A few years back, I read McCullough’s “The Jonestown Flood”.
There is no level of imagination that can come close to picturing what that must have been like.
[America’s tallest dam]
Is it called that because it is really the tallest or the highest built dam?
Worst dam failure?
That would be ... Hellary.
Oh, you meant the other kind of dam.
Also the Lake Peigneur incident where a lake emptied into a mine due a drilling error. Not a dam breaking, but still a water disaster.
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“Ballad of Johnstown”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FflLbjKkwUQ
I think Obama was one of the worst dam’ failures we’ve ever had.
Man does not have the only dam disasters.
My grandparents had a log cabin at Big Portage lake near Backus, Minnesota. There were 2 beaver dams I saw around 1976.
One was a tall dam that must have been there for years and the 2nd was in the process of being built by the beavers further upstream. It was wider then the first. We were able to walk across the older dam while seeing the beavers and hearing the slap of their tails.
They were located between 2 lakes on a creek with Big Portage downstream from Four Point lake. There was a meandering stream from Big Portage that I went up from the lake. The mouth of which was very weedy. Much pushing and paddling to get in. You could see where they must have been other dams as ponds were formed. The dams moving upstream as the decades/centuries passed.
Very narrow at times with floating weeds in dirt we would push off of. The stream was kept open by the beavers moving material thru. They would build smaller dams across some sections which we would gun the motor and go over. Took a few hours to go to the dams even though it was only a few miles straight because the path was so crooked. Marshy around the area so no walking in.
Forward to 1986 or so when I visited. The mouth of the creek was wide and no weeds as before. The dams had failed and a wall of water came down at night and ripped out all the dirt and weeds. We motored up and saw trees torn from the banks. We got close to where the dams use to be but it was so tangled with debris we could not go all the way.
Satellite views from google today show where the dams were by the wide spot in the creek. I was there in 2005 and the entrance to the creek was blocked. Not enough flow of water.
I can remember when the Steeler defense was nicknamed the Johnstown Dam instead of the Steel Curtain.