Dam Incident and Failure Investigations
Failures, incidents, and their subsequent investigations lead to improved understanding of dam safety and often serve as catalysts for significant changes in the industry. Some failures and incidents have had multiple investigations, while others were not investigated for various reasons.
When formal investigations are performed, the resultant investigation reports should be made available so that the lessons learned from these incidents and failures can be distributed and applied throughout the industry. The following list provides access to available dam incident and failure investigation reports. If you know of any investigations that are missing from this list, please contact Nathaniel Gee ([email protected]).
- St. Francis Dam (California, 1928)
- Frenchman Creek Dam (Montana, 1952)
- Wheeler Lock (Alabama, 1961)
- Spaulding Pond Dam (Connecticut, 1963)
- Baldwin Hills Dam (California, 1964)
- Fontenelle Dam (Wyoming, 1965)
- Lower San Fernando Dam (California, 1971)
- Canyon Lake Dam (South Dakota, 1972)
- Walter Bouldin Dam (Alabama, 1975)
- Florida Power and Light Dike (Florida, 1979)
- Lawn Lake Dam (Colorado, 1982)
- Glen Canyon Dam (Arizona, 1983)
- Menno Dam (South Dakota, 1984)
- Quail Creek Dike (Utah, 1989)
- Hurricane Alberto (1994)
- Meadow Pond Dam (New Hampshire, 1996)
- Mt. Carmel Dam (North Dakota, 2003)
- Big Bay Dam (Mississippi, 2004)
- Hadlock Pond Dam (New York, 2005)
- Kaloko Dam (Hawaii, 2006)
- Lake Delhi Dam (Iowa, 2010)
- Tempe Town Lake Dam (Arizona, 2010)
- Front Range Flood (Colorado, 2013)
- Hawkins Dam (Washington, 2014)
- South Carolina Flood (South Carolina, 2015)
- Hurricane Matthew (2016)
- Bonasa Breaks Ranch Dam (Washington, 2017)
- Spencer Dam (Nebraska, 2019)
- Platte Dam (South Dakota, 2019)
- Feijao Dam (Brazil, 2019)
- Toddbrook Reservoir Dam (England, 2019)
- Braskereidfoss Dam (Norway, 2023)
ASDSO has published a guide to help individuals and organizations prepare for, respond to, and investigate dam failures and incidents. Click on the image above to access this document.