Thread: Duck River Reservoir (Cullman)

I meant to post this last week but forgot.

Anyways, they are creating a new reservoir in NE Cullman county damming up the Duck River. They just recently finished construction of the dam and plugged up the pipe running through the dam about a week before Christmas to allow it to begin to fill. I think full pool elevation is listed as 725 feet. In an article prior to the "Christmas Flood" it states that the elevation of the river bottom is 605 feet and that the water level at that point in time was at 627 feet. An article from Dec 29th stated that the water level had already risen to 715 feet, which is a rise of almost 90 feet and only 10 feet away from full pool. This all essentially happened over a 48 hour window which is pretty crazy. Due to it being so fast, unexpected and occurring on a holiday, the construction company lost a bunch (have heard about $1M worth) of equipment which now rests at the bottom near the dam. There were also still live power lines which became submerged that they had to kill and work on that weekend to re-route to restore power to a big area in the Holly Pond area. They were planning on doing this last week after Christmas.

I drove around the day after Christmas and took some pictures at the site where one concrete boat ramp had already been poured and from the other side of the lake at the trailhead to a walking/biking trail that is going to follow the bank. They aren't great but here are the ones I took.