Re: Man goes thru flood gate at Lake Austin
 

fund razor;

I didn't see the film clip but what you say is sort of correct.
The spillway is a portion of the total dam. If they showed the windshield being torn off, then the gate was basically wide open and I didn't take note of it. The dam operators will often open the gate all the way if they are spilling just to flush the floating debris down to the river below rather having to fish it out and haul it off on their budget. You are actually lucky if the gate is wide open so you are not sucked down under water. But if it was only half open, the boat would have just spun in a surface whirlpool until someone closed the gate. This happened with an unoccupied boat a few years ago.

Of course, the guy who went over the dam, in this case not under water as you state, had a much worse problem with the extra large volume and velocity of the frothy water in the tailrace, (the water downstream of a dam), because the gate was fully open.

I could see holding my breath while I was sucked under and shot out the hole. Maybe forty seconds duration, but fighting to stay afloat in the frothy water is something else. Yes, he was very lucky, for being so unlucky as to get caught in the problem in the first place.

There are two nice bars/ restaurants on the water within 300 feet, and in clear view, of that spillway gate . I suppose people were making quick bets on his fate.

Re: Man goes thru flood gate at Lake Austin
 

The footage was strange.
You couldn't tell how the guy went through, but it was like the boat got squeezed between something. The drive was down, the bow was up, it started tipping back a little, then all of a sudden it went back far enough to pass the drive or something and a structure above the water is what sheared the windsheild off.

Scary stuff.

Re: Man goes thru flood gate at Lake Austin
 

Same theory is applied in the Bermuda triangle disappearances. In that area thick spurts of nitrogen bubbles are released from the bottom potentially causing a large ship or aircraft flying over, to lose bouyancy/lift and sink/crash. Makes perfect sense to me...

Re: Man goes thru flood gate at Lake Austin
 

They tested it on mythbusters. Pumped air into a water chamber and the guy dropped like a rock.

Re: Man goes thru flood gate at Lake Austin
 

i will have to see that episode

Re: Man goes thru flood gate at Lake Austin
 

Under most circumstances though, when the spillways are not open, it's a great place to sit and float for a while.

Re: Man goes thru flood gate at Lake Austin
 

Here is reason flood gate was open. I cut & pasted from www.LCRA.org's web site. Tom Miller dam is the one he went thru. Picture shows the dam. The restaurants are barley in the picture in the bottom right. We float out in that big area in front of the dam all the time.

To reduce the level of Lake Travis sooner, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last week allowed Mansfield Dam releases to increase up to 7,000 cfs. Under normal operating procedures this time of year, LCRA is limited to releasing 5,000 cubic feet per second unless Lake Travis is forecast to reach 691 feet above mean sea level. No floodgate operations at Mansfield Dam are planned at this time.

Hydroelectric releases from Mansfield Dam normally move downstream and pass through generating units at Tom Miller Dam, but with Mansfield releases slightly higher, and one unit at Tom Miller currently out of service, a partial floodgate opening at Tom Miller is passing the remaining flow to the lower river. Meanwhile, the river below Austin continues to be elevated, but well below flood stage. Staff will continue to closely monitor the situation and provide updates as needed.

Re: Man goes thru flood gate at Lake Austin
 

Lucky guy...Do you think a life jacket would have helped or hurt his situation?
Did he go through the dam while he was on the boat?.. or did he fall off and go through before the boat went through?

Re: Man goes thru flood gate at Lake Austin
 

On the life jacket it might have hurt if the jacket got hung up on something.

He went before the boat did.

Re: Man goes thru flood gate at Lake Austin
 

:eek: :eek: :eek: