"In no time it was over the road and onto the other side," Powers said. "If you were on the road it would have taken you away.”
An earthen dam broke uphill from Powers’ home in Chelsea in Shelby County and flooded her neighborhood with 6 to 10 feet of water in September 2013.
No property was damaged. Nobody was hurt. The dam has been rebuilt. In a state with almost no dam oversight, regulation or maintenance, however, Powers fears another flood could happen at any time.
“I’m still afraid. I’m afraid it will come down again,” Powers said. “They were lucky nobody died that day.”
Alabama is the only state without a dam safety program, a program that requires not only annual maintenance and inspection, but crucial record keeping on dams' conditions and how heavily a breach would affect residents downstream.
The recent collapse of the Oroville Dam spillway in California aside, Alabama may have the biggest dam problem in the country.
