Dignitaries from two states came to see Lake Texoma yesterday, to survey the rising water and all the damage flooding has caused so far. Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin and Texas Congressman John Ratliff both met with Army Corps of Engineers officials at the emergency spillway on the Denison Dam.

Naturally, they both saw the disaster as it is unfolding, but with 1.5 inches of rain so far today (according to our own rain gauge), and even more rain predicted today and over the next few days, the crest of the flooding and the extent of the damage is unknown yet.

I was drawn into reading about the history of flooding in this area, long before the Denison Dam was built for flood control purposes. We can’t forget that the primary purpose of building the dam was flood control. The dam doesn’t STOP flooding, but it controls where flood waters go, to a large extent.

In an article Joyce Lockwood posted on KTEN.com in 2007, she wrote, “Two major floods one in 1848, another in 1908 created the need for a way to control seasonal flooding on the Red River…” and she quoted USACE Lake Manager Ron Jordan as saying:

“There's been a lot of talk about the hundred year flood, the dam was designed to withstand the 100 year flood, we'd reach the spillway only once in 100 years," Jordan said. "Well, we've reached the spillway 3 times in 63 years, so based on the best meteorological data on record at that time and that was the best estimate we had, but we've exceeded the spillway 3 times. First in April 1957, it was a little over 3 feet above the spillway then, again in 1990, it was almost 5 feet over the spillway and this time less than a foot." [Remember, he’s talking here in 2007.]

The University of North Texas provides a Portal to Texas History online, and  the following quote is from a book titled An Illustrated History of Grayson County by Graham Landrum (1960):

“The floods were constantly washing out bridges in the old days.

“The danger of flood finally led the Government to construct the Denison Dam, when that project was authorized in 1939, engineers considered the great flood of 1908 as the archetypical emergency that must be counteracted by the dam… one of the army engineers at work on the project predicted that such a flood as that of 1908 would recur once in every hundred years.

“Since so great an emergency was expected so rarely, the recreational facilities at Lake Texoma were planned to border the normal level of the lake.”

When I read this, I wondered, could it be true that only one person made the determination that the Red River/Lake Texoma area would only flood once in 100 years after construction of the Denison Dam?

And, WHO WAS THAT PERSON?

According to the UNT site linked above, it was, “Lucius D. Clay, later to be distinguished as a lieutenant general in World War II, but at that time [1939] one of the army engineers working on that project, predicted that such a flood as that of 1908 would recur once in every hundred years.”

So, there you have it. Now I guess we all have the answer to the big question these days, - Who decided Lake Texoma would only flood every hundred years now? It was General Lucius D. Clay.