Flood of 2024: 1969 Livingston Dam on Trinity River near Livingston, TX

(Satellite)

The dam is a long earth dam. This is a small fraction of the dam.

Street View, Apr 2023

The dam is about 2.5 mile long. [sgh]

Facebook reel

Jun 29, 2024: 2:25 video @ 1:15

I thought the key word was "watch" in "potential failure watch." Perhaps they assigned extra workers to keep a close eye looking for problems, but they haven't found any problems. 

But I was wrong. On Jun 28, they announced that the spillway "has been adversely impacted by the recent heavy rainfall and flooding in the dam’s drainage area." As of May 25, they said "there are no failures or problems at the Lake Livingston Dam." So, something happened between May 25 and Jun 28. It can safely pass 300 kcfs. [trinityra] But nobody is admitting what the "adverse impact" was.

The lake is 100% full. The capacity unit is thousand acre-feet.

WaterDataForTexas

This was back on Apr 29, 2024. This release caused major flooding downstream. Major flooding is the category of flooding that means that some homes were inundated.

Apr 29, 2024: 1:39 video @ 0:06

May 2:

Facebook reel

A comparable view during normal river levels the year before. We can see the left side of the powerhouse in the police officer's video above. Note that the water is up to the "black line" that is about in the middle of the view below. I think all of the trees in this view are under water in the officers view.

Street View, Apr 2023

This is one of the flood incidents of 2024.

When this TikTok video was produced, it was spilling 120 kcfs, which already broke the previous record set during Hurricane Harvey of 110 kcfs. Unfortunately, I can't find a date on this video. It looks like this was the late April flooding incident, not the damaged spillway watch incident of late June.

tiktok

This lake supplies 57% of Houston's daily water supply. The reporter asked what caused the alert, but he still hasn't received an answer. [2:02 video @ 0:56]

The powerhouse was evidently added later to the dam. I have not been able to find a date for that construction nor the megawatt capacity.

sgh