Plenty of dam problems in the West

And, 5 percent of them are believed susceptible to failure, and nobody knows where the money for repairs could come from. The cost is likely more than $50 billion.

On the Kern River, in California, if Lake Isabella Dam fails? Bakersfield could be in trouble:

The potential is for a 21st-century version of the Johnstown Flood, a calamitous dam failure that killed more than 2,200 people in western Pennsylvania in 1889.

Yes, the Corps of Engineers is right that the chances are minimal. But, they're not nonexistent.t