Janesville had an EF-2. Drove through the damage path which is on my way to work, every tree was down or severely damaged. There's a large pheasant farm in the area too that had 50,000 birds get loose.
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some math:
A cubic foot of water weighs 62.41 lbs.
62.41 lbs per cubic foot X 45,000 cubic feet per second = ~2.8 million pounds of water per second !!!
1,400 tons of water per second.
So are there active plans to prevent these floods? Just looking at a map, this was bound to happen to a town like Spencer that has a river running through the center of town. I get why towns popped up along rivers but nowadays you basically need to plan for flooding if that is your topography
Reminds me of the Delhi Dam failure. Older dam without an emergency spillway. Does not meet (nor required to) Corps of Engineers dam safety standards. Dam is owned by the county and still generated hydro-electric power. Not a high hazard dam IIRC, most of the damage from a failure would be environmental and not loss of life.
www.cbsnews.com
Rapidan Dam in southern Minnesota experiences partial failure; no plans for mass evacuation
Flooding on the Blue Earth River caused an abutment of the Rapidan Dam to partially fail on Monday morning, and it remains in "imminent failure condition."
www.cbsnews.com
It's hard to move a whole town (though it has been done) Practical solution is to build levees with pumping stations on storm drains.
yeah definitely not suggesting moving towns. I suppose new business districts could be made at higher elevation but I was more asking if there is funding and plans already in place. I know these things don’t happen over night.
I'll bet less than 3% of the homes in Spencer have flood insurance. Not only are people physically ruined, they're going to be financially ruined as well. Just heartbreaking.
its going to be a great chance for the state to invest in new style of rural community. lets see if they even try
Last time Spencer flooded similar to this was in the 50s. Lots of Spencer along the river had been turned into green space. Main Street is actually a pretty fair bit higher than the rivet. But yeah I'm guessing their flood plain just got expanded.
The dam has broke loose. Mankato is in Blue Earth County. Blue Earth is not in Blue Earth County.
