Officials optimistic with initial efforts to drain county lake ahead of possible dam failure
Continuous pumping of the Oktibbeha County Lake showed signs of success Saturday as the water level had lowered at least a foot since Friday.
Draining the lake to prevent the dam from failing has been the plan since Thursday, with pumps arriving late Friday evening to expedite the process ahead of more rainfall over the weekend.
Oktibbeha County Emergency Management Agency Director Kristen Campanella said draining the lake was the best way to reduce the threat of immediate failure and subsequent flooding of the area east of the lake.
However, Campanella said the pumps would need to keep running for a while longer before the lake reached a safe threshold.
"It's got to get five feet down before we're out of danger," Campanella said. "But it's got to go down at least a foot or two before we can cut that riser off."
The riser sits close to the lake's levee and is essentially a large box with no top, allowing water to flow into it once it reaches a certain height.
County Engineer Clyde Pritchard announced Thursday his intention was to demolish the riser, which would keep water from rising to a dangerous point and pressing on the dam.
STATE OF EMERGENCY
While the county has already declared a local state of emergency, giving county officials emergency power, which led to a Friday-afternoon contract with Birmingham-based Herc Rentals to acquire pumps, Campanella said the county had not yet reached the $4 million threshold required for the state to declare a state of emergency.
The original plan was for the county to work with United States Army Corps of Engineers to acquire pumps, but after formally requesting assistance, the Corps informed the county they had no pumps in their inventory.
The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency was also unable to provide pumps to the county due to extensive flooding throughout the state.
Board of Supervisors President and District 1 Supervisor John Montgomery said he believed the failing dam was worthy of a state of emergency but acknowledged without state aid, Oktibbeha County had to act on its own to keep residents safe.
"We're lowering the water level now," Montgomery said. "I don't think there's anything else as a county we could do."
Despite the frantic state of the operation to drain the lake, Montgomery said workers had stepped up, working late into the night and in rainy weather conditions.
"You hate the situation, but to see a situation play out like this, where people are doing their duties and doing the best that they can, it's good to see that," Montgomery said. "It is gratifying to see people that care so much about wanting to keep the situation in hand. We've got a good team in place as far as emergency response is concerned."
After coordinating with Clay County officials downstream, Campanella said the flow rate of the water had been increased from the initial 25,000 gallons per minute that was reported.
Now, the pumps are moving water at a rate of nearly 50,000 gallons every minute.
Rainfall on Saturday and expected watershed coming in from an 18-mile radius to the lake made the need to start pumping water much more critical, as both are expected to raise the water level, increasing the pressure on the levee.
Montgomery said he was glad the county had worked to avoid the dam completely failing rather than wait for it to fail.
"Everybody in their position has done to the best of their ability to make sure we can contain this," Montgomery said. "We've got the pumps here to be proactive. Instead of reacting to a disaster, we're going to avert one."
Initial efforts have begun to reduce the threat, but the water coming in over the weekend is the big hurdle, Montgomery said.
"The lake's not at a level to be a full-blown emergency concern," Montgomery said. "If we get past this weekend, there's some drier days ahead. These pumps will continue to pump, so we can get ahead of it."
Even with the initial success, Campanella said if the levee were to catastrophically fail, estimations from the county engineer have the water spilling out of the lake very quickly.
"We would have anywhere from 13 to 20 minutes before all of this reached Highway 389," Campanella said.
Signs of the weakening earthen dam are still being found by county officials, with a second sinkhole being discovered Saturday morning roughly 50 feet
south of the sinkhole found late Thursday.
The sinkholes suggest water is still seeping through the dam, calling into question its integrity.
Campanella said sheriff's deputies and county officials were continuing to monitor and inspect the area, looking for the two trigger signs that would signal a mandatory evacuation of the area east of the dam.
The first sign is a continued sliding of the levee to the point it reaches the pavement.
The second is a continuous stream of water being observed coming from the dam. Either would trigger a mandatory evacuation.
Emergency crews from Mississippi State University and OCH Regional Medical Center are on standby to help with transporting residents
in the event an evacuation was ordered.
There are also staging areas in the county near the lake where the sheriff's office would coordinate deputies to alert residents, should the evacuation come at night, for example.
Any evacuated residents would be transported to a
Red Cross shelter at First Baptist Church in Starkville. Campanella said the shelter would remain open at least until Monday.
Additionally, Campanella said the Starkville Fire Department, Clay County EMA and Oktibbeha County volunteer fire departments
had offered assistance for the pumping operation.
Rackley Oil of Starkville has been contracted to supply fuel for the pumps, who are burning a significant amount each hour. The smaller eight-inch pumps are using 12 gallons each hour while the larger 10-inch pumps are using 15 gallons each hour.