In the sixties I ran a servo, an old fashioned servo where I filled the tank, pumped the tyres and checked the oil and water. At other times I serviced the 4WDs of the gang surveying the Five Head Ck Dam. The surveyor was clear about the purpose of the dam, it was to floodproof the town.
The dam was built and was fit for purpose, there was a relatively high wall with a narrow but deep spillway. As the river rose the narrow spillway would limit the discharge to what could be handled downstream with nothing fancy, no radial gates needed.
But the town grew and the low spillway was inadequate, the town needed more water. Over the years many millions were spent installing radial gates, fixing wall integrity issues and dam capacity was greatly increased. Waddaya know, last year the city had its worst ever flood [heaviest rain ever, conceded] the flood mitigation dam had become a water storage dam and the radial gates were opened too late.
