'Confident the dam is stable and safe': Lynchburg, Virginia watching around the clock

Show Caption Hide Caption Lynchburg officials monitor College Lake Dam stability Lynchburg, Virginia officials pronounced the College Lake Dam "stable and safe" hours after it faced failure and threatened to flood the city.

Officials in Lynchburg, in south-central Virginia, pronounced an endangered dam as "stable and safe" Friday afternoon, hours after they had warned the dam faced "imminent failure."

Lynchburg Director of Water Resources Tim Mitchell said at a 3 p.m. news conference that the dam would continue to be watched around the clock.

Officials had warned late Thursday that its collapse would inundate parts of the city with 17 feet of water in just seven minutes.

But by early afternoon Friday, officials said the dam was stable, and were considering opening a sluice gate at the dam to help reduce the water in the lake, according to a statement from Lynchburg Water Resources.

Most at risk were some 124 houses in the city of 80,000. Lynchburg is located in the Blue Ridge Mountains, about 50 miles from Roanoke. It is host to several institutions of higher education, including the University of Lynchburg and Liberty University.

The University of Lynchburg closed for the day at 1:00 p.m. due to the flood threat.

County officials, who reported the College Lake Dam was near collapse late Thursday, continued to look for signs of structural failure Friday as water continued to spill over the structure. The dam has been under survey by the city for years as a safety hazard.

Local fire and police sent boats to rescue people to area shelters late Thursday as some creeks were already feeling the overflow from the dam.

The fear of widespread flooding was triggered by a deluge in rain-soaked Virginia that brought up to 3 inches of rain in one hour to the Lynchburg area Thursday.

The National Weather Service, warning of the "dangerous situation," said early Friday that "runoff from Thursday's heavy rainfall will continue to cause flooding across the area. ... Any additional heavy rainfall may create new flooding."

The weather service has extended a flash flood warning for the region through Friday evening because of the possibility of additional showers and thunderstorms.

The heavy rain in Virginia is part of a sprawling weather system bringing the threat of flooding all the way from the Carolinas to New England. In all, some 26 million people live where a flash flood watch is in effect.

The dam at College Lake, adjacent to the University of Lynchburg, was built in 1934, according to the school's website. It's 35 feet high and about 300 feet long.

The lake is the largest urban lake in Lynchburg. It is located in a critical position, according to the university, for capturing surface waters from multiple sources of the Blackwater Creek watershed just before emptying into the James River.

The lake's ecosystem is degrading rapidly, the school reports, as it fills with sediment, nutrients and raw sewage, resulting in the rapid development of watershed and stormwater management problems.

In 2014, engineers began surveying College Lake Dam as the result of a study determining the dam could not handle the flow of water expected during severe weather conditions, creating a safety hazard for residents who live below the dam.

There is some good news in the forecast: Following two weeks of relentlessly wet weather in the eastern U.S., a drier weather pattern will move in over the weekend and into early next week, AccuWeather said.

Contributing: Emily Brown, USA TODAY; The Associated Press; The (Staunton, Virginia) News-Leader