Big Bay Dam

Big Bay Dam was an earthen dam located 11 miles (18 km) west of Purvis, Mississippi in Lamar County. On March 12, 2004 the Big Bay dam embankment failed through piping in the vicinity of the principal spillway 12 years after construction. A peak breach flow of 147,000 ft3/s (4, 200 m3/s) was estimated from the breach geometry, breach timing and the reservoir volume. The Big Bay embankment, which is largely intact, is approximately 1,890 feet (580 m) long and 51.3 feet (15.6 m) high. The failure occurred with an initial water surface about 6 inches (150 mm) above the normal pool elevation of 278.0 ft (84.7 m), releasing 14,200 acre-feet (17, 500, 000 m3) of water and inundating 14.3 miles (23.0 km) of valley to depths of up to 33 ft (10 m) from the dam to the Pearl River. Woody material was stripped from the stream valley for a length of 2,300 ft (700 m) immediately below the dam, after which velocities decreased to such an extent that little vegetation was uprooted. The inundation impacted Bay Creek and Lower Little Creek in Lamar and Marion Counties. A damage assessment indicated that, within Lamar County, 26 homes were destroyed, 8 homes had major damage, 8 homes had minor damage, 25 mobile homes were destroyed and 1 mobile home had minor damage. In Marion County, 1 home was destroyed, 13 homes had major damage, 12 homes had minor damage, 1 mobile home was destroyed, 3 mobile h

Dam data from Wikidata (CC0) plus curated additions. Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).