Sabino Dam near Tucson, AZ, Whitlow Dam in Queen Valley, AZ, and Mystery Bridge

Sabino Dam: (Satellite)

Whitlow Dam: (Satellite)

Sabino Dam

Meteorologist Chris Nunley posted
Significant flooding is underway in Arizona! Stranded visitors are being rescued due to flooding. This is Sabino Dam in Sabino Canyon Recreation Area in the Coronado National Forest. Do not attempt to cross washes or canyons.

Larry Gruetzmacher: Where is all this water going?? Anyway to divert it to where it's needed??

Kevin DeFilippo: Larry Gruetzmacher the water goes from the washes to the Rillito river and Santa Cruz river to the Gila river..

[I traced the Gila River. The Colorado River goes into Mexico soon after the Gila River joins it. This is probably downstream of all the USA Colorado River reservoirs.]

Heather DuVall: Parts of Camp Verde and Cottonwood under 5 feet of water.

James Andrew Mac: Everyone knew this was coming 4 days ago , why were people still allowed there?

Lawrence Walker: Same as Kerr County, Texas, in both 2025 and 2026, where so many people ignored the severe weather forecast.

Scott Wcsm commented on the above post
Close up of same view from a hill above

I wish I saw this diagram before I traced the Gila River.

Amadio Ranch Heritage Farm posted

As a farmer, we love water. All aspects of it. How it sustains life here in the desert. How we catch it and keep agriculture and the population going on drought years.

Lots of people have asked us where does all this water that’s now running down the rivers end up? For the salt river that’s flowing through Phoenix now, it ends up in the Gila River. And then the Gila River ends up in the Colorado river. From there, it makes its way down into the sea of Cortez in Mexico. Most years there is no water flowing down the river, and so very little water ends up hitting the sea of Cortez. On our wet years like this one it will.

all this happens after our immense man-made reservoirs are full. Those reservoirs were built by our pioneer ancestors to supply life giving water in the drought years. It’s a wonderfully engineered solution to the problem of water here.

[Roosevelt Dam and Painted Rock Reservoir catches the water in the Gila River watershed before it reaches Mexico.]

Whitlow Dam

Joy Nelson posted two photos and a video with the comment:

Eight days apart. Same spot! 🌵

With flash flood warnings all around us, here’s some of the flooding near Queen Valley from the dam.  It’s amazing how quickly the desert can change with significant rain. 

Never underestimate the power of Mother Nature!

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video

Stella San Miguel: Where is this please?

Dennis DeBruler: Stella San Miguel It looks like the outlet for the Whitlow Dam upstream of Queen Valley, AZ: https://maps.app.goo.gl/uoekLGqSFnBKTdRg6

This looks like a surge basin dam. That is, the reservoir is normally empty and the amount of water that goes down stream to Queen Valley is limited to the capacity of the outlet works. In this view, we see an empty reservoir and the control works house for the outlet works in the background.

John, Oct 2026

They must be confident in their estimate of the needed capacity because it is an earth dam, but I don't see an emergency spillway.

Mystery Bridges, Same Rain Storm from the Pacific

I hope those campers don't need that bridge to get back home. Actually, do they need it to get to higher ground. 

Facebook Reel

SEVERE FLOODING | SOUTHWEST COLORADO

This is the force of flooding currently impacting southwest Colorado.

The worst may still be ahead. Rivers across the region continue to rise, with some of the most severe flooding expected late tonight.

Residents are urged to stay away from flooded roads, bridges, and waterways as dangerous conditions continue throughout the region.

Video Credit: Alexis Reed

Google Maps doesn't know about "Hermosa." At  least this bridge needed a lot of debris to help take it out.

Facebook Reel

Watson and Upper & Lower Goldwater Dams on Granite Creek near Prescott, AZ

Watson Dam: (Satellite) on Granite Creek

Upper & Lower Goldwater Dams: (Satellite) I could not find a name for the creek that runs through here.

Willow Creek Reservoir: (Satellite) This is fed with a pipe from the Watson Dam.

