Corps 50 Years Behind

[Stump bumper]

I know I have fished in the tailwaters when all the Geneartors are open and run on plane under the Beaver Town bridge and a controled release like that started when I first posted "Beaver on the rise" here on this forum would have moved enough water in a control fashioned rather than the DUMP of a 7ft flood gate opening. That was not just my opinion but everyone that joined in last week before we were close to flood stage but saw it coming. If you talk to the major of Beaver Town she saw this coming over a week ago.

Sorry to bad mouth the Corps since they have no way to see what is going on in the little lakes up here all the way from Little Rock and there is no use in trusting the weather men, or public elected leaders in the area, but makes you wonder why this didn't happen between 1967 and 2008 but has happened 12 times now between 2008 and 2011. Guess we can blame the weather man or God.lol

Yes this is 20/20 hind sight now and in the ARMY(Army Corps of Engineers) we call this an after action review and is when pink slips are given out, just hope that is happening now.

[MOPanfisher]

The mayor must be a psychic, I don't remember anyone predicting up to 20 inches of rainfall in a few days. Would a big rain of 4-6 have brought it up of course it would still have been high but not like now. Beaver would have held what it could and released into Table Rock, at a certain level TR would have started releasing water and Bull Shoals would have groaned and swallowed it all. I can guarantee that the folks in Little Rock or anyone with access to a computer can get onto the USGS website and see how fast the lake is rising and what the inflows are. Even if they had started generating full tilt when the first raindrop fell it would not have made much difference, SOP is when the basin downstream is in flood conditions you don't add water too it unless you have no choice. It will take quite a while to get the lakes back to a semblance of normal. Even as far up the Missouri as Gavins Point dam in South Dakota, that resevoir I believe is at record pool and is releasing a heavy flow down the missouri which reduces the amount of water than can be released from other dams that eventually flow into the Missouri and then into the Mississippi River. Trust me the Corps of Engineers whether in Little Rock District, Omaha District, or St. Louis District or wherever do not want to have conditions like this EVER, unfortunately they are not in charge of precipitation. There are regulations set down on paper for the Corps that dictates what steps to take in such events unfortunately as I mentioned before Mother Nature still has the overall power. 1993 half the midwest was flooded it seemed like, the Missouri was over and through levees all along its length, even once the water made it to the Mighty Mississippi it changed the rules on how much water could be released into the system. Overall not a good situation, I hope and pray that no more rain falls in the near future and the levels can get closer to normal as quickly as possible both to alleviate the damage to private property and to provide some storage should it rain more.

[Wayne SW/MO]

So are we to assume that some of you would have opened the gates to the maximum and let her rip?

[roy_eros]

About the auxillary gates I agree they would be devastating and I'm not suggesting the use of them if thats the way anybody took it. I didnt realize the gates on the big dam could open up that much more. I was thinking we were getting pretty close to full bore for the big dam but obviously i was mistaken. Even so another day or two of significant rain even now and I dont see how the water level wouldnt aproach their use. I imagine the corps has a number 937? 940? At which they would have no choice..just speculating not trying to say im an expert, just hypothetical/could of easily happened this week

[1969Larson]

Just be thankful it is not still raining at that rate. It well could be. With enough rain it really doesn't matter what you did to prepare. Also remember that to generage power, you have to have customers for it. It is easy to find customers in the late afternoons in July and August. But power demand is pretty small in the middle of the night in April. We talk about the power "grid" but it is not as if the generated power goes into a battery storage pack somewhere. It has to be used. The lake itself is the storage.

[Phil Lilley]

Stump- your comment about lake levels rising for 5 days before generation started isn't quite accurate. Check the chart. Table Rock's level hovered around 915 for quite a while. It started raining on Thursday. They started generating on Friday, not full but they did start. They went to full generation when the level hit 917.

In 08, the Corp got alot of criticism because they're stance was not to anticipate heavy rainfall but to react to it, wait till it fell and then adjust. That killed them in 08. I don't think they announced a change of policy but they did and you can tell by looking at what they do now. They do anticipate and react quicker and ealier than they did prior to 08's flood. Now is it quick enough? Probably not in everyone's book and especially when you have the ability to look back - hindsight.

Now my neighbor is mad at them because he thinks they should have been able to tell exactly what they were going to run ahead of time and let us know well in advance...

My other neighbor is just mad at what the Corp has done to his business.

I think the Corp did what it had to do and I don't think they could have improved the timing or adjustments much. Sure they can tweak it and may be do better next time but it's a guessing game for the most part.

ONE THING I will say about this flood--- the one time I called and talked to someone at the Table Rock Corp office, he said that they (the Corp) was communicating with the public through the media. NOT GOOD! Those of us on the shores are not listening to the media- not watching TV or listening to the radio. We're out moving docks, shoring up cables, calling guests and dealing with guests at the lodge... In 08, a PERSON from the city or county came around and talked to us personally each time there was a major move in water release. In 11, the first major release we heard about by rumor, the possibility of a huge release we were told in person from a Branson official but he didn't tell everyone on the block. There should be a good chain of communication developed for just water releases- email, texts, phone calls, personal contact. There was a recorded phone call we got about 12 times the first day saying the water was rising but no details and it was the same message over and over. Could have been from the city of Branson, not sure.

