Mudslide at Philpott Dam
WILMINGTON, N.C. – Heavy rains on Sunday triggered a significant landslide adjacent to, and downstream of Philpott Dam. This landslide damaged the switch house, the transformers area, and the backup generator infrastructure causing the Dam to temporarily lose power.
No injuries were reported.
Engineers were successfully able to close the head gate early this morning. Crews remain on site attempting to restore power to the Dam in order to continue controlling the release of water as the Dam was designed to do. At this time, water is safely being stored in Philpott Lake with no anticipated downstream impacts, despite the substantial rainfall received yesterday.
On Friday, due to the heavy rainfall over the Philpott Lake watershed, the pool of the lake reached a spillway event elevation of the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) maintained/operated spillway of Philpott Dam for the first time in history. However, the current pool elevation is now below the spillway and controlled.
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U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS –WILMINGTON DISTRICT
69 DARLINGTON AVE, WILMINGTON, N.C. 28403
WWW.SAW.USACE.ARMY.MIL
Release no. 20-008