Nov 1, 2026: It is designed to handle 10' (3m) of over topping. Note how water is blasting out of the outlet conduit, as it should be.

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Latest update from our City Mgr Dallin Kimble as of Sunday 11/1 at 11:30 am below.  The net is please stay home today! Our rescue crews have their hands full and don’t need to rescue you too.

Watson is rising 3" about every 2-3 minutes. The recharge pipeline is open, the 36" valve is open, and the pipe to Willow is open, there is water flowing over the spillway, but there is just too much water coming into the lake. The dam is rated for water to be able to flow up to 10 feet over the top of the dam, but any amount of overage creates structural risk.

SEE NEW VIDEO!! As of 11:30 am:  We're now topping at Watson and Upper Goldwater. There's only about 6 feet of capacity left in Lower Goldwater. It will top as well. We're notifying the affected neighbors downstream.

There are various areas around the city where we may need to close roads, including Willis. LaGuardia Bridge is doing well. The Prescott Lakes Parkway bridge is also holding up.

Beyond our borders, Fain Lake Dam is overflowing in PV. They're also very concerned about Lynx Creek.

Senator Highway has washed out and there are rescue operations underway in Groom Creek.

A fire task force from Phoenix is on its way to help on the Verde side.

Please stay home today Prescott!

Facebook Reel
[Fortunately, some comments identified it as Watson Lake.]

1935,1988 8mw El Vado Hydro Dam on Chama, Rio near Tierra Amarilla, NM

(Satellite)

An 8mw hydro power plant went operational in May 1988. [CleanView]

Facebook Reel

Because of the 27-year draught, there was plenty of room in the reservoir for the flood waters.

Satellite

I couldn't reconcile the Facebook image with the satellite image until I used Google Earth to find an image of a more full reservoir. Then it became obvious that there is a spillway on the right descending bank and the reel is at the end of that spillway.

Google Earth, Dec 2009

A rather full reservoir.

Google Earth, Dec 2009

The recent reservoir to the same scale.

Satellite

1924-2018+2019 KY-152 Kennedy Mill Bridge over Herrington Lake and 33mw Dix Dam near Burgin, KY

1924 Bridge: (Archived Bridge Hunter; Bridge Hunter; no Historic Bridges)

2018 Bridge: (Satellite)

Dam: (Satellite)

Powerhouse: (Satellite)

The deck truss was torn down a year or so before the girder bridge was finished. According to a video, the locals were glad to see it go because DOT kept closing it for repairs. One person said that it should have been replaced a couple of decades ago.

Photo from Harrodsburg Herald via BridgeHunter

Jul 16, 2018:

wkyt
"Demolition underway on Lake Herrington's Kennedy Mill Bridge"
It was in such bad shape that it was torn down piece by piece before the new bridge was done.

The Walsh Group posted
Throwback to October 2017, when we placed Miraculous Medals in the first concrete pour for the new Kennedy Mill Bridge over Herrington Lake in Harrodsburg, Kentucky. The project included the replacement of a 93-year-old, 804-foot-long bridge, along with  demolition and removal of the existing structure.

kentucky

It looks like a combination of steel and concrete girders, mostly steel.

Street View, Aug 2024

Dix Dam

"Upon completion in 1925, the dam was considered an engineering marvel, Kentucky’s first hydroelectric dam, the world’s largest rock-filled dam and the highest dam east of the Rocky Mountains." [lge-ku]

HerringtonLakeKY

Jushua James Pretzer posted eight photos with the comment: "Dix Dam, Kentucky."

Joshua James Pretzer: Painter now part of E.W. Brown Generating station that they built nearby. I was told that having the hydro plant has allowed the coal fired units to continue operating when similar plants have been shut down. And that the coal side is now used to experiment with new cleaning process to learn how to update aging coal plants.

Of course I don't know if any of that is true I'm just the crane guy. And now that I think of it I think most of the coal units have been down for a while. Only 1 of 3 units seemed to be active when I was there.

