Wisconsin Dams Are Failing More Frequently, New Report Finds

The Root River, swollen from record-level rain, flows over the Horlick Dam in Racine, Wis., on June 8, 2008. Journal Times, Mark Hertzberg/AP Photo

Wisconsin is seeing more frequent dam failures in another sign that the storms blowing through the state are growing stronger.

Wisconsin recorded 34 dam failures from 2000 through 2023, the second-highest total for that period behind only South Carolina, the Wisconsin Policy Form said in a report released Thursday. More than 80 percent of the failures—28, to be exact—happened since the start of 2018, and 18 of those happened since the start of 2020. None of the failures resulted in human deaths, the report found.