Hazard Detail

Dam Failure

Dam failure is a low-probability but high-consequence flood hazard. If a major dam failed, water could move fast and cause major damage downstream.

Low risk 4/10 priority dam-failure
Personalization

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Hazard pages use your saved address and ZIP first. This override only helps fine-tune guidance for neighborhood context like hills or shoreline.

Location Context

What this page is using

This hazard page is using your saved Oakland location: No location selected.

This page is still grounded in the JSON dataset, but this hazard does not yet have ZIP-specific scoring in the current risk CSV.

What This Means

Why it matters

If you live or work in a dam failure inundation area, your risk is not everyday flooding. It is a rare but serious event that could force you to get out quickly and deal with road closures, utility outages, and flood damage.

Realistic Impact

What could happen

A failure upstream could send floodwater into low-lying areas, damage homes and businesses, close roads, and affect hazardous materials sites. In an earthquake-triggered failure, warning time could be very short or absent.

For people in the mapped inundation areas, this would look like a sudden, dangerous flood that can damage buildings, cut off roads, and disrupt utilities.

Action Steps

Interactive checklist

Dam Failure Preparedness: 0/5 complete

Low risk
Top Risks

Main dangers

  • Fast inundation with little or no warning in some failure scenarios.
  • Major damage to homes, buildings, and infrastructure in inundation areas.
  • Hazardous materials sites in the flood path could create secondary contamination problems.
  • Transportation, communications, and safety facilities could be disrupted.
  • Stream changes, sediment, water pollution, and habitat damage could last after the flood.
Priority Reason

Why this is ranked here

The LHMP ranks dam failure low because it is unlikely, but the consequences could still be severe in mapped inundation areas. It stays on the app priority list because more than 63,000 people and major lifelines are in the exposure area.

Locations

Areas mentioned in the dataset

  • Combined inundation areas for Central Dam, Chabot Dam, Dunsmuir Dam, Lake Temescal Dam, and New Upper San Leandro Dam.
  • Central East Oakland.
  • Coliseum/Airport.
  • North Oakland/Adams Point.
At-Risk Groups

Who may need extra planning

  • People living or working in mapped dam-failure inundation areas.
  • Equity Priority Community members in the exposed area.
  • Residents in Central East Oakland, Coliseum/Airport, and North Oakland/Adams Point.
  • People near hazardous materials facilities inside the inundation area.
History

Historical examples

  • Federal disaster: Flood Due to Broken Dam, December 21, 1963 (DR-161-CA).
  • State proclamation: Bradford Levee Failure, December 9, 1983 (83-05).
  • No recent dam failure impacting the planning area was identified since the 2021 LHMP.