Steven Painter: Joshua, What a neat old plant, How many megawatts does this produce? too bad they are shutting down all the coal plants, this will not be good.

Joshua James Pretzer: 33MW

[A Google Maps label says the dam is permanently closed.]

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HerringtonLakeKY_99

pplweb
At 249' (76m) deep, Herrington Lake is the deepest lake in Kentucky.

weku, 1 of 12 photos on this webpage.
The dam is 287' (87.5m) tall with a base of 750' (228.6m).

Google AI says it is 1,087' (331.3m) long. It gave pplweb as the source, but I could not find that fact on that web page. 

Alverno Dam on Black River near Cheboygan, MI

(Satellite)

See April 2026 Flood for more photos of this dam.

Anchor In Marina and Storage posted

A great shot from Craig Passeno

The Alverno Dam keeps the upper Black River and Black Lake stable, it feeds to the ‘Black River ‘ which flows in to the Cheboygan River , right at Anchor In. All the white are the sand bags that were placed today. 

Give her strength!

Thumbwind posted

**Black River Dam, Cheboygan County, Michigan**

Black River Dam in Cheboygan County fills this postcard with timber cribbing, a riverside powerhouse and water pouring over a spillway. Several people stand on the dam’s platforms and along the rocky banks.

The University of Michigan’s matching archive record links the view to Alverno Dam, south of Cheboygan. The hydroelectric site dates to the early 1900s and used the river’s flow to generate electricity. Water leaving Black Lake passes through the Lower Black River toward the Cheboygan River and Lake Huron.

https://michigan4you.com/history-of-mullett-lake-michigan/black-river-dam/

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1909-25 300mw Stave Falls Powerhouse Visitor Center east of Vancouver, BC

(Satellite)

bchydro

bchydro

Langley Heritage Society posted three photos with the comment: "BC Hydro’s Stave Falls Powerhouse, opened in 1912. Mission, British Columbia, Canada (A National Historic Site that is also a Visitor Centre) Mark Forsythe photos from 2019"

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Michael Cleven commented on the above post
my own photo from 1996; penstock No. 7 was built last and had to go over the top of the first six.

Comments on the above post

This is from a 360-degree photo.

Clare Seeley, Jun 2018

This is also from a 360-degree photo.

K, May 2016

WhichMuseum

WhichMuseum

VancouversBestPlaces
"Stave Falls Powerhouse took 16 years to build between 1909 and 1925."

"The property’s large watershed and 30-metre drop can produce 300 megawatts of the Lower Mainland’s power....Completed in 1912 and expanded in the 1920s, the Stave Falls Hydro-Electric Installation is a well-preserved example of a typical hydro-electric plant of the early 20th century." [pc.gc.ca]

HistoricPlaces
" By 1913, Stave Falls was supplying power to 1,157 customers in the Lower Mainland and by 1926 it was the largest source of power in the B.C. Electric system. In 1927, Alouette Lake was diverted by a tunnel to Stave Lake, and Stave Falls Power House became the first automated powerhouse in the entire Commonwealth." It was converted to a museum ("public educational centre") in 2001.

Riley Dam and Powerhouse on St. Joseph River near Union City, MI

(Satellite)

It looks like the purpose of the radial gate is to drain the lake. That is, it is effectively an outlet control.

Steven Haskell, Aug 2023

Apr 2026:

wtvbam
Century old Riley Dam in need of $3.6 million in repairs
"While the facility was remarkably spared from a devastating EF-3 tornado that struck the region in March 2026, the underlying structural deficiencies have forced the village to suspend the use of dam gates until critical stabilization can occur...Village Manager Chris Mathis, who has previously overseen emergency measures such as using landscape fabric to seal leaking gates, is now navigating the challenge of funding these massive upgrades alongside ongoing tornado recovery costs. This local crisis mirrors a broader dam safety struggle across Michigan, where officials estimate over $1 billion is needed to address aging infrastructure."

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I was not able to find the megawatt capacity of the generators. The square hole in the lower-right corner is where Chris used a ladder to go down below.

Same Reel