If not for the Miami Conservancy District’s flood protection system, last week’s rainfall could have caused disastrous flooding around the region.
New data from the district finds that four dams in the region — Englewood, Lockington, Taylorsville, and Huffman — held back a peak volume of 5.1 billion gallons of water during last week’s storm event starting March 27.
“This wasn’t just high water — this was a coordinated flood storage event across the region,” said MaryLynn Lodor, general manager of the Miami Conservancy District.
“We captured and controlled billions of gallons of water before it could become a problem downstream. Our dams, levees, and floodgates all worked together exactly as designed to protect our communities.”
As of Monday, all dams have returned to normal and are no longer storing water.
Miami Conservancy District's five dams altogether can hold a total of 274 billion gallons of water. That means that 2% of the flood system’s capacity was used during the storm.
The dams were engineered to manage water levels comparable to those produced during the 1913 Flood, in addition to 40% of water runoff. The historic 1913 Flood was caused by 9 to 11 inches of rain in a 72-hour period.
