Things you didn't know you needed to know

Water will probably never go over the top of the dam due to the spillways. The spillways work just like the overflow hole in your bathtub or sink at home (if you don't remember seeing that hole, go look for it right now). If the water ever gets up that high, it will go in the hole and down the drain, not over the top and onto the bathroom floor (unless, you have children and they plugged up the hole). The spillways are located 27 feet below the top of the dam, one on each side of the dam. Any water getting up that high will go into the spillways then into tunnels 50 feet in diameter, and 600 feet long which are inclined at a steep angle and connect to two of the original diversion tunnels. Each spillway can handle 200,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) of water. The flow at Niagara Falls is about 200,000 cfs, so there is the potential for two Niagara Falls here.