The second deadliest dam failure in U.S. history happened suddenly. The St. Francis Dam was a 205-ft-high concrete gravity arch dam located in San Francisquito Canyon, 30 miles north of Los Angeles.

Over several days, what had been a low-key fishing hole in a far-flung corner of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula disappeared. After heavy rains last June, the wooden stoplogs on a dam that held back the ...

Satellite imagery after the catastrophic flooding that struck the city of Derna. Satellite image (c) 2023 Maxar Technologies/Getty Images Dams are usually built to ...