How high did heavy rain push Lake Cumberland? Way past the old record.
Heavy rain didn’t just push Lake Cumberland to a new record elevation this week — the lake swamped the old high-water mark.
The surface of the giant reservoir in Southern Kentucky rose to 756.52 feet above sea level at 5 a.m. on Tuesday, eclipsing the May 1984 mark of 751.69 feet by nearly five feet, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
It was only the third time since the dam was finished nearly 70 years ago that the water level had gone above 745 feet.
The corps said in a news release Wednesday that the basin that drains into Lake Cumberland had received an average of 11.5 inches of rain since Feb. 7, pushing the amount of water stored behind Wolf Creek Dam to more than 587 billion gallons.
The high water caused damage at recreation areas and marinas.
The lake was beginning to recede Wednesday. The water level was down to 756.02 at mid-afternoon.
The dam, where the corps finished a $594 million repair project a few years ago to seal off leaks under the foundation, performed as designed during the record storage, the agency said.
It could take months for the lake to return to seasonal levels, the corps said.
The corps is aggressively releasing water from the lake to lower the pool. The discharge Wednesday afternoon was nearly 60,000 cubic feet per second, far above the old record of 40,000.
That is creating flooding downstream from the dam along the Cumberland River and streams that flow into it.
In Cumberland County, for instance, water has gotten into four cabins and several roads are blocked, isolating people in their homes, said Greg Cary, the county emergency manager.
Cary said there are about 30 students who can’t get to school because their homes are inaccessible, and there are a total of 87 homes cut off by high water.
Volunteers from the rescue squad and fire departments have been using boats to deliver food and medicine to people who were running short, Cary said Wednesday.
Cary said the Corps of Engineers plans to maintain the high volume of water being released through the dam for two weeks, meaning the flooding could last at least that long.
H.M. Bottom, emergency manager in Russell County, where Wolf Creek Dam is located, said high water had gotten into about 20 cabins along the river and side streams.
Some of those were vacation homes, but others were local people who had to leave as a result, Bottom said.
There also are cases in which people are isolated in their homes because of blocked roads.
Bottom said his office was preparing to take food and other supplies to stranded residents.
“Everybody you talk to says ‘I’ve never seen it this high before,’ “ Bottom said.
