The dam called “trouble” has been repaired.
Well, almost repaired.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineer announced Tuesday that the 160-foot surface slide affecting the Lewisville Lake Dam since spring 2015 has been finally repaired after rainstorm delays and funding issues. The final price tag is somewhere in the neighborhood of $8.8 million.
But the major repairs needed to fix other deficiencies such as seepage affecting Lewisville Lake dam are still two years away.
“We are well aware of what’s at stake,” dam safety manager Sarwenaj Ashraf told local news outlets. “We know there’s a very big population that’s downstream of the structure.”
More than 400,000 people live downstream of Lewisville Lake Dam. If the dam failed, the result would not only affect the people but also cause billions of dollars of damage and turn downtown Dallas into a new lake.
The image captured North Texans’ minds when a special contributor, George Getschow, and his graduate students at the University of North Texas released an investigative report of Lewisville Lake Dam in the Morning News last December, highlighting a potential catastrophe.
Col. Calvin C. Hudson II, commander of the Corps Fort Worth District, said in a press release that life safety is the Corps' main priority but then reminded everyone, “Dams are designed and built to reduce flood risk, but they cannot eliminate all risk."
This nightmare scenario of flood waters sweeping everything in its path sent state and federal politicians into motion, raising enough money to complete the repairs on the 160-foot surface slide and address other deficiencies affecting the dam.
Congressmen Pete Session and Michael Burgess toured the new repairs.
"The wrong thing to do would have been to dismiss it and say it doesn't require our attention," Burgess said. "Like many things, it takes years to get something done in Congress. This took 11 months, so that was impressive. "