The Rapidan Dam from a historical perspective
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- čas přidán 24. 06. 2024
- Jessica Potter from the Blue Earth County Historical Society joined us in studio for a historical perspective on the Rapidan Dam.
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As a historian myself in New England I found this so interesting. It is also so heartbreaking to see that little white house lose its battle with the mighty River. The video of it falling however almost entirely in one piece is a testament to how well it was built and how hard it fought back. My condolences to the family who lost it and the community.
I have a little more history to share. My families history in that area. Silas Kenworthy started it all in that area with a grist mill. Silas's grandson Roy E Mendenhall worked in the construction of the Dam. The Mendenhall's house is across from the Dam store past the park. Silas Kenworthy's house is further back. Closer to where the grist mill used to be on the river. After contruction was completed Roy was employed at the Dam. On the 23rd of Nov. 1911 Roy was down in the dam sweeping up. Some how he was electrocuted and died 20 minutes or so after he was found. Roy was 23 married and had a small child. I'm praying that the Dam holds and Roy's legacy remains. The Dam store was owned for a time by George and Fern (Mendenhall) Eldredge. They lived upstairs. My Uncle spent his summers there and after a family reunion we all visited the Dam store. He proclaimed that the food, especially the pie was way better now than the old days!
Great presentation ladies, very interesting...thanks
There were 7 spillway gates when the dam was built in 1910, but at some point 2 of them were sealed off with concrete. This cut the maximum flow of the dam by 29% and guaranteed eventual failure. Back in 1910 they designed and built a great dam by hand in only 1 year, but today with all our technology and machinery it would take several years to the same job and probably not last half as long. Wake up America!
and no spillway to mitigage that dam has paid for itself over history with electricity, and greedy idiot people decided not to do proper maint, just like in Oroville when the spillway was not maintained and it failed as well
We're at the stage where things that break will never be repaired.
Our very large earthen dam built by the Corps of Engineers over several years in the 50s-60s is in excellent shape. I know many people think everything was better in the olden days or their own youth, but in truth there are many construction projects that are built very well and will easily last a century or two. The whole problem is not budgeting enough for maintenance. All infrastructure projects need good upkeep. As time goes by they are faced with new challenges the original engineers didn't have to encounter, such as climate change with unusually severe weather, changes in land and water use upstream, or much busier traffic with much heavier vehicles. Certainly the road bridge by this dam was not designed to handle the eroding of the river bed and the force of the water. It will need work done when this is over. In my town we are building our third road bridge. The first bridge had no bike or people path and when a truck came along, the police had to stop traffic and make the bridge into one lane to let it cross. That bridge took the place of a ferry, walking across the ice, and a pontoon bridge. It was certainly a faster build than the present bridge. That one has two fairly narrow lanes each way and a bike path was added along the side at some point. That took longer to build and included rerouting the road on each side. The new bridge will be wider and stronger with a bike path, plus more rerouting of the road to allow for the building of the new while using the old. You might be surprised to know it takes a lot longer to build each stronger and bigger version, and that we don't build the same when new conditions evolve. Shocker, right? You'd think we would slap up the same dam or bridge each time, and much faster, but no. Our steel railroad bridge is still in use since 1910 but the clever moving span that let tall steamships through didn't outlast the steamship era. My guess is it was allowed to rust shut. It sounds like this dam was also falling into disrepair and people were discussing what to do with it. The fact that the failure was beside the dam obscured the fact that the dam wasn't in good shape.
Thanks for sharing.
Great historical information. It is important to know what that structure meant to the surrounding area when it was built! TY!
When it was built it had more spillways that would have been enough to prevent this. Some time after it was built two of them were blocked and in the end THAT caused this
You are right, but no they blocked them off with concrete, what idiots. They should have been fixed to act as flood gates.
Looks like the actual dam did not fail. The driftwood slowed the water flow.
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Have a damn's purpose is to control the flow of water downstream then it failed. It wasn't destroyed but it's failed its purpose
@@nnonotnow From an engineering definition, the dam did not fail - there was no structural failure. This is purely a hydroelectric dam, not designed for flood control. If the spillway gates had not partially plugged with debris, and if two gates had not been permanently blocked, all the runoff would most likely have passed safely through the spillway gates as intended.
Jessica, can you give us the whole dam story?
About 45 years ago I helped build a novel hydroelectric plant up in Yosemite National Park! Novel because we reuse the same water! There was a lake at 11000 ft and another lake at 5500. The water ran down in the daytime to spin the turbines, at night it was pumped back up with the unused energy out of the fossil fuel plants! You can't shut them off at night, they create electricity and nobody's using it! Far as I know it is still operational today!!
Hardly a novel idea. It's known as "pumped storage" hydroelectric generation and there are a number of dams around the world that use this technology.
@@evanstauffer4470 If you understand how long ago I was talking about you'll understand why I was so naive at the time!
