Heavy equipment and bulldozers are swarming around the dam again as work crews are taking the second step in trying to determine what caused the dam to fail.
Hope Mills Lake drained in June when two giant sink holes opened underneath the dam. The 88-acre lake drained nearly overnight. In order to fix the dam, part of it has to be torn down.
"It's part of the stabilization process. They're going to take out a 67-foot wall and then they will build a diversion and bring the water back out from underneath the dam and turn it back on top of the floor," Hope Mills Mayor Eddie Dees said. "We know what happened. We don't know why it happened."
Mayor Dees told ABC11 Eyewitness News crews are working to find out what happened so they can begin the process of deciding what needs to be done to fix the dam. Dees says it will take about a week to remove the 67-foot section of the dam. It may take until the end of the year until officials know what comes next.
"The next part will be the restoration or the repair of the demolition and replacement. Whatever they deem necessary to make it right," Dees said.
The mayor says so far the engineering and construction companies that built the dam are paying for the work.
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