 104 years old, and it got overtopped because we have had a ridiculous amount of rain this summer. Manawa got 6" of rain the day the dam failed. That's the average rainfall for July, all in one day.
Interesting to note that more dams are breaking because they are not getting the maintenance that normally get. And most importantly these are happening since 2008
@@wendytipon6020 I have noticed that smaller dam infrastructure have not been maintained so when floods happen it is devastating when it shouldn’t be. Also would like to point out that there have been dams breaking without flooding. And it has been going on since 2008
The two dams that broke in 2024 are the Rapidan Dam built in 1910 and the Manawa Dam built in 1920, essentially 100 year old dams breaking. I have been noticing that any dam built before 1940 have been breaking due to lack of maintenance, from federal government making the state or county/ local cities to maintain dams that don’t produce electricity that has been going on since 2008, and with some extreme weather that cause dams to break from not having the yearly or 5 year or 10 year ecological impact from the dam aka maintenance. And another thing most of these old dams are nearing the end of their life span.
Maintenance of dam also includes maintaining the land that it connects to the dams foundation, if new trees and other foliage started forming around the dams the roots can cause the land to be unstable and cause the breaches that recently happen at the dams that broke this year.
@@kennethloki7011 exactly. And frankly, even at that the infrastructure $$$ has to be prioritized according to perceived need; if local dam authorities provided zero indication of need, how was/is money supposed to be allocated to those dams? Yet certain types of people will exercise their right to their opinions, regardless of how uneducated and ill-informed those opinions may be.
This dam is not really "infrastructure". Many dams were built to widen a river to make it easier to fish in. One of my grandfathers built one on his land (in Wisconsin,) and all it did was mess up all the other creatures. Dams are being torn out all over the world because we *know better now.*
So, watching a couple of guys, doing something, as seen thru a tree. Then a shot of some other guys walking around in the street. Finally, a shot of fast running water as seen thru the (way too close) guard rails is supposed to tell us……what? 🤨
Thirty-six years of dam engineering experience here. I'm smart enough not to claim I know what's going on here without a lot more information, but will suggest an explanation: Some dams are built with a concrete gravity dam where it can sit on good bedrock at the maximum height, with embankment "wing dams" to fill in the space between the concrete dam and the river banks. If done well, this is okay. What MAY have happened both here and at the one near Blue Earth MN is a flood that exceeded the design capacity of the spillway from the extreme rains, causing water to flow over and erode the wing dam. Lacking design drawings, geology, performance monitoring data, and eye-witness accounts, I include the word "MAY" in all caps.
I was an eye witness, this dam usually has very still water with the mill pond commonly algae covered. Also the river upstream is low and rocky with steep banks, the topography near by was causing extreme run off from farm fields and ditches, over 5” of rain In a two hour period and the past few weeks having been very wet, was a perfect recipe for this to happen IMO but you would know much more about the dam aspect of this than me.
@@TheMW2informer Thanks.
I'm going to tell you friend. They're all coming to the age. They're 50 years old and some are over. 100 years old. Are approaching 100 years. They all got to need service to be fixed and shored up so they don't leak into a county or town and flooded out. That's what I think is going on. Is this an opinion you sound like you know what you're talking about? Thank you.
One extra tidbit of info I've picked up from hearing about other road projects that have had impacts to dams: The Wisconsin DNR has changed their requirements for the required sizing of the spillway for these sized dams during reconstruction. They are concerned that the spillways maybe undersized now after modern modeling. So as part of any repairs/upgrades they are requiring larger ones to be installed that meet modern standards. It's not a life threatening concern, more of a preventative measure as part of the permit renewal process.
@@paulstecker5693 - You're right, Paul. Lots of "deferred maintenance" out there (which nobody wants to pay for). I knew the head of dam safety for the National Park Service some years back. His email signature included "Maintain 'em or drain 'em," trying to remind everyone about that.
It's in Wisconsin. BTW
Thank you
@@nnonotnow Man y'all had a lot of rain I pray for all your people
Thank you.
Thx
It's interesting how the news reports almost never tell you which STATE; only the city/town/county...if you pay attention you will notice that also... it's ridiculous 🤔
"The City of Manawa Dam is on the Little Wolf River in Waupaca County, Wisconsin and is used for hydroelectric power and recreation purposes. Construction was completed in 1920."
Waiting on Blancolirio to do a breakdown.
Idky they think the dam is going to give? Looks like it made another path, like the one in MN. That should relieve pressure
mn could of been prevented hadn they got a crane there to remove debris and not built the ledge at top..seems goverment and officials want to wait till its to late then go oh shit.
They use the word "failure" to denote water getting past a dam. It can go over, under, or around and might include catastrophic failure of the dam itself.
