Hurricane Helene brought dams in North Carolina and Tennessee close to their breaking point. Many US dams are decades old and weren’t designed for the impacts of climate change.
There are more than 92,000 dams nationwide, according to a US Army Corps of Engineers inventory. Of those, some 16,000, or close to 20%, are classified as having “high hazard potential.” That doesn’t mean they are at increased risk of failure, but that their failure would entail a significant loss of life or property.
See the Mount Polley TSF failure of 2015 or the Brumandinho dam disaster for visualizations
See the Mount Polley TSF failure of 2015 or the Brumandinho dam disaster for visualizations