"Florence Flooding Puts Dams, Many High Hazard, To The Test"

"Devastating flooding in North Carolina in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence has raised concerns about whether dams across the state, some of them already in poor condition, will be able to hold up under the strain.

State officials have been monitoring dam safety in cooperation with local authorities and say there has been at least one dam breach so far, with no homes affected. But there have been several other locations of concern and false alarms about dam failures that have caused panic.

According to data submitted to the National Inventory of Dams for this year's deadline and obtained by The Associated Press, the state has 1,445 dams rated high hazard out of about 5,700 dams total, ranging from large federally owned ones to small private ones. That hazard classification does not indicate the likelihood of failure — just that any failure would be likely to cause the loss of one or more human lives."

Sarah Rankin reports for the Associated Press September 17, 2018.

Source: AP, 09/18/2018