Arizona, Tempe: Historic Rubber Dam After Heavy Rains Stock Image

This is the historic rubber dam, now substituted by a metal dam. This dam dammed up Rio Salado or Salt River in Tempe. Usually the river bed is completely dry, but on September 8, 2014 torrential rains filled the reservoir -Tempe Town Lake - to the brim and had to be released into the river bed. This was regulated by a rubber dam, which was controlled by an operating system that inflated or deflated the rubber tubes. The tubes were bolted to concrete slabs. To protect the rubber from the heat of the sun, a pedestrian bridge with sun sails above the slabs had been built to shade the dam >Tempe Center of the Arts on the right.