Tennessee Valley Authority assesses dams in wake of Hurricane Helene

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — The Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) dam systems were put to the test during Helene.

Following the severe weather , teams have worked to see which dams are safe and which dams may need repair.

After historic rainfall in the mountains of East Tennessee and western North Carolina, the TVA has worked to manage record amounts of water that flow into the Douglas Dam. TVA spokesperson Scott Fiedler told News 2 that water has been held back to protect areas like Knoxville, Lenoir City and even Chattanooga.

“I would call it biblical amount of water in East Tennessee,” Fiedler said. “The key headline is ‘Douglas saves Knoxville!’ because all of that water has to go somewhere and old man Douglas is holding it back.”

The update came after officials issued a condition red alert on Friday, which meant that a breach of the Nolichucky dam was imminent. After another review by the TVA’s dam safety team, they confirmed it was stable and secure Saturday morning.

“We lost site of the dam because water was coming over it so much,” said Fiedler. “All of that water — think of it as a giant wave coming down the river and then we’ve got to manage that wave to release water in one area, hold it back in another and kind of coordinate it in symphony.”

The TVA has invested over $1 billion in dam safety projects since 2010. Dam safety teams conduct inspections regularly to look for obvious cracks, expansion in the concrete and more. They also do deeper dives every five years into dam conditions using drones, LiDAR and sonar technologies.

Following Helene, teams will be at Nolichucky throughout the week make assessments. Officials told News 2 that although the storm has passed, and the dam is stable and stable, the public should still be cautious near the dam.

“They’ve seen some erosion on one of the shorelines that we’ve got to address. They’ve seen damage to the guardrails and the handrails that were on top of the dam,” said Fiedler. “You’re going to see tremendous amounts of water coming down over the river this week.”

Agency officials are currently releasing a controlled 450,000 gallons every second to bring down water levels. That process will continue throughout the week.

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