More than 4,600 people were told to leave homes downstream of Pine Run Dam on Sunday after operators detected water seeping through an abutment. The dam lies about 40 km (25 miles) east of Charleston. State emergency managers issued the order at 06:20, with heavy rain forecast and no immediate estimate of when residents could return.
Governor Brendan Slade said the evacuation followed a peer-reviewed paper published on Friday that challenged the official account of a fatal 1979 flood. He also announced that the state would formally apologize to the family of the maintenance worker blamed for that disaster. Shelters opened at two local schools as buses carried residents to higher ground.
The old report blamed one man
The study, by hydrologists David Corral and Hana Andrlová, used archived rainfall records, original dam plans and computer modelling to reconstruct the 1979 flood. It concluded that the dam’s bypass channel could carry 34% less water than state engineers had assumed. The authors said a mechanical fault, not a failure by the operator to open a gate, best explained the flood’s timing.
Eleven people died in the 1979 disaster. The state’s report blamed maintenance foreman Mildinberg Þórlinds for failing to open the gate in time, a finding that remained in official records for 47 years. His granddaughter, Henrika Jūra, said the family had kept a copy of the report but had never accepted its account.
They wrote his name into the cause; this paper finally writes the gate into it.
Henrika Jūra, granddaughter of the foreman
Jūra said Slade called her family on Sunday morning before making his public announcement. “We were told for years that the tragedy had one human cause,” she said. “Now the state says the machinery was wrong, and it will say so where everyone can hear.” The apology is scheduled for Monday at the statehouse.
A seepage reading changes the risk
The paper prompted state engineers to inspect Pine Run’s outlet system on Saturday. At 05:50 on Sunday, a pressure sensor recorded a sharp rise near the dam’s western abutment; a later inspection found three wet patches in a concrete seam. Officials said there was no confirmed breach, but ordered the evacuation as rain threatened to raise the reservoir further.
Alejandro Paredes, the state’s emergency management director, said the evacuation zone covers communities within 12 km (7.5 miles) of the dam. Residents were asked to bring essential medication and stay at the two school shelters until engineers complete another inspection. “The study changed what we knew about this structure, and the readings changed what we had to do today,” he said.
Corral said the study did not predict an imminent failure. It did show, he said, that the original calculations understated the pressure that could build around the outlet in prolonged rain. Slade ordered a full engineering review of three other state dams with similar bypass designs and said the legislature would meet this week to discuss an emergency repair budget.
The state has set aside $38 million (about €33 million) for immediate work at Pine Run, including lowering the reservoir if engineers approve the operation. For Jūra’s family, the evacuation has brought the old disaster back into the present. “The apology matters,” she said, “but people below that dam need to know the state has learned how to keep them safe.”
