Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1907-03-27

cloudless sky, the news was flashed to
Decorah Sunday morning ut eleven
O'Clock that the immense concrete
water power dam of the Upper Iowa
Power Company seven miles east of
Decorah on the Oneota river had gone
out. AS it went from mouth to mouth
and from house to house practically
everyone refused to believe it. 1t
could not be true that the work Of
three OF four years was all for naught.
That the great pile of concrete, an.
chored fourteen feet below the bed of
the river, has been washed out by the
water at its usual stage, when few
weeks before a raging food which
filed the lake in very short time
and sent torrent of ice, lumber,
water, etc. over the dam, five feet
higher than the top, when the con-
crete work had been scarcely finished
and was still green, had made no inn
preston whatever upon it. When
several different competent engineers,
men who have constructed the largest
concrete dams in the country had
critically examined the structure and
pronounced it all right, saying that it
would stand for fifty years and more.
without question. And those from
Decorah who had watched it since it's
beginning thought it practically i'm
possible TO wash away such great
mass of concrete, anchored and rein
forced as it was. But this is not the
first time Decorah has experienced the
force of water.
The entire dam, which the Upper
Iowa Power Company has been at
work on for nearly a year, was just
completed, the machinery had all been
installed. and everything was in COM
plete working order. The company
were waiting for the transformers to
come from the factory, which were to
be placed at the old steam plant in
Decorah, before turning on the cur
rent. Several times the gates had
been shnt off and the lake allowed to
fill up, for various purposes of testing,
and each time the dam stood tests
seemingly more severe than the fatal
one. During the day Saturday the
gates were closed and the lake filed
up, and it was decided to leave it
filled over Sunday, for the double pur-
pose of further test and to give an
opportunity for the people who had
never seen it to visit the place. At
eleven O'Clock Sunday morning one of
the employees, Peter Jensen, was
standing below the dam, watch
ing the water flow peaceably over
the top, when suddenly a large beam
came floating past where he stood.
Then he noticed the water below roll
led considerably and commence to
surge and boil. Running out on the
bridge on top of the dam he felt it
waver, and rushed back to the top of
the power house. which had also begun
to tremble and fall. Rushing to the
earthern dam ON the west side he
reached it just in time to jump. when
the whole structure settled and swung
about, the dam breaking in two in
the center and from it's moorings on
each end and settling into a deep hole
some thirty feet deep which the water
had washed out.
About thirty feet of the east end
of the dam, the part which contains
the food gates, is intact. The dam
is out, and the power house total
wreck, the ground being washed from
under it, allowing it to settle
into the water. It's walls are cracked
and moved out of place, and the north
ard east walls have partially fallen
into the water, so that it may be
said that the concrete work ON the
dam proper and the power house is a
total loss.
There seems to be but one explana-
tion of the cause of the disaster AT
the base of the north side, the up
side, of the power house were series
of gates, which were originally in
tended to be used for raising and
lowering. in order to let the water
flow under the power house in case of
floods. The faulty construction of
these gates, and other obstacles in
troduced in the foundation work of
the power house undoubtedly caused
the leak which brought on the dis
aster This was changed, flood gates
being afterwards placed on the east
side of the dam, and these gates un-
der the power house closed up. The
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