Whaley Bridge - Toddbrook Reservoir Damage

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KneesUp

Guru
Plus the force that broke those bits is now presumably being held back by less dan?
 

Drago

Legendary Member
An eye opening graphic showing the areas at risk.


_108150146_updatedwhaley_bridge_640_v2-nc.png
 

PaulSB

Legendary Member
Does the dam pre date the town, or vice versa? I mean, who'd build a town under a dam?

The local evening news said the dam was built in 1838. The town and/or earlier settlements will have been there for centuries. Surely the question is what idiot would build a reservoir above and on the doorstep of a town? Apparently the major issue is the wall construction which is simply earth covered with concrete. If the concrete fails or water gets underneath the soil will eventually wash away and further weaken the dam wall till it collapses.
 

Rezillo

TwoSheds
Location
Suffolk
The local evening news said the dam was built in 1838. The town and/or earlier settlements will have been there for centuries. Surely the question is what idiot would build a reservoir above and on the doorstep of a town? Apparently the major issue is the wall construction which is simply earth covered with concrete. If the concrete fails or water gets underneath the soil will eventually wash away and further weaken the dam wall till it collapses.

There are a lot of them about - I had to research the collapse of a small medieval dam a while back and found this aging PhD:

https://theses.ncl.ac.uk/jspui/handle/10443/1118

Volume 2 has a list of UK dam incidents from about page 426 onwards. A lot of them are near forgotten tragedies, at least forgotten outside the immediate area. The 29m high Dale Dyke dam at Bradfield failed in 1864, killng 245 people, destroying 798 houses and damaging 4,000 more. Calling water from a dam failure a flood is understating what actually happens when a complete collapse occurs.
 

Pale Rider

Legendary Member
Ahhh but what’s causing the concrete facing to come off?
It’s either flexing or there’s water penetration/pressure from behind

I wouldn’t want to be downstream just now.

I believe last night the water was spilling over the outside of the dam, which it does 'once in a lifetime'.

The damage visible on the pics was therefore caused from the outside.

Hopefully what's been washed away is, in effect, concrete cladding which doesn't have much impact on the structural integrity of the dam.
 

Rezillo

TwoSheds
Location
Suffolk
I believe last night the water was spilling over the outside of the dam, which it does 'once in a lifetime'.

The damage visible on the pics was therefore caused from the outside.

Hopefully what's been washed away is, in effect, concrete cladding which doesn't have much impact on the structural integrity of the dam.

I would be more worried, well, as worried at least, by the channel that's opened up in the earth bank to one side of the spillway. It's visible on the BBC site and has water flow visible at its base, although I can't make out if it is still flowing.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-49189955

Any water flow through an earth embankment is very bad news for a dam, even a small channel as harmless-looking as that.
 

tom73

Guru
Location
Yorkshire
Love this reporter spoke to a woman who was relived to be out of danger
"She just made sure she got the dog out, got her husband and made her way to the school."
Too right the dog comes 1st :smile:

They are now working flat out sandbagging the top of the dam wall to try and protect the slip way.
Until they get the water level down they can't tell what the damage really is.
Even with high flow pumps thats going to take same time a long night awaits many I think.
 

Globalti

Legendary Member
They only need to move the overflow away from the damaged area and the danger is reduced. It's not too different from the spillway collapse at the Oroville Dam in the USA in 2017 where the breakup of the spillway surface allowed water to weaken the earth dam. That was hundreds of times bigger than this though.

The question has to be: how did the spillway fail to do the exact job it was designed to do? The answer can only be neglect and lack of regular close inspection. If you happen to walk close to Victorian dams you will often see signs of deterioration in the spillways if they're not built from stone.

I wonder if things like dams and bridges are insured against weather damage?
 
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KneesUp

Guru
Its going in the Goyt, that is already full. Marple Bridge will take the brunt if it gets too full.

That will then flow into the Mersey in Stockport, and cause more flooding out towards Didsbury
I wonder if they’ve had to open the sluice gates at Fletcher Moss already?
 
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