Late in the afternoon of Sept. 27, 2024, Brad Barker, of Barker Construction Co., walks in a trench that was cut as a temporary spillway to handle the rising water from the remnants of Hurricane Helene. The dam’s rehabilitation project was nearly complete when the storm hit. (Photo Copyright 2025, Frank J. Trexler III)
By Buzz Trexler
The Ripshin Scribe
Robert Ulrich can sometimes be seen riding his bicycle on Ripshin Mountain Road, which follows the shoreline of Ripshin Lake.
While other bicyclers, motorcyclists, and drivers take a miles-long detour off U.S. 19E to see the private mountain lake surrounded by a palette of colors in the fall, the executive director of Fairhaven Ministries, 2198 Ripshin Mountain Road, must only pedal about a mile up the mountain.
But after Ripshin Lake Corp., the homeowner’s association that owns the lake, drained it in spring 2023 to rehabilitate the earthen dam, the view lost its luster for two years.
“I may have said at some point, like, ‘I wish they'd hurry up and get that fixed, because, boy, it's so pretty when it's full,’” Ulrich said.
Then came Hurricane Helene, and Ulrich began to see the project in a providential light, one that was a matter of God’s timing: If the storm had roared through months earlier when the dam was at its lowest level during the project, he said, “there would have been no dam to stop it.”
Ulrich said it’s only natural for someone living downstream from a dam to be concerned.
“Well, I mean, if you're downstream, you're always worried about what's upstream,” he said, noting that there has been a concern in years past. “But the amazing thing is this is, it's just the timing thing, I think, was providential.”
He asks the writer to make it clear: “God timed it just perfectly for us and for the people that live down at the bottom.”
A believer in divine providence might see God’s hand in the timing, but one can also see the inspired actions of one man as possibly protecting property and lives downstream from Ripshin Lake.
Brad Barker is a 29-year-old contractor, one who has been moving dirt with heavy equipment for most of his life. “I’ve been on a piece of equipment since I was 5,” he said with a chuckle during an interview earlier this week.
The 2014 Elizabethton High School graduate said Barker Construction Co., 1825 U.S. 19E, often takes jobs no other company wants to touch. The near deconstruction and reconstruction of Ripshin Lake dam was a challenge, Barker said, especially when the decision was made to push through the winter of 2023-2024.
“That was brutal,” he said.
But it was nothing compared to dealing with Hurricane Helene on the mountain.
“We were probably six feet shy of getting it above the spillway,” he said of the dam’s reconstruction.
But in the wake of Helene, the water was rising.
ORIGIN OF RIPSHIN LAKE
Originally known as Lake Phillip Nelson, the primary source that feeds the lake is Roaring Creek, which originates on Ripshin Ridge, also known as Rip Shin Mountain. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the ridge reaches a height of 4,603 feet; other sources cite differing elevations, ranging from 4,619 to 4,227.7 feet.
Before entering the impoundment created by Ripshin Lake dam, the creek passes through two other impoundments: Hall and Miller lakes. It crosses beneath Tiger Creek Road, then enters Ripshin Lake before cascading adjacent to Ripshin Mountain Road (formerly Roaring Creek Road) and then into Doe River at U.S. 19E.
It was retired U.S. Army Major Robert Nelson Campbell who came up with the idea of building a dam at the foot of Chestnut Ridge, constructing it at the point where Roaring Creek begins its down-mountain run. The Johnson City native wanted to create a lake community for outdoors enthusiasts, but Campbell alone did not have the financial resources to bring that dream to a reality. The solution came in the form of the sale of capital stock in Lake Philip Nelson Inc., which was formed in 1927 and named for Campbell’s maternal grandfather, Phillip P.C. Nelson.
There are differing accounts concerning the dam’s construction, but the most accurate is likely a court document related to a 1948 lawsuit, which states that construction began in 1927, and proceeded for more than a year, the embankment having been raised to a height of about 30 feet, at which time operations were stopped for lack of money. Construction resumed in 1945 and was completed in the fall of 1946. Refilling of the lake began in June 1947, and it took a little more than a month to fill.
Campbell died in 1950, and his brother, Los Angeles attorney William H. “Bill” Campbell, became trustee of the property on behalf of Campbell’s heirs.
In 1957, a syndicate of 25 businessmen purchased 125 acres of land, including the lake, from Lake Philip Nelson Inc. and formed Ripshin Lake Corp.
AN EYE TOWARD DAM SAFETY
Within years, the corporation took steps to ensure the dam’s safety, including a massive grouting project. The late Nelson Morgan, who lived near the lake, was an eyewitness and in 1991 recalled it involved “several truckloads of cement.”
“They drilled 3-inch diameter holes in two staggered rows every four to six feet down to solid rock and across the entire length of the dam. … When they hit solid rock, they drilled into it a few inches to make sure they hit solid rock. Then they pumped cement into these holes under pressure until I could see the cement bubble out into the lake and the holes were completely filled to the top. When the cement bubbled out into the lake they stopped filling the hole and told me that to pump any more in would be waste because it would simply go out into the lake.”
Morgan added, “In all the years I have lived here there has never been any trouble with the dam.”
