A century-old dam on the rain-swollen Mill River deteriorated overnight and officials in this working class city prepared for the worst on Tuesday, evacuating residents, cancelling classes and closing off downtown amid fears of a wall of water up to 1,8m deep.
Mayor Robert Nunes, at a hastily called news conference, said the situation at the wooden Whittenton Pond Dam upstream from the city took a turn for the worse about 2am, resulting in an increase of water flow.
”The city of Taunton still is in a state of emergency,” Nunes said.
”If the dam goes, it will create massive flooding along the Mill River and into the downtown area.”
Lake Sabbatia, the body of water behind the dam, had gone down about a 2,54cm overnight, Fire Chief Joseph Rose said. But rain began falling again as dawn broke. Officials were trying to relieve pressure on the dam by tweaking the flow between
it and a second dam upstream, Rose said.
The 3,6m Whittenton Pond Dam is near homes and businesses about 800m upstream from downtown Taunton. The city has a population of nearly 50 000.
City officials said on Monday that the dam was buckling, and later a timber column washed away and officials warned the entire structure could fail. Early on Tuesday, more wooden timbers failed, allowing additional water to leak through and under the dam.
Nearly 2 000 people were evacuated from their homes near the river on Monday when emergency management officials warned that the dam had lost a timber column and could break within 24 hours. The National Weather Service issued a flood warning, calling the situation ”extremely dangerous”.
”I’ve got my fingers crossed that this thing is able to hold,” Governor Mitt Romney said on Tuesday morning. ”Water’s going under the dam. It’s going through some areas that are weakened and there’s every prospect that it will give way and we’ll have a very significant water event.”
Dive teams were standing by if rescues proved necessary, and a shelter had been set up at the local high school, manned by the Red Cross. Authorities also closed roads leading to the city.
Taunton, a former 19th-century manufacturing hub about 64km south of Boston, lies at the confluence of the Mill and Taunton rivers. The city was last flooded in March 1968 when the same dam was breached.
Some areas of the state received more than 41cm of rain over the past eight days, with the heaviest rainfall in the Taunton area coming on Friday night and all day on Saturday. – Sapa-AP