A Trip To The Dam

One of the scariest creatures for me are dams and hydroelectric power plants. Too much water is creeping me out, so I'm always cautions. A week ago however I visited the dam in Targu Mures, which is safe to look at if you are where visitors are allowed.

On the way to the dam, I had to pass near the beach, that is called "Weekend" by the locals. Obviously it was the middle of January, it was -7°C outside, so by no means was beach time. The water was frozen, there was pretty much ice everywhere, but the sky was blue and I could take a few nice photos.

I have a passion for naked trees, when the sky is so blue, so here is one for you. Looks like the branches were cut too early.

Looking at the ice, there are marks, which suggest, there may have been skaters using it, but this is very dangerous as you never know if the ice is thick enough. The ice was not broken though, so I hope those who have been in an adventurous mood are safe.

The water can't be deep here as it is drained at the end of the season and filled again when spring comes, but still, being careful has never hurt anyone.

So this is the scary dam on the Mures river. It doesn't look scary as there was not much water running down at the time of my visit and the water was frozen on the sides.

Doing a little digging I was able to find out the dam was 100 years old in 2013, which means it is 109 years old now. There were some serious floods in 1912 and 1913, which made it necessary the construction of the dam.

Obviously there has been maintenance works done since than to resist time. There were two floods,one in 1970, the other one five years later, that did a lot of damage to the dam.

This is the Mures river. It looked frozen on the surface but the ice must have been thin here as the river is deep. During summer this must be a bathing place, although it is very dangerous. Can't even begin to imagine how many lives had been lost here, due to deep water, combined with vortex.

The water is diverged before it can reach the dam, to feed the canal.

Sometime in the past there was an electricity plant here that created electricity for the city I was told, but after some time something more performant was needed as this one has become outdated.

It's scary just to look at the water :)

This is the canal, that is serves no purpose now.

This is the view from the other part of the dam. You can actually cross the river above the flood gates, but that is not open to the public. It is locked and there are cameras everywhere, so this was the best view I could get.

The river is wider here, so it was only frozen at the sides till a certain point.

Ducks had no problem with the frozen water, they were happy going in the cold water, then resting on the ice.