Lawn Lake Dam

40.464065 - 105.628077Koordinaten: 40 ° 27 ' 51 " N, 105 ° 37' 41 " W

The Lawn Lake Dam is a dam at Estes Park in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, USA. He failed on 15 July 1982 by dam failure. Due to the tidal wave three people died and there was damage to property 21 to 31 million U.S. $.

The dam was built at an altitude of 11,000 feet (3300 m above sea level. NN ) 1903. He was a 24 feet (7.3 m) high earth dam, served the irrigation and was operated by a private company.

On the morning of July 15, at 5:30 clock the dam broke under normal weather conditions and put 700 acre-feet ( 863,437 m³ ) of water free, with a peak discharge of 18,000 ft ³ / s ( 510 m³ / s) raced down the valley. The tidal wave was up to 35 feet ( 10.7 m) high and then spilled out into the flatter valley of Fall River. There, the tide of the Cascade dam was initially stopped. This was built in 1908 and 17 feet (5.2 m) high gravity dam was 4 feet (1.2 m) high and broke flooded by at 7:42 clock also in a so-called "cascade break". The only accidentally so hot end " Cascade Reservoir ", however, was rather small with a capacity of 31,000 m³.

The cause is seen in a seal of lead, connecting a pipe to the valve house. By the damaged seal water could penetrate and erode the dam. The progressive progressive internal erosion (so-called "piping " ) meant that the dam was washed away.