Despite concern about the condition of Gavins Point Dam following the flood surge from the failure of the Spencer Dam on the Niobrara River, those who operate it say it held up fine.
Tom Curran, Project Manager at Gavins Point, says they did have some problems with a frozen spillway gate for a time after the Spencer Dam failure…

Curran says their normal operating procedure let them open the frozen gate…

Water was spilling over three gates for a time before all the gates were opened.
Curran says they had to open the gates to contain the flood surge…

The dam released water at a rate of one hundred thousand cubic feet per second for a time after the surge, but those releases have dropped now to twenty seven thousand cubic feet per second.