Lake Blackshear

The Lake Blackshear (also Warwick Reservoir ) is a reservoir on the Flint River in the U.S. state of Georgia.

Dam break in 1994

On 9 July 1994, there was a dam failure at Lake Blackshear (Flint River Dam ) at Warwick in Crisp County, which had 15 deaths resulted.

The earth dam was 700 feet (210 m) long, less than 15 meters high and had the reservoir covers an area of 8,600 acres ( 34.8 km ²). The Flint River was dammed in 1930 to generate hydroelectric power. The reservoir served the rest.

According to Patrick McCully there were two embankments of less than 15 meters in height, while the tropical cyclone ( hurricane ) Alberto broke, when they were passing through flood. According to other data in the storm broke in Georgia a total of 217 dams and dikes, even with more people died. The storm lasted for 11 days and there were up to 30 inches ( 762 mm) of rain. Large parts of Georgia were disaster areas. The flood of 1994 was statistically a 500 -year flood.

From the dam failure at Lake Blackshear especially the places Bainbridge, Albany and Newton were affected. 5,000 families were left homeless by the spill and about 25,000 people had to leave their homes. The further below Situated Newton was still 15 is set to 20 feet ( 4.5 to 6 m) ​​under water.

The dam was rebuilt. The costs amounted to 7 million U.S. dollars.