If Missouri’s Bagnell Dam Failed? Disaster Downstream in 1 Hour

It sounds like a plot for a major motion picture disaster movie, but it's a real scenario that has already been played out by the Missouri National Guard. What if Bagnell Dam failed? It would mean disaster downstream in less than 1 hour.

I remember the awesome sight of Bagnell Dam in Missouri when I was a kid on our family vacations. The thought never entered my mind of what would happen if it were to fail. That scenario has come up to Missouri's National Guard. More than 12 years ago, Lake Expo shared a story about Operation Dam Busters. It was the Missouri National Guard role-playing what would happen if Bagnell Dam were to have a failure.

Wikipedia shows that Bagnell Dam is 148 feet high and has an active capacity of 468,000 acre⋅ft with a total capacity of 1,927,000 acre⋅ft. Yes, that's a ton of water, pressure and power in one place and it's all contained by a concrete structure built way back in 1931.

What would happen if Bagnell Dam were to fail?

Operation Dam Busters said that the Missouri village of Tuscumbia would be destroyed inside of one hour.

What could hypothetically make Bagnell Dam fracture?

The Lake Expo story said that Operation Dam Busters was held just prior to Operation Vigilant Guard which was an exercise about a massive New Madrid earthquake which was held for 5 days back in 2012. The inference is that Bagnell Dam could be one of the structures at risk if the New Madrid Seismic Zone were to have a catastrophic event.

Think about this. A response to a Bagnell Dam failure in Missouri would be only one crisis if the New Madrid Fault were to have a huge quake in addition to the many bridges and cities that would have damage from that possible future event. It's just another reminder of why all of us in Missouri hope these scenarios stay in the realm of the hypothetical and never a present-day reality.