Now when things got really hairy, both a Branson official from the fire department and one of our county commissioners came down in person to brief us. I think it just took a while to get the chain of communication going. Over all if was good by the local folk.

[gotmuddy]

norfork had been rising steadily for two weeks before we got this flood. However I do not blame the Corp.

[MOPanfisher]

I would guess that the communication is through something like a LEPC Local Emergency Preparedness Committee. Its like an old fashioned calling tree. Someone from the COE contacts the head of the LEPC, the Sheriff, EMS and a few select others, those folks in turn start calling thier folks and passing the word on down the line. If a COE person had to personally make contact with everyone along taneycomo there would still be someone going around from 2008. Using the media is a good way to get the word out to a large number of people quickly, also a system like KY3 uses for storms that sends a text message to cell phones would be a great idea, anyone along Taneycomo (or anywhere else) could sign up on the internet to receive a text message any time a change in generation or release rates is in the offing. Having been fishing below the dam when they started generating before I would have loved to have had that few minutes advance notice in a text message. Sadly at the rate TR was rising there wasn't enough time for an official to make the trips into town to talk with the businesses even, throw in the road closure across the dam and well it would have been tough. All in all it was not a good situation, could things have been done better, sure any situation could be handled better if you knew at the beginning what you know at the end.

[Stump bumper]

Stump- your comment about lake levels rising for 5 days before generation started isn't quite accurate. Check the chart. Table Rock's level hovered around 915 for quite a while. It started raining on Thursday. They started generating on Friday, not full but they did start. They went to full generation when the level hit 917.

In 08, the Corp got alot of criticism because they're stance was not to anticipate heavy rainfall but to react to it, wait till it fell and then adjust. That killed them in 08. I don't think they announced a change of policy but they did and you can tell by looking at what they do now. They do anticipate and react quicker and ealier than they did prior to 08's flood. Now is it quick enough? Probably not in everyone's book and especially when you have the ability to look back - hindsight.

I was talking about GENERATION OUT OF BEAVER not Table Rock, seems everyone is centered around the flood gates and seems to be the only control the Corps thinks they have. Yes pushing water through the turbines puts water downstream that they people downstream don't want during high water, but it is a lot easier to handle a controled dischare and get power out of it then to wait until it hits flood level. I started talking about this Friday, they open the gates ON BEAVER Tuesday, Friday day1, Saturday day2, Sunday day3,Monday day4, Tuesday Day 5, Tuesday just before they opened the gates is when generation through the BOTTOM of the darn started.

Last Friday there were serveral commits about how this POWER would be wasted over the Flood Gates because we all knew it would happen, and they were ignoring the 2-5ft per day rising when rain levels were being perdicted in the 10in range.

If they were watching thier own charts of CFS flowing through the White and War Eagle and did some 10th grade math it was easy to see Beaver didn't have enough room and it was going into Table Rock no matter what and at that point they should have Generated (Course of action) NOT WAIT and SEE (not a course of action).

That water that went over the Gates is clean power that will never come back,they didn't save the water they passed it over the darn at a rate that caused 10 times the trouble that they were avoiding by holding it back. SO please check generation schedule for BEAVER LAKE.

[MOPanfisher]

I took a quick look at Table Rocks lake level when they were generating just before the rains started, you could see the tailwater levels jump up but it had almost no effect on the lake level at all. Beaver being a smaller lake might have gained a few inches at best by generating, and would have made a few dollars worth of megawatts however the basic concern would still have been let the system work the way it was designed, and don't add water downstream that would worsen the impending flooding. A rain of 10 inches is very bad, but double that amount and it is very very very bad. Is it sad that the clean electricity created by generating with the water instead of losing it was lost yeah, but the value of the electricity pales in comparison to the attempts to control the flooding event.

Just as an aside a few minor pokes have been taken at SWPA, while they do have control over the water to a certain extent, for instance on TR I believe they make the call when the lake level is between say 898 and 922 (not sure on the exact amounts), above that level the COE can make the call to open one or all the flood gates depending upon the circumstances above and below the dams. Beaver is the same however with different levels obviously. Also while the electrity generated cannot be stored efficiently it can be sent through the grid to nearly anywhere, the cheap electricity is available for use and negates the need for an coal or nuke plant to go on line, although you can't really ever shut those plants down as it takes a while to them back it full production as opposed to a hydro plant which is usually on line in a very short time, which is why they are normally used for peaking demands and not long term generation, however all the lakes in the White river will be generating with as much water as they can for quite a while. It looks like both Beaver and TR are both beginning to fall BS will continue to rise most likely as it stores as much as it can and generate with it through the summer. It would be interesting to know at the end how many megawatts worth of electricity will be generated with the water from the massive storm system.