Latest news with #RobertDillingham
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Nashville's Army Corp of Engineers address flooding concerns ahead of heavy rain threat
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Officials with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Nashville District are monitoring the risk of severe flooding as Middle Tennessee prepares for several days of heavy rain. As currently forecasted, the organization does not have huge concerns for the upper-parts of the Cumberland River, near Nashville. Flooding concerns across Middle Tennessee ahead of more storms in the forecast Instead, areas of higher concern are downstream and mainly to the west of Nashville like Montgomery and Cheatham counties, according to the Army Corp. 'This volume of rain has certainly got our attention and can absolutely cause a lot of problems,' said Robert Dillingham, civil engineer for Nashville's Army Corps Water Management Center. 'There's a lot of unregulated streams… the Harpeth River, the Red River. If you get 5 to 7 inches of rain, you're going to see some flooding.' Nashville's Army Corp of Engineers regulates four dam projects across the region. Dillingham said they don't plan to stop water flow at any of them, as of now. 'We have a very large ability to store water in those projects, ahead of this rainfall event,' explained Dillingham. 'When the rainfall does start occurring, we'll be rapidly responding to the inflow, making releases [if needed] from our mainstream reservoir projects and making adjustments, as mother nature provides.' 'It's kind of scary': Middle Tennessee hydrologist talks about likely flooding later this week 'You look and say, well, 'This is the April average in two days,' Dillingham continued. 'But is that abnormal? I don't necessarily think so. Now, 7 to 10 inches-plus, that's certainly a whole other scale there; that is a little bit extreme. But that's not really what's forecasted for Nashville at this time.' News 2 asked the agency how much of what they do nowadays is based on what they learned in 2010's flooding disaster. 'If the rainfall that occurred on 1 May and 2 May of 2010 [17 inches] happened tomorrow, you'd see very similar flooding. There's nothing we can do,' Dillingham answered. 'But internally, our processes, our communication, our backups, our modeling system has all improved (since then).' As the storms move in Wednesday, Dillingham encouraged Nashville-area residents to stay updated on the agency's social media pages and website for information on possible water releases along the Cumberland River basin. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers prepare for possible water accumulation in Nashville
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Tuesday was a soggy day in Nashville with at least one inch of rain accumulating. According to the forecast, even more rain is anticipated for Wednesday and Saturday. As a result, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is bracing for potential water accumulation in Middle Tennessee, placing the area under a 'Level 3 – Watch' status to manage potential flooding Significant rainfall could help clear out drought conditions in Middle TN Over the next couple of days, the agency will determine whether to move into 24/7 operations. However, an engineer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers told News 2 they have already started to prepare for the upcoming rains that could impact Nashville's rivers, lakes and dams. 'Saturday is really what has gotten our attention, ' said Robert Dillingham, hydraulic engineer in the Water Management Section of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Nashville District). 'So we are sort of pulling our levers, if you will, on the dams, and we are going to cut back discharge a whole lot starting tomorrow and even more Friday into Saturday.' 'If this rain doesn't materialize, it could've been, you know, we really didn't need to cut back our upstream tributary reservoir projects, but I would rather do it and not have needed to as opposed to not do it and needed to,' he added. VIDEO: Lawrence County first responders rescue Amish driver, horse from floodwaters The agency plans to cut the water flow from Wolf Creek, Dell Hollow and J. Percy Priest Lake. 'You're looking at an extra 30,000 – 40,000 cubic feet per second that we are going to reduce per second upstream in the next few days that we are going to take out of the river, that without our projects would be in the river at the height of this rainfall event on Saturday,' Dillingham explained. As these lakes behind the dams collect more water, storage reservoir levels are anticipated to rise before slowly being released after the rains end. ⏩ Lakes like Cordell Hull Lake and Old Hickory Lake, which aren't designed to hold back flood waters, have already been lowered to make space for excessive rainfall. 'Somewhere like Old Hickory, we generally fluctuate the pool one to two feet on an annual basis. Now you get heavy rain, it may be up to theoretically 5 to 7 feet in an annual year for the lake fluctuation,' Dillingham concluded. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
