We can only hope, we can only hope.

Good thing we didn't pave over the valley when we built that dam, otherwise there'd be nothing to hold back any gush of water!

Yay, thank you, trees, earth and farmland!

Those older homes in downtown Auburn that have 2-4 ft retaining walls suddenly became much more valuable!

Screw Kent.

I was always wondering how the Kent Valley got that way.

Quick! Some one evacuate Caveman Chicken ASAP!

Oh, IKEA, we hardly knew ye.

2-4 ft. retaining walls, good luck with that. Anyone who remembers the pix of the Teton Dam collapse in Idaho in 1976 will want to ask pointed questions, to say the least.

go for it, nature!

From the Wikipedia article on the 1976 Teton Dam disaster:

"Test boreholes, drilled by Bureau engineers and geologists, showed that one side of the canyon was highly fissured, a condition unlikely to be remediated by the Bureau's favoured method of 'grouting' (injecting concrete into the substrates under high pressure)."

The Seattle Times on Hanson Dam:

"By November the Corps will install a 'grout curtain' to reduce seepage, and will drill more vertical and horizontal drains."

I always thought Mt. Rainier would wipe the valley out, that's why I bought a house on the hill (possibly the only useful thing I learned going to church, well that and church goers tend to be cliquish, but I digress).

@6 I'm more worried about Fry's Electronics and to a lesser extent, Wizards of the Coast.

My business (and job) will be wiped out if this dam is breached. We are literally right on the Green River. We are all a bit worried here.
:(

Kent and the valley are where immigrants get a toe-hold on the Seattle area. Kent Schools provide education to kids from so many different cultures - speaking dozens and dozens of different languages. A natural disaster here would harm people in the least position to recover from it. Ominous, indeed.

@7. Check out the "lay of the land" in the Green River Valley. Those retaining walls were built when the region flooded regularly. It's a wide valley: it can handle a lot of water.

Now if the dam breaks all at once, then there will be a rush, but we're not talking about a massive flood like the Teton. The concern is more about seasonal flooding if the dam is reduced.

Still, screw Kent.

Dam issues + Army Corp of Engineers (remember New Orleans / levies) + A big El Nino this winter = Get a boat!