Heavy rainfall fell in Nashville creek catchment on 16th July 2024 resulting in a high peak, low volume flood. The fuse plug eroded, and the emergency spillway operated as designed protecting the primary embankments. Over floor and infrastructure flooding resulted downstream in Nashville. Antecedent conditions were wet with around 40mm (1.57 inches ) on the 4th, 50mm (1.96 inches) on the 9th and 10mm (0.4 inches) on the 11th , some of the notable totals. Event totals were widely described as around 6 inches (152mm) of rain. Available data shows around 80% of this fell in 1.5 hours between 5:30 am and 7am on the 16th.
There was US national coverage of the ‘dam failure’ resulting from the use of the term secondary dam failure to refer to the fuse plug eroding. The event is useful for learnings regarding communication during natural hazard events as it repeated a similar event in July 2022.
