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kleinbl00  ·  1408 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: 2 Michigan dams breached, thousands evacuated amid flooding

    “While the 1986 flood was a 100-year flood, what we’re looking at here is an event that is the equivalent of a 500-year flood,” he told MLive. “It’s something that is extremely rare, extremely catastrophic, and quite dangerous.”

I dunno, man. I have seen far more "100 year" and "500 year" events happen in my 25-year adulthood than seems statistically possible.

Someone on Twitter pointed out that the average dam in the United States is 52 years old. Edenville is 95. This is gonna be on Trump.

    The dam was built by Frank Isaac Wixom, after whom the reservoir formed by the dam is named.[6] Wixom used to own a circus before he built the dam.

    The dam used to be privately owned and operated by Boyce Hydro Power, a company based in Edenville, which also used to own three other hydroelectric facilities on the Tittabawassee: the Secord, Smallwood, and Sanford Dams.

    In a rarely used federal power, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) terminated Boyce Hydro Power's license in 2018, because of its "inability to pass the Probable Maximum Flood (PMF)", as well as seven other failures. The federal government was concerned that "the dam may not have the ability to pass enough water, if a severe flood were to hit, among other issues and violations."

    The Four Lakes Task Force purchased the Edenville Dam and its reservoir, Lake Wixom, as well as three other dams, in 2019 for $9.5 million.