In 1972, Congress passed the National Dam Inspection Act after several dam-related events in the early 1970s. The next year, Tennessee lawmakers passed the Safe Dams Act of 1973, which prohibits the construction, repair, maintenance, or operation of a non-federal dam without first obtaining certification. The law requires the annual inspection of a dam to determine whether it is operationally safe, and the corporation has only been cited once, in 1989.
The Ripshin Lake Corp. property owners undertook a dam-related construction project from 1993 to 1994 that included reconfiguring, widening, and constructing a concrete chute spillway, as well as raising the dam about 4.5 feet (it is now 44 feet high), installing a toe drain, and making drain improvements around the existing original 30-inch corrugated metal pipe conduit. As a result, the dam passed its state inspection on July 15, 1994, and has passed every subsequent inspection since.
Nearly 30 years later, the corporation decided to take on a nearly $5.8 million rehabilitation project that was far more extensive in scope.
According to a summary provided by the corporation, the project included replacing the single siphon pipe with twin 20-inch pipes; replacing a substantial amount of the dam’s soil with new soil, blanket and chimney drains, and adding a stability berm to the downslope of the dam; and constructing a 12-foot high riprap band on the upslope surface of the dam to prevent erosion from wave action on the lake.
“We had about a year and a half of planning,” Ripshin Lake Corp. President John Seward said in a recent interview. “We had another half-year of investigative work, engineering work, and then we got into construction, which was about 20 months.”
BEFORE THE STORM
It’s a cliché, but there was silence before the storm.
At one time during the construction project, there were as many as eight diesel pumps on site to keep the water level down so Barker and his crew could work. The Tuesday before the remnants of Hurricane Helene roared through, Barker said all but four of the pumps had been removed from the site, one of which had been disconnected in preparation for removal.
During the construction project, the sound of the pumps sometimes droned on for 24 hours a day, but they were silent that day.
The next morning, Helene graduated to hurricane status, its path grew clearer, and the National Weather Service in Morristown forecast 4 to 6 inches of rain within the next 48 hours for some East Tennessee areas. Tom Niziol, a Roan Mountain resident and meteorologist, warned on Facebook that the area should be expecting more than 10.5 inches, high winds, and power outages before Helene was done.
Barker said the three diesel pumps were put back into operation Wednesday afternoon. Workers could be seen erecting erosion barriers and laying straw on the dam’s downstream side.
By 10:30 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 26, less than 24 hours later, a resident at Ripshin Lake had marked 5.5 inches of rain. The channel of Roaring Creek that during the construction project could still be seen flowing through the lakebed was already filled to the brim in the upper, shallower end of the lake. The first power lines went down on Ripshin Mountain Road early Thursday afternoon.
That evening, as a light rain fell, Barker and other workers took shelter in the construction shed located at what normally serves as a campsite.
The three diesel pumps continued to pump water through pipes snaking down the spillway, and the two new siphons were put into the operation for the first time.
It promised to be a long night.
HELENE HITS WITH PASSION
Tropical Storm Helene roared across Chestnut Ridge and Ripshin Ridge late Thursday night and into Friday morning, Sept. 27, with howling winds and torrential rain. The power went out and would remain that way for 14 days.
By 10:30 a.m., the channel of Roaring Creek that came through the lakebed had overflowed and the grassy area was filling with water. The rain abated somewhat within the next hour, but the water coming off Chestnut Ridge and Ripshin Ridge continued to pour into the lakebed, overtopping the tall grass that had sprung up over past 15 months.
The channel of Roaring Creek took on the appearance of a river.
Barker and a worker, Anthony Combs, both of whom were 28 at the time, stayed overnight at the construction shed until about 5 a.m. Friday. “We were soaked from being up all night and we looked at the radar, and it just wasn’t really showing it (the storm),” Barker said. “Everything was just kind of breaking up on top of us.”
Barker said they decided to take advantage of the break and go home to shower, change into dry clothes, and get something to eat. They planned to meet up at 7 a.m. and return to the site.
“Well, that’s when the rain started picking up and it must have been raining up there,” he said. Barker checked the dam surveillance cameras, and they were off, which indicated the power was out, likely due to downed trees dropping power lines.
Barker was able to contact Combs, but cellular phone outage was soon widespread, and he was unable to reach anyone else.
The two packed up chainsaws and headed back to the site. Traveling up U.S. 19E, he was struck by the difference two hours made.
“As we’re coming through Hampton, I noticed Doe River is in the road almost, and that’s when I’m panicking,” Barker recalled. “I’m like, ‘What in the world’s happened?’”
There are two ways to reach Ripshin Lake from U.S. 19E: one is to travel up Tiger Creek Road, and the other is by way of Ripshin Mountain Road (previously Roaring Creek Road). A state highway project connected the two in 1968.
“I went about halfway up Tiger Creek and it was just trees everywhere; and powerlines, they were smoking,” he said.
He backtracked to the highway and drove on to Ripshin Mountain Road, but halfway up the mountain he encountered the same situation: downed trees were everywhere, the wind was still roaring, and trees were actively falling.
