I have a small pond less than a half and acre around 170 x 80 maybe bigger. The tracks keep moving west toward my location in pass christian ms where the infamous Camille hit. It's even taking the same path. Even if we miss it though we will get tropical storm effects. I currently have a 6 inch pvc pipe on the back dam where half the pond is dammed on the back side and is also 10 feet in width. What should I do to aviod a complete overflow that could likely was out my dam? Should I add more pipes along the back side? dig a space every few feet. Or just let nature take it's course and count my losses? Any help would be much abliged. Josh

Pre-emptive Drawdown to lower the water level before Ivan?

I wouldn't cut space every few feet. I'd make sure I had a good spillway w/lots of large rocks.
Good luck. Hopefully it'll be weaker by the time
it gets to you.

I agree with Theo, you can rent a 500 gpm pump for 25.00 a day, cheap insurance.

Drawdown complete! I went about 2 feet down and added a big 10 inch blue drain pipe. I also added some big stones from the bank to back and inside of this area. The land goes downhill considerbly from back of pond so watershed wont be a problem. we are on high ground then 20 feet from pond drops about 30 feet for 30 acres. Thanks for the help and i'll let ya know what happens.

My 3/4 acre pond topped the dam last week when the remnants of Charley came through; the water level rose 36" in less than two days. Looks like I may see some of the rain from Ivan, and I'm sitting at about 6" below full pond. At this point, a pre-emptive drawdown is starting to sound like a good idea.