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Saying goodbye to Embrey Dam
Fredericksburg officials get a last look at Embrey Dam
By RUSTY DENNEN
Date published: 1/31/2004
Officials visit structure slated for demolition
Bundled up against the cold and squinting through snow flurries, a group of Fredericksburg officials carefully made their way along the drab concrete catwalk leading to Embrey Dam.
In single file, Mayor Bill Beck, Doug Fawcett, the city's public works director, and his assistant, David King, and half a dozen others braved an icy wind yesterday afternoon for a close look at the dam, which will be breached next month.
It was something of a farewell tour for the dam off Fall Hill Avenue; another group from the city made a similar visit two weeks ago.
"It's kind of a last chance to see it," said Beck, who has paddled on the Rappahannock River near the dam many times, but has rarely seen it up close.
From the catwalk--normally locked behind a rusting steel gate--the imposing 22-foot-high dam looks much higher than it appears from Fall Hill Avenue or Riverside Drive.
Beck was hoping to get into the arched walkway inside and under the dam, but that was not possible for the city group.
Fawcett opened a metal trap door leading to the walkway to explain why.
"There's about 2 feet of ice down there," he said shouting over the roar of the river, which would make walking difficult--and dangerous.
As the group milled around the catwalk along the side of the dam, construction workers using a jackhammer were punching a hole through the concrete deck to the walkway underneath. That will make it easier for a military demolition team to breach a section of the dam on Feb. 23.
The soldiers will be able to pass materials through the hole, rather than through the narrow trap door.
Several members of the Army's 544th Engineer Dive Detachment from Fort Eustis in Hampton Roads were able to check out the innards of the dam yesterday prior to the city tour.
They've been in town several times already to get the information they'll need to properly place more than 600 pounds of plastic explosives.
They'll be back a few days before the breach to make final preparations to remove a 100-foot section of the reinforced concrete structure, starting about 130 feet from the Fredericksburg shore.
If all goes as planned, one of the loudest booms ever heard in Fredericksburg will reduce a portion of Embrey Dam to steel-studded rubble.
After the blast, a 7-foot wall of water will rush downstream, falling gradually as it goes. According to calculations, the crest will be 4.6 feet at the head of Laucks Island, 4 feet by the time it reaches the Falmouth Bridge, and about 3 feet higher than normal downstream at the Ferry Farm-Mayfield Bridge.
Engineers have said that the rising water will not damage any structures.
Date published: 1/31/2004
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