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In 1976, the Teton Dam collapsed, unleashing a wall of water that ravaged eastern Idaho and shattered the public's trust in American infrastructure. Engineers, historians, and survivors have asked the same question: "Why did it fail? For decades, the disaster has been reduced to a cautionary tale, a grim case study, a footnote in engineering textbooks. But what if the real story is more complicated than we've ever been told? Failure and Fortitude is a meticulously researched, vividly written account of the Teton Dam's rise and ruin. It reconstructs the hours that changed everything and the decisions behind the failure. Failure and Fortitude also recounts the remarkable story of the communities who refused to be defined by devastation neighbors who dug each other out, rebuilt from mud and memory, and proved that resilience can be as powerful as any flood. This is not just a story of seepage and soil mechanics, but of faith and ambition, bureaucracy and blind spots, and the razor-thin line between confidence and catastrophe.
Nathaniel Gee is a dam safety engineer who spent twelve years with the Bureau of Reclamation, serving as regional engineer for the lower Colorado region, which oversees many of the Southwest's most significant dams-including the iconic Hoover Dam. He now works across the Tennessee Valley and serves on committees for the United States Society on Dams and the Association of State Dam Safety Officials, where he enjoys spending time with other dam-people. This is his third book; the first two featured more kissing and less filter drains. He lives on a Mountain in Tennessee and is equally delighted and exhausted by the laughter, questions, and constant chaos his eleven children bring to daily life. When not working, chasing kids, writing romantic comedies, or performing on stage, he's digging into history with the same precision he brings to engineering-one detail at a time.
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