The floods this week in Massachusetts that put a few dams at risk have raised concern the structures may increasingly be at risk as the region is hit by stronger and wetter storms. There are thousands of dams across New England and many were built decades if not centuries ago, often to help power textile mills, store water or supply irrigation to farms. The concern is they have outlived their usefulness and climate change could bring storms they were never built to withstand.
Tonight, mandatory evacuations are under way around those local lakes and, of course, everybody is hoping we have seen the end of these dams getting breached and getting blown. joining us now is msnbc correspondent, what are you seeing, what s the latest that you know? reporter: well, rachel, there were some very tense moments this afternoon. we were actually in a neighborhood where residents had recently been allowed back in to take stock of their homes, see what was salvageable. they were inside their homes when the news came that a dam upstream had broken and people needed to evacuate immediately. and this is what officials were dealing with. this chain reaction of dam breaches. you know, one would breach the water would he travel down. the next one wouldn t be able to handle that sort of pressure and so on and so forth. these are earthen dams. as you can see behind me the water knocking out the dams, but
Seeing, what s the latest that you know? reporter: well, rachel, there were some very tense moments this afternoon. we were actually in a neighborhood where residents had recently been allowed back in to take stock of their homes, see what was salvageable. they were inside their homes when the news came that a dam upstream had broken and people needed to evacuate immediately. and this is what officials were dealing with. this chain reaction of dam breaches. you know, one would breach the without walled travel down the next one wouldn t be able to handle that sort of pressure and so on and so forth. these are earthen dams. as you can see behind me the water knocking out the dams, but asphalt, a foot layer thick tossed away like it was nothing. you know, south carolina, they were supposed to have dodged the
Watershed. columbia, south carolina, has been the scene of dramatic rescues all day today. mandatory evacuations are under way around those local lakes, of course, everybody is hoping we have seen the end of these dams being breached and getting dploen blown. joining us now is msnbc correspondent, what are you seeing, what s the latest that you know? reporter: well, rachel, there were some very tense moments this afternoon. we were actually in a neighborhood where residents had recently been allowed back in to take stock of their homes, see what was salvageable. they were inside their homes when the news came that a dam upstream had broken and people needed to evacuate immediately. and this is what officials were dealing with. this chain reaction of dam breaches. you know, one would breach the without walled travel down the next one wouldn t be able to handle that sort of pressure and so on and so forth. these are earthen dams.