were made up of three main elements: Strong, flexible, rubber coated fabric tube which is fixed securely to a concrete base slab by clamping bars and anchor bolts An operating system which controls inflation and deflation of the tube An automatic safety device which ensures tube deflation in flood situations Each section of dam, or bladder, was about long, weighed , and was more than thick. At times, a small amount of water could be seen flowing over the top of the west dams, creating a waterfall. This water was then recaptured by a recirculation system and pumped back into the lake. The east dams were high and sat on a concrete base. The west dams were high and sat on a base. Tempe's old dams were computer controlled to maintain air pressure of . They could be controlled individually to within and could be lowered incrementally depending on the flood conditions. Due to rapid deterioration of the west dams, the City of Tempe had worked out an agreement to replace them with manufacturer Bridgestone. Replacement costs were expected to reach $2.5 million USD. Work was scheduled to begin in the spring of 2010 in conjunction with a new $6.3 million USD pedestrian bridge that will cross over the tops of the west dams. However, due to the high amount of rainfall in the winter and upstream runoff in the spring, the project had been postponed until July. In 2014 Tempe began work on a new dam west of the dam in place at the tiime. Construction was completed in the spring of 2016. The dam features seven steel gates, the largest of their kind in the world at over long and weighing . Dam break At approximately 9:45 pm MST on July 20, 2010, one section of the inflatable dam on the west end burst, thus releasing water up to into the normally dry Salt River bed. The lake began draining immediately. Emergency workers rushed to clear the area and the lake's outdoor warning sirens started wailing, both within minutes. By the next morning the lake had lost about three fourths of its normal water. The dam breach left some areas of the lake with three feet of water or less; the average lake depth is about . Most of the 10,000 fish in the lake were swept downstream, but those that remained were expected to die within five