Lake Levels

[fozzype]

The Corps has been doing two conference calls daily to deep local officials and public safety personel informed:

This is what I heard today:

The flows coming INTO Tablerock from Monday through Wednesday were near 250,000 cfs and peaked over 292,00 cfs. In 2008 we only saw one 6 hour period over 200,000 cfs. 200,000 cfs is equivalent to 1.4 MILLION GALLONS EVERY SECOND !

The Corps will continue to pull water at the current rate until the lake reaches 931.00. With no further rainfall this should be sometime Sunday. Depending on the forecast, Bull Shoals Levels, lower whiter river, and mississipi river levels the Corps will pull the flow down to 20,000 cfs until the lake reaches 920.

One reason the lake stayed so high for so long in 2008 was rainfall amounts in June and the Levels of Bull Shoals and Norfork Lakes. The Corps have a lot of variables to look at, too many to talk about here.

The Corps does care about people's safety and the damage the releases can do to property. Once an area is flooded due to the release, the Corps will try to continue until they feel they have a "buffer" in case of later event. This helps prevent possible greater flows in the immediate future that could effect more people. Remember - Lots of variables effect releases and literly, plans can change with the weather.

The effects of the rainfall with the darn has effected very few people's property in comparison to what in could. Yes, it has cause several other problems. The floods of 1916, 1927, 1943, 1945, etc the showed what similiar rainfall can do - The white river (Lake Taneycomo) was at 714 +/- at Branson in this event, in 1943 the Lake was at approximately 745 ! In 1945 in actually overtopped the East approach to the Arch Bridge in Branson. These floods completely destroyed towns and agriculture fields for 500 miles. I feel for the people effected on Taneycomo, but living close to the Lake has its risk. We all should count our blessings of the safety and recreational value the damns provide us all !

[Phil Lilley]

I was wondering about those floods. 745- that's 18 feet higher than right now.

That's incredible.

I guess this is NOT a hundred year flood after all.

[fozzype]

I was wondering about those floods. 745- that's 18 feet higher than right now.

That's incredible.

I guess this is NOT a hundred year flood after all.

Engineers love stupid analogies - "100 year" flood and "100 year rainfall" actually will have probability of occuring something like every 16 years ? I will ask the corps what this is considered. I will say it is close to a "200 year flood" Just guessing though. And actually the 745 was at Branson - It was actually almost 30 feet higher than now! Can you imagine it?

Your dock is still hanging in there? Save the greatest swimmming minnow collection in America! Hang in there Phil.

[Phil Lilley]

Woke up thinking about this... the chain of decisions the Corp has to make.

Let's do some what-ifs.

My days are mixed up in my mind so hopefully I'm right on this - Tuesday evening, the powers-that-be met to decide if they were going to go from 68k to 80k release. Table Rock was just barely, but still, inching up, Beaver was dropping. They decided not to but keep it at 68k release.

Backup- earlier in the day, weathermen forecast 4 inches of additional rain for parts of NW Arkansas... not the widespread whole area but still a good amount of rain in a large enough area that would have brought lake levels up. If they believed this would happen and opened the gates at Table Rock to 80 or even 90k cfs - may be even 100k cfs BEFORE the rains came, that would have flooded us completely along with other resorts and houses plus possibly flooded the Landing. If, then, we got the 4 inches, the Corp would be crowned heros for saving the dams and possibly flooding downtown Branson and Rockaway Beach. If we didn't get the rain (which we did not), then they just flooded a bunch of stuff that didn't need to be flooded.

It's a balancing act. Sometimes you get it right and sometimes not.

[Bill Babler]

Fozz, can they get a foot a day? By my cal-ks, it would be at least tuesday or wed. to get to 931. at 6 or 8 inches per day. There is still alot of creeks running heavy coming in. Becky and I went to Shell Knob yesterday and lots of those creeks are still running at least bank full. The Kings at the 86 bridge is still streaming water and debris in a hurry.

IF it is at 934 this morning that would be 3 ft. in 3 days. Might do it.

[Wayne SW/MO]

The white river (Lake Taneycomo) was at 714 +/- at Branson in this event, in 1943 the Lake was at approximately 745 !

Interesting. I wonder if Forsyth was still on Swan creek? If it was I imagine it hastened their move to the ridge. Rockaway would have been completely inundated.

[fozzype]

Bill,

It seems this would take longer to me. However, they have a lot of staff (federal jobs Ha!) and good computers. Looks like tonight it is down approx. 1.2 ft per 24 hrs. The amount out of beaver will be down to 9000 from 80,000 and the creeks dropping make the difference. The "bathtub" effect of the creeks with high lake levels in the lake sometimes make the creeks appear higher while in fact, the flows have dropped drasiticallly.