Tempe Town Toilet busts open. : AZ IMC

Now we will hear lots of BS being shoveled by the royal rulers of Tempe why they didn't screw up and we will see them try to shift the blame of the busted damn on anything and everything except themselves.

Tempe Town Lake dam bursts

A section of the inflatable rubber dam that forms Tempe Town Lake exploded shortly before 10 p.m. Tuesday, sending a wall of water into the Salt River bed.

The river filled as far as the eye could see within seconds, witnesses reported.

Warning sirens started wailing within minutes, and officers rushed along the riverbed to try to warn anyone of the approaching flood.

There was no immediate word of any casualties or injuries.

In April 2009, Tempe officials said they intended to ignore a safety recommendation from the makers of Town Lake's rubber dams because sufficient safeguards already were in place to prevent the dams from deflating.

Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman rushed to the scene Tuesday and said authorities didn't yet know why the dam failed. The top concern was public safety, so city officials alerted all the municipalities downstream, along with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, he said.

Hallman said the other cities were checking their sections of the river for anyone in the water's path. Helicopters were scanning the river, along with emergency personnel.

Hallman said transients are known to camp on the river bottom this time of year.

The mayor said the flow was 15,000 cubic feet per second, equivalent to the amount released during heavy storm flows.

He added that the lake is now closed to the public.

Tempe police said no structures were in danger. Sheriff's deputies and police officers were riding ATVs along the river to see if anyone was in peril.

The lake stretches along the Salt south of Loop 202 from east of Rural Road to west of Mill Avenue.

Preston Swan, 24, of Tempe, witnessed the dam's collapse.

"It sounded like a big explosion," he said.

He and some friends were riding bikes in the area when a section of the recreational lake's western dam erupted. It collapsed immediately and water instantly surged into the riverbed.

Maureen Howell, 24, of Tempe, said she called 911 and that police arrived almost immediately.

"We stuck around because we thought this was a once-in-a-lifetime event," she said.

Philip Kanemeyer, 23, of Tempe, said the sound of the explosion was so loud that he ducked. "I saw pieces flying 10 feet into the air."

"It just flooded over in seconds," he said. "It was a high wall of water."

Lukas Henderson, 13, of Tempe, was biking on the north side of the lake with his sister and dad.

"All of a sudden, we heard this ka-boom and the ground started shaking," he said.

Six- to 8-foot waves poured out.

"It was like, whoosh, and the lake started emptying," he said. "It was amazing."

A crowd of hundreds soon gathered Tuesday night on the south side of the lake to observe the spectacle. Witnesses said small animals climbed up the river's banks to escape the floodwaters.

The lake was expected to continue draining Tuesday night and into this morning.

Tempe Town Lake, containing 977 million gallons of water, had its 10th anniversary Dec. 12.

Repairs had been scheduled to begin on the dam, which was deteriorating more rapidly than expected, in early February. But a severe winter storm postponed the work.

Hallman said replacement dams were being built but had not yet been completed.

In 2009, the dams' manufacturer, Bridgestone Industrial Products, had urged Tempe to evaluate whether the safety measures at the lake were sufficient "to prevent injury and reduce the risk of loss of life" if the dams were to rapidly deflate. Bridgestone manufactured the eight inflatable dams that contained the lake.

The eastern dams upstream are submerged and have held up. But a plan to keep the western dams wet failed, exposing the rubber to scorching sun that has damaged the material.

Tempe and Bridgestone officials have argued over whose fault that is. In March 2009, the City Council approved an agreement for Bridgestone to replace the four damaged dams at the lake's western end.

But the question of people's safety on the lake if the dams were to deflate remained a sticking point. Bridgestone recommended that the city look at increasing the buffer zone between safety buoys and the western dams, adding warning signage and enhancing the alarm system to better warn lake users if the dams rapidly deflate.

The cost to temporarily replace the dams was estimated at $2.5 million earlier this year. Tempeat that timebudgeted an additional $250,000 to fund the project's contingency costs. Bridgestone was expected toreimburse Tempe up to $3 million of the costs to replace the dam.

Tuesday night, federal river flow gauges downstream showed the sudden spike in water flow rates as the lake drained. The amount of water measured at Priest Drive rose from nearly nothing at 9:45 p.m. to more than 13,000 cubic feet per second an hour later.

Such a spike in river flow is comparable to winter flash floods on rivers in Arizona's high country.

The amount of water moving in the river was less than the amounts that flowed downstream during rainy winters in the past. In January 2009, the river flowed at more than 18,000 cubic feet per second at its peak, as Salt River Project spilled water from its reservoirs upstream. During the winter of 2005, the flow peaked at about 41,000 cubic feet per second.

But in those cases, the flow was increased gradually over days or weeks.

As of 11 p.m. Tuesday, the flow downstream had not yet reached the next monitoring station, in the Gila River bed at Estrella Parkway.

Water that flows downstream will eventually reach Painted Rock Dam northwest of Gila Bend. The flood control dam can contain about as much water as Roosevelt Lake, far more than could escape from Tempe Town Lake.

Inflatable dam bursts at Tempe Town Lake

Water gushes into normally dry Salt River bed

Authorities say Tempe's man-made lake will likely lose two-thirds to three-fourths of its water after a rubberized dam burst and sent thousands of gallons of water gushing downstream into a dry river bed.

The 16-foot-high section of the dam on Tempe Town Lake near Arizona State University's main campus broke open about 10 p.m. Tuesday. There were no immediate reports of any injuries and authorities said no structures were in immediate danger.

Tempe spokeswoman Kris Baxter-Ging says its unclear how the rubber dam burst, but she says workers are speeding up an already under way effort to replace the dam's bladders.

She says police and fire were working to secure area around the lake, which can hold up to 1 billion gallons of water.

The 16-foot-high section of the dam sent waves of water pouring forth at an estimated 40,000 cubic feet per second.

"All of a sudden, we heard this ka-boom and the ground started shaking," said 13-year-old Lukas Henderson, who was biking on the northside of the lake with his sister and father.

Authorities were trying to locate transients who use the river bottom as a home and get them to safety, Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman said at a news conference.

Philip Kanemeyer of Tempe said the sound of the explosion was so loud that he ducked. The 23-year-old said he saw pieces of the dam flying 10 feet into the air.

There was no immediate word on what may have caused the collapse. The lake has four inflatable dams on both ends and the dam sections were supposed to last for 25 to 30 years.

However, Tempe officials determined in 2007 that Arizona's harsh sun and dry climate was taking a toll on the rubber dams and might have to be replaced in a few years. The city inspects the dams about once a month and repaired two tears in 2002.

Tempe bought the dams in 1998 and filled the lake the following year.

Last year, the cash-strapped city was working with Bridgestone, the company that built the dams, to come up with a stopgap solution for their replacement; Tempe could not afford to properly replace the aging dams, and Bridgestone was no longer in the business of making them but was willing to lease the city four replacement bladders.

At the time, assistant city manager Jeff Kulaga said the old dams were in "OK" condition, "but they've been weathered for 10 years."