From just above Fairhaven Ministries to the dam site, Barker estimated he and Combs cut a “goat path” through scores of fallen trees, just wide enough to get his truck through, but locked it into four-wheel drive and drove over the smaller trees.
“We’d made it almost to the top, and there was a big tree fell right in front of us, and we cut it out,” he recalled.
It took hours to reach the dam, and when they arrived Barker estimates the water had risen 15 feet since they left, despite having three diesel pumps fully operating. The pumps were staged in a way to deal with rising water, but it was coming up fast: the lowest pump had water in the bottom of it, but it was still running. Barker said. “I just couldn’t believe how much water had come in there that quick.”
“We cranked up all the pumps as high as they would run, maxed out,” he said, adding that they let the lowest pump run until it was about to be underwater. “We didn't have time to unbolt it or nothing,” he said. They used chainsaws to cut the pipes loose, then used a track hoe to move it up the bank where they thought it would be safe.
After they cut the pump loose, they stuck a stick in the dirt about a foot from the water’s edge to see how fast the water was rising. It reached the stick in 15 minutes.
“I went over and took some measurements from the water up to the top of the dam and just kind of calculated how much time we had, and I told Anthony, ‘We don't have long. We’re going to have to do something. About another hour, we're going to do this next pump, cut it loose; and probably a little bit after that, we're going to cut that third one loose. Then, we don't have no pumps, just the siphons. Then the water’s really going to be coming up.”
Unable to reach Ripshin Lake Corp. President John Seward nor S&ME lead engineer Jason Reeves due to a lack of cellular phone service, Barker decided to build a berm on the upstream side of the dam and cut a trench that was 12 to 16 feet wide and 7 feet deep to release water and keep it from overtopping the dam — an action the corporation said was later supported by the engineering firm, as well as the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.
The trench was level across the dam until it reached the back of the embankment, where it began to drop off, thus limiting erosion across the earthwork. “So, I wanted it to kind of just creep across the top of the dam and then fall off the back,” he said. Large rocks were placed within the trench to slow the water down.
By 4:30 p.m., the trench had been cut, but Barker kept the temporary spillway closed until the point he realized the water was going to go over the dam, then he started releasing water down the emergency spillway/trench.
‘PUBLIC FLOOD CONTROL’
Terrell Hendron is an environmental consultant with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation’s Division of Water Resources who has conducted the annual safety inspection of Ripshin Lake dam for many years. In an email Friday morning, Hendron said he had just returned from a conference in Cleveland, Ohio, where S&ME presented on the dam project.
“The window that was cut into the right abutment was needed at the time and provided added protection,” he wrote. “Based on S&ME’s presentation, the water level would have been right at the existing crest elevation at the time, so there’s a chance the dam would have overtopped.
“Overtopping would have damaged the on-going project, but I’m not sure if the dam would have failed,” Hendron wrote, adding that in the earthen dam’s “unvegetated state at the time, it would have been really susceptible to overtopping and potentially failing if overtopped.
“Again, it was proactive action that needed to be taken not only for the project but for dam stream safety,” the state inspector said.
Seward believes that not only was Barker’s temporary spillway necessary to prevent the overtopping of the dam during the Hurricane Helene event, potentially protecting life and property downstream, but the dam itself provides “public flood control benefit to large segments of Carter County.”
In January 1998, a powerful winter storm brought widespread flooding along the upper Doe River, killing seven people. The flood impacted Roan Mountain, Hampton, and Valley Forge, demolishing more than 200 mobile homes and 15 houses, while damaging 193 other houses or structures, and six businesses. According to the National Weather Service, a preliminary estimate of the loss was put at $20 million.
“When that happened, we had the lake down about 6 or 7 feet, and it basically filled up in a matter of hours with that rain, because we had snow melt, we had warm weather come in, then we had a cold front sweeping through,” Seward recalled in a phone conversation Wednesday.
In the wake of that 1998 event, Seward said he believed it was the then-director at Fairhaven Ministries who shared that the dam probably saved them from being washed out.
In January, the homeowner’s association president sent an email to Tennessee Emergency Management Agency Director Patrick Sheehan documenting the event and seeking “at a minimum … financial assistance with the costs of lake drawdown which preceded this storm, and most certainly contributed to the successful flood protection during the event.” The corporation estimates the “response and repair costs” at $123,317.44. As of Wednesday, the corporation had received no response.
The Ripshin Lake dam rehabilitation project was completed this past spring, and the early fall colors of Appalachian hardwoods can once again be seen in the lake’s reflection. Hendron inspected the dam on Aug. 11, and the state issued the certificate of approval for operation on Aug. 12.
“The HOA is commended for their efforts in bringing the dam into compliance with new dam standards,” wrote Hendron in the inspection report.
Copyright 2025, Frank J. Trexler III. All rights reserved. Unauthorized republication in any format is prohibited except by permission of the author.
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AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story was originally published in the Sept. 27-28, 2025, edition of The Elizabethton (Tennessee) Star. On Nov. 10, 2025, the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) of Tennessee selected the dam rehabilitation project, engineered by S&ME Inc. of Knoxville, as its Grand Award winner in the Water Resources Large Projects Category.
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