Did recreation, navigation, and/or hydropower interests prevent the Corps from releasing water from Old Hickory and other dams prior to the flood?
No. Releases were made from Old Hickory Dam prior to the flood to prepare for the 3-5 inches of rain forecasted for the weekend of May 1-2. It is important to remember that Old Hickory Dam was not designed to be a flood control project. Old Hickory Lake has a very limited amount of storage by design. It was authorized by Congress to be built for navigation and hydropower generation, and the side effects or supplemental benefits of recreation, fish and wildlife protection, and water quality were authorized later. Public safety is the Corps number one priority, so during a high water event, the dam is operated to minimize flood damages as much as possible. Again, the dams ability to control flooding is limited due to the lack of storage capacity and the design of the dam, but we operated the dam to its full flood damage reduction capacity in this event.