@@evanstauffer4470 Which was the first to use that idea, though? How far back does it go?
0:48 able to construct it in one year using unregulated explosives, non-existent safety standards, and concrete chemicals unavailable today because of environmental impact. There were also no real wildlife or environmental impact studies like they would do today. I believe there were a few people actually killed or seriously injured constructing this bridge.... so yeah kind of different from modern construction.
a fair number of construction projects even today end up with dead workers.
I always shake my head at morons who criticize the past for not being the present
One man was killed. He fell 50 feet to his death. He wrote his name on the inside of the dam shortly before he died.
For the time, that's an excellent safety record.
@@gruntforever7437 These people are not "morons" and you should be ashamed at yourself for name calling. Compare the number of lives lost during the building of the Hoover dam to the much smaller number of lives lost building the Golden Gate Bridge. Both high-risk projects. The main difference: The project manager on the Golden Gate Bridge project was determined to take all reasonable precautions to ensure worker safety. The project manager on the Hoover Dam was determined to make a name for himself by finishing ahead of schedule and under budget. Worker health and safety were not on his list of priorities, and it showed. My point being that the high loss of life on projects in the "good old days" often had less to do with lack of knowledge and more to do with the lack of morals on the part of those in charge of the projects.
1 year construction. Never build a Rapid Dam. They don't come with emergency spillways or debris catching log booms.
How one day later changes everything... They'll be lucky if they don't lose the store too.
It's lovely to be all nostalgic about the dam but it either needs to be entirely removed and replaced, or just removed. Otherwise the banks will continue to erode.
So much old infrastructure from nuclear power, dams, bridges, etc., that need replacing vs bandaid fixing.
Ain't no Band-Aid going to fix that. But they can build a nice brand new hydroelectric plant! At 100 years old it may not even have been operational anymore! The turbines may have worn out!
It's history now😂😂😂
I can understand the historical value of the Dam but it's time to replenish our infrastructure. That woman is delusional
Rapidan Lake is about done.
They will leave a 50-75 ft section up, demo and remove the rest, place a plaque and some park benches like they normally do…
This is a good example of government doing nothing till it's way to late to do anything
100 years ago we had almost no tax burden compared to today, We were able to build amazing stone buildings, dams and other infrastructure. All of these projects were designed and have indeed lasted for over 100 years.
Today our government has evolved into a massive money consuming machine, we have the highest taxes ever but we can’t even manage to maintain what we inherited. In 1982 there were 15 million employed by the government, In 2022 there were 22 million. The Federal government totals have remained relatively flat, the state government has grown like crazy.
The reason for this are federal mandates, Presidential candidates ( both parties) claim they have reduced the size of government, what they did was purely a shell game.
The answer is TERM LIMITS. an honest devoted representative ( from either party) is forced to play the game, The senior (deep state) members hold all the power. If a member doesn’t play along, they will end up on the committee to study monarch butterfly migration patterns. If terms are limited we THEN HAVE A CHANCE of a government by the people FOR THE PEOPLE.
Interesting take on the number of government employees. The US population has grown close to the same percentage as the growth in government employees. Coincidence?
@@MontyFly the numbers are much higher than the charts reflect, every time they have a supposed cutback, they transfer the work to contract employees, that don’t show up on the roles. I know first hand of a major RIF (reduction in force). at a military complex, they offered $$$ bonuses for early retirement, laid off 10%, had retirement/ farewell party Friday afternoon…. Tuesday of next week almost all of the employees showed up working at the same desk they previously had.
@@majorgeneral5935 This is true. "Contracting out" work reduces the number of Government employees, but does not necessarily reduce the number of employees whose salaries are paid for by the Government. Also, the company holding the contract makes a profit on each employee they assign to a Government project ("overhead and profit"). The cost is simply transferred to a different account, so the "cost savings" are often an illusion.
@@MontyFly My thought exactly. We live in a very complex world with many complex problems which cannot or will not be solved by the private sector, given its slavish devotion to profit, and profit only. It's a credit to our society that the number of Government employees has not grown at a rate faster than the growth of the population. Having said that, I do agree with the comment by @majorgeneral5935. The politicians of one party in particular seem take it as a tenet of faith that one function of government is to transfer as much public money as possible to the private sector.
Remember, it was built by the lowest bidder.
And yet the Dam still stands.
The lowest bidder must be a master a constructing indestructible structures. The unstoppable force which is water had to carve around the immovable object
@@Fusion_4000 I guess we can blame Noah for the flood.
@@Moondoggy1941 what does that have to do with my statement?
@@Fusion_4000 Your right, nothing. my apologies.
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Please upload a photo so we can comment on your appearance. Thanks in advance
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Assuming that you're a doctor, fitness coach or other expert, feel free to send us some weight loss tips, we'd love to feature you! Not sure how much it'll help though since my current weight is 155 and I lift heavy 3x per week. Thanks for watching!
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