@chuckjones2368 In this case Manawa got 5 inches of rain in approximately an hour. Combine that with the fact that we've been getting rained on roughly every other day for the last month, there was just way too much water arriving way too fast to a full reservoir.
Another dam breach in the U.S.
Your reporting skills are unmatched.
This was allowed to happen. The gates are still closed. They were not opened up.
I live in manawa and the operator for it doesn't live in town. By the time he got there it was too late. We got like 5 inches of rain in less than 2 hours.
Hopefully they are opening everything as wide as they can. Any water they can divert from undermining the left end will improve their chances of saving the dam from catastrophic collapse.
you cant wait till last minute to act take precautions in down years a What if seek to improve ahead of time not after.
Anyone smell burning toast?
@@chuckjones2368 😀👍 Chuck Jones I couldn't have said a better comment about getting prepared earlier with a damn then waiting till they go and then you got to rush to fix the thing before it flood something else out like a whole town or city or something. I'll agree with you on that one my friend thank you. 👍👍👍.
All dams will eventually fail
Damn
Yup like America
Wow. Must be a bot. Quite a winner outlook 🤣
@@WcHDICE what can go wrong will go wrong. You happened.
@@Steve-bm2zm yeah I'll agree with you Steve. All damns might fail down the road. Some are reaching 50 years old and some are going to be near 100 years old. Something's got to give away to them after being that old and everything somewhat built the beginning of the last century and everything. Thank you. I like your comment on that.
Another sign of failed infrastructure 😂
How is that funny exactly
@@Onecooltop75 never said it was funny just stating the obvious that money is not used for its designation……and this is clear proof 😝😝😝
@@FullFrontalExposurewhy do you expect the dam to hold when there over 5 inches of rain in less than two hours? The amount of water rushing into the area from all surrounding farm fields was wayyyy too much for that dam. Sh** happens.
@@TheMW2informer once again, failed infrastructure 😂😂😂
@@FullFrontalExposure so funny haha I was actually there and saw people get stranded in their cars, hilarious, right?
Yeah boy I'm afraid they're too late with this. Damn if they can stop the water. It looks like it already breached the side and everything's too bad they got almost 100,000 dams in this world worldwide in the United States. I looked online one time they got almost $60,000 boy that going to have to start checking these things. That's a lot to check out there. I wish him good luck with this one.
Thank God Biden passed that Infrastructure bill. Trump did anything for four years!!!!!!
what going on with all these dams failing or breaking?
They're way over their projected life, minimum maintenance and excessive rain.
I haven't yet heard of any dams "failing or breaking." The water has bypassed this dam, just like water bypassed Rapidan Dam, possibly due to incorrect surface drainage or subsurface piping. In neither case has the dam failed.
@@jasminelindros8923this isn't the same style dam as rapidan dam also. This is an earthen embankment dam. Meaning the bank is the dam, so when it fails, the dam failed. Rapidan is a concrete gravity dam, so yes it went around that dam and technically it didnt fail.
There are over 92,000 dams in this country. Their average age is 60 years. There is a lot of old infrastructure needing repairs or replacement.
@@steven4315I witnessed this flood, the dam was last repaired in 2011-12, the area has had a lot of rain in the past couple weeks but just today from 8:30-10:30 there was 5 inches of rain, I think it wasn’t a matter of how well made the dam was.
What's the green at 0:08?
Algae blooms from the excessive heat.
This appears to be a carbon copy of the failure that just occurred at the Rapidan Dam in Minnesota where water overtopped the dam and scour cut a new channel through the left abutment contact. In this case, the scour and erosion occurred at the right abutment.
Where is this at
Manawa Wisconsin
Waupaca county, WI
Little rural town of Manawa, WI. Known for our rodeo that was happening that same weekend. Obviously it was all canceled after this. Now we're gunna be known for as the town that had a big flood. Lol
@@unknowntrademark9992I’m already tired of the excess traffic and gawkers who have come to town.
That's not supposed to happen!
Nature finds a way…
Another Dam Failure.
According to the “Official Report “. The dam didn’t fail, it eroded on the north side. 😂😂😂
Yes. The damn didn't fail at all. We got 6inches of rain that day and that's usually our total for all of July. Too much water in a short time made the mill pond fill up FAST and the operator doesn't live in town. So when he finally got there it was too late and it had already overtopped the dam and the north side towards the library which it then eroded the ground on that side and made a new path. If the dam is opened even half way as the rain got really heavy this would of been avoided. Our town still would of been flooded with all the rain we got but the dam wouldn't of been breached causing all that rushing water down stream and flooding other areas.
