NASHVILLE, Il. (KMOX) – As the rain poured down Tuesday morning, hundreds of people were evacuated from homes and businesses in the Southern Illinois town of Nashville, which is a little over an hour away from St. Louis
Waters overtopped the dam system regulating the town’s reservoir, leading to some streets in the area being flooded and about 200 residents needing to be evacuated. One woman needed to be rescued.
Amanda Cox, Director of the WATER Institute at Saint Louis University and an associate professor of civil engineering joined KMOX’s Total Information AM Wednesday to discuss the flooding and says that while there were some initial reports of the Nashville Reservoir Dam failing, that wasn’t necessarily accurate as the dam didn’t fail.
“The categorization of failure isn’t quite accurate because the dam itself didn’t fail, the emergency spillway was activated.” said Cox. “Although there were some material that’s removed when it is activated, the dam itself, the primary dam, is still in place and secured. It …