Discussion: Taum Sauk reservoir burst!

5 years or so ago, we hosted two rogaines, including the North American champs, on Johnson Shut Ins SP, Taum Sauk Mountain SP (at 1772 feet - highest point in MO! - control and Snicker bars there for the rogaine), and Ameren UE lands. An easy control was next to a 50-acre, 90 foot deep Ameren UE reservoir on the top of Proffitt Mountain. This morning, it was registered as refilled at 5:12 am, but it kept pumping up more water from the lower reservoir. At 5:24 am, it registered near empty, over 1 billion gallons of water had breached the berm, flowing northwest into a huge re-entrant, then hit the Black River, rode south through Johnson's Shut-Ins SP, but fortunately the Lower Reservoir dam (downstream a couple miles) held. The Upper Reservoir's purpose is to pump water up when electricity is cheap (usually nights) and down when it is more costly (especially summer days).

This aerial photo from Terraserver shows the area well - the kidney shaped 'lake' was the reservoir. http://terraserver.homeadvisor.msn.com/image.aspx?...

The park superintendent's house near the SP campground was splintered; his family swept over a hunderd yards downstream; amazingly the parents and three young children survived, ending up in two groups in muddy fields - the children are hospitalized - hopefully 'just' hypothermia. Only other damage seems to be roadways and a car and couple trucks swept off of highway N - no further injuries reported yet.

Lesterville is about 5 miles downstream, but unaffected since the dam held.

Whoa! There were Snickers on Taum Sauk and I missed them??!? I only remember the huge pile of blue water containters and having an ibuprofin sandwhich there for lunch. I don't remember the control on the lake...will have to pull out the map. Here's a photo of Vytenis and myself at the finish in 2000 near the park entrance:

Boy was I beat. It rained all morning and V. kept me running by singing "BINGO," as in The farmer's dog Bingo. Picture Vytenis, the 5'11" Lithuanian Navy officer, running down a muddy road in a downpour singing "there was a farmer had a dog and BINGO was his name-O! B - I - N, G, O..." with a thick, lithuanian accent. I was too tired to laugh at the situation. The photo above was taken just 30 mins later at the finish.

Hmmm... Eddie's map organisation system may be rudimentary but he's certainly got his photos regimented.

I searched through about 6 directories on 2 different machines to find this :) I had run across it recently (Monday) so it was more a matter of luck I'm afraid.

The Snickers were probably only there for one of the two back-to-back rogaines - and I can't keep them straight. Good that the locals didn't think Vytenis was making fun of them!

You collected a control at the side of the reservoir, but probably didn't stop to do the touristy thing - walk a ramp and peer over the edge at the 50-acre, 90-foot deep pond.

The children are improving but one is still critical.

Photos and video at: http://www.kmov.com/

Photos and maps if you click on 'Related Links' at: http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/...

Pretty amazing stuff. Its more of a tank than a reservior - a really BIG tank. Looks like the campground at the park was also wiped off the face of the earth.

Perhaps more accurately: the face of the earth was wiped off the campground.