@@unknowntrademark9992right, we had water rushing down our streets from the hills around us. I am one block from the Millpond but above the dam, and were flooded before the breach even occurred. Water came rushing down our street from the opposite direction of the pond continued on down towards the pond.
Manawa is a sweet little town. I hope not too many houses were flooded, but there are a lot of houses downstream :(
That dam is not going anywhere…the water being held back by this dam is…downstream in a HURRY! That was REALLY good fishing!! The keyword being “was”!!
I have video of the flooding on my channel I saw three cars drove into the flood and get stalled.
Lots of water. So dangerous
Fortunately this seems to be a rather small dam failing, and hopefully the consequences downstream will be minor.
Nevertheless, this seems to be just another case of 'Murican infrastructure that may or may not have been built properly (greed being a factor), and almost certainly having been neglected since it was built.
There seems to be an increasing cascade of badly or well-built 'Murican infrastructures (bridges, dams, roads, railroads) that are suffering from ignored inspections and preventive maintenance.
'Murica is in for a period of interesting times as increasing extremes in weather events will strain your neglected infrastructure to the point of failure.
Nah. The dam's 104 years old, and it got overtopped because we have had a ridiculous amount of rain this summer. Manawa got 6" of rain the day the dam failed. That's the average rainfall for July, all in one day.
dams need to be built to get rid of debris that makes them more lethal i dont understand wont do nothing for denris but will blow up ice blockage.
Why is these spillways so close to the damn??!!!
Not any more
The spillways are part of the dam structure.
Interesting to note that more dams are breaking because they are not getting the maintenance that normally get. And most importantly these are happening since 2008
Or because we have had TONS of rain the last month!! Especially today!
@@wendytipon6020 I have noticed that smaller dam infrastructure have not been maintained so when floods happen it is devastating when it shouldn’t be. Also would like to point out that there have been dams breaking without flooding. And it has been going on since 2008
@@Winterfur1 our area has lots of rain the past month, and over 5 inches in about two hours this morning. Not a lack of maintenance
The two dams that broke in 2024 are the Rapidan Dam built in 1910 and the Manawa Dam built in 1920, essentially 100 year old dams breaking.
I have been noticing that any dam built before 1940 have been breaking due to lack of maintenance, from federal government making the state or county/ local cities to maintain dams that don’t produce electricity that has been going on since 2008, and with some extreme weather that cause dams to break from not having the yearly or 5 year or 10 year ecological impact from the dam aka maintenance.
And another thing most of these old dams are nearing the end of their life span.
Maintenance of dam also includes maintaining the land that it connects to the dams foundation, if new trees and other foliage started forming around the dams the roots can cause the land to be unstable and cause the breaches that recently happen at the dams that broke this year.
Not good
It’s 1993 again.
It IS an election year…
Build back better
Good thing the government passed the infrastructure bill....😂
900 million from the infrastructure bill went to Wisconsin DNR for projects. Ask the state legislators where the money is.
@@kennethloki7011 exactly. And frankly, even at that the infrastructure $$$ has to be prioritized according to perceived need; if local dam authorities provided zero indication of need, how was/is money supposed to be allocated to those dams? Yet certain types of people will exercise their right to their opinions, regardless of how uneducated and ill-informed those opinions may be.
@@kennethloki7011the problem is it takes years to get the investigation, design, approvals from the regulators, and then contracted to fix it.
FJB...he is a total liar and con man
This dam is not really "infrastructure". Many dams were built to widen a river to make it easier to fish in. One of my grandfathers built one on his land (in Wisconsin,) and all it did was mess up all the other creatures. Dams are being torn out all over the world because we *know better now.*
Not again
DEMOCRAT state hard at work shoring up them infrastructure projects !!!!!!
Maybe less money on loan forgiveness and corporate tax cuts by the last two presidents and we fix our bridges and dams.
and for cities to stop hemorrhaging money to the police departments
@@seagullokapi no crime, no police. Better parents and smarter use of birth control will make police departments cheaper.
America… f*** yea
Tofu America infrastructure. 😂😂😂
Officials: "We don't give a damn"
The dam: "I'm about to give a dam"
Lame AF
Dam, that sucks. 😊
So, watching a couple of guys, doing something, as seen thru a tree. Then a shot of some other guys walking around in the street. Finally, a shot of fast running water as seen thru the (way too close) guard rails is supposed to tell us……what? 🤨
Don't worry. The dam is functioning up to Federal standards. You need to pay more taxes for um, reasons.
Damn it!
It's a sin to block the water.
Built to fail
Been there for over 100 years.
dont fix anything just keep sending money to ukraine, what could go wrong
Just ruined a really good fishing hole 🥲