Dam a concern in past(Mississippi dam break update)

And while the earthen dams are cheaper to build than their concrete counterparts, they also come with risks, said Alana Abney of Purvis, a planning consultant and former Lamar County planner.

Thankfully, so far it looks like there were no lives lost. The breach developed slowly enough that the evacuation plan was able to be implemented.

http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/news/stories/20040313/localnews/68282.html

Evacuation plans credited with saving lives in flood Officials watched dam slowly crumble

When the Big Bay Lake dam was built in the late 1980s, an evacuation plan was put together just in case the dam burst.

That plan is credited with saving lives Friday when part of the dam collapsed, sending a wall of water downstream.

"This dam was one of the few in the state that had an emergency dam plan," said Robert Millette of the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality. "The owners were progressive enough to develop a plan which allowed emergency management to deal with this type of situation."

The state does not require dams to have emergency action plans.

Millette said the plan was designed with various scenarios.

"The plan is supposed to answer all the questions without the stress of having the dam break - who is going to be impacted, how fast the water will move, when it will reach certain points. From what I've seen it has been successful," he said.

District 1 Supervisor Mike Backstrom described watching the dam slowly break apart.

"It just kept crumbling and crumbling," Backstrom said. "It was something to watch. The water kept growing and growing, gushing out on the other side. It was frightening because there was nothing we could do to stop it."

But Backstrom said with the breach growing as slowly as it did, neighbors, county officials, emergency workers and law enforcement had time to get downstream and warn people.

"We lost no lives and I am so thankful and grateful," he said. "Our county did a good job on this."

District 3 supervisor Joe Bounds was several miles away from the disaster and arrived in time to help emergency management crews begin to survey the damage.

"When I was up in the Rescue 7 chopper all you could see was roof tops. Some of the homes had been washed away, some had been moved off their foundation, automobiles were under water," he said.

Sections of Purvis-Columbia road were closed for several hours when they became submerged. The rushing water stripped the blacktop from many of the roads in its path.

Lamar County Emergency Management director James Smith planned to work through Friday night to make sure that all area residents had been evacuated.

"We're just going to go door to door tonight and start again in the morning. The daylight should speed up our search," he said.

http://www.clarionledger.com/news/0403/13/ma01.html

March 13, 2004

1,100-acre lake floods homes near Purvis

No injuries reported; governor declares state of emergency
By Stefanie McGee
Hattiesburg American

Ron Murgatroyd was enjoying a warm, sunny day fishing on Big Bay Lake Friday afternoon when he suddenly noticed ripples in the water and stumps along the shoreline he had never seen before.

Minutes later Murgatroyd's fishing boat was sitting 150 yards from shore on the lake's bottom after the 1,100-acre lake burst through the Big Bay Lake dam.

"It's a sickening feeling to see a gap in a dam like that," said Murgatroyd, 69, of Hattiesburg.

The break about 12:35 sent a torrent of red mud and water through the Greenville community near Purvis, and damaged more than 50 homes.

No deaths or injuries were reported by late Friday. "So far we've been very fortunate," said Lamar Sheriff Danny Rigel.

Mississippi Emergency Management Agency reported 12 mobile homes destroyed, 53 homes damaged, two barns and three storage buildings damaged and a bridge washed out.

Gov. Haley Barbour declared a state of emergency for Lamar and Marion counties, freeing state resources to assist victims.

The earthen dam had been inspected by a private engineer early Friday morning after reports of leaks, according to Department of Environmental Quality officials. The dam passed the inspection.

Robert Millette, DEQ dam safety inspector, said the Big Bay Lake dam was last inspected by the state in July 2002.

"It started to spew mud from the base and broke apart," said Lamar County Chief Deputy Craig Schmitzer, who arrived minutes after the dam began to crumble.

"I could hear it coming, rushing through the woods. It was an awful sound," said Sue Beech who was nearby when water came pouring across Purvis-Columbia Road.

Rigel surveyed the flooded area by helicopter Friday afternoon. "The only way that I could recognize some of the homes was by their rooftops," he said. "You couldn't see anything else."

Numerous roadways and bridges throughout central Lamar County were blocked off and had to be checked before they could be reopened and residents allowed back in the area. "It would be tragic for a bridge to collapse after we let people back in," Rigel said.

A thick coat of mud covered guard rails, roadways and what was left of road signs along bridges and roadways. Trees were uprooted or bent, along with telephone poles that now arch over roads.

Former Lamar County Supervisor Bill Bishop, whose district in the mid 1990's included the Big Bay Lake development, said he saw flood waters 30 feet deep and a small house washed away on Purvis-Columbia Road shortly after the dam broke.

Some Greenville community residents were allowed back in their homes only a few hours after the flash flood. Few were lucky enough to find their homes the way they had left them earlier that day.

"We stood looking through the woods for two hours to see if our house was still there," said Ross Mills, 18, a student a Purvis High School. Their home was spared.

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