Lake Delton Catastrope EarthCache
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
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Lake Delton was created in 1927 as the centerpiece of a vacation
resort by Chicago entrepreneur William J. Newman who built a
30-foot high dam where Dell Creek entered the Wisconsin River and a
1,000 foot long earthen dike along side the dam to form the lake
basin.
Since then Lake Delton and nearby Wisconsin Dells have grown in
populatity and become a popular family vacation and tourism
destination.
On the morning of June 9, 2008 following several days of drenching
rainfall, a low, weak area along the banks of Lake Delton gave way
and washed out a strip of land separating Lake Delton from the
Wisconsin River. In a matter of a few hours, the lake was trained
of more than 600 million gallons of water, leaving muddy flats
behind.
Portions of the lakeshore, as well as, County Highway A, which ran
along the narrow stretch of land were washed away, including a
handful of private homes which were damaged or destroyed
completely.
In the days following the catastrophe, a diversion channel was
installed to redirect Dell Creek away from the washed out area and
back to the dam. In August of 2008, work began repairing the breach
and rebuilding County Highway A. The project included filling the
breach and reconstructing the road with an adequate support base to
minimize the chances of a future reccurence. Lake Delton was
refilled and County Highway A was fully restored by the spring of
2009.
The area of the breach lies just beyond GZ to the northwest.
To log a find of this Earthcache, answer the following questions
based on the information available and/or gathered at GZ.
1) Approximately how wide is the breach, directly NW of GZ?
2) How long was the channel that resulted from the emptying of Lake
Delton?
3) How deep was the channel that resulted from the emptying of Lake
Delton?
4) What is the elevation at GZ?
5) Approximately how much higher is County Highway A than GZ?
6) Post a photo of your group and/or GPSr with the breach in the
background. Be careful not to capture any close-up details of the
signage near GZ.
Additional Hints
(No hints available.)