Officials close Belton Dam overlook after police express safety concern

BELTON, Texas (KWTX) - Belton Police say they’ve responded to 25 accidents in the last three years at the intersection outside the Lake Belton Dam overlook causing them to express concern to the Corps of Engineers who oversee the dam, who ultimately decided to close the dam until a solution is found.

“I made the decision to close that area until those concerns could be addressed because the next accident could be fatal,” Lake Manager, Joshua Brown said.

None of the accidents police have responded to there have been fatal, but Brown says he wasn’t willing to take a risk.

The overlook closed a few weeks ago and Brown says there’s no timetable on when it might reopen.

“Speeds are supposed to be 45 miles per hour I believe but people do exceed that. The area gets overcrowded, the hill coming up can be blind and there’s a lot of traffic on the road,” Brown explained.

“Its the left hand turns leaving the overlook onto 2271, we expressed some concerns due to the accidents that we have had,” Belton Police Captain Daniel Aguirre explained.

Brown says they plan to either add stripes or placing signage restricting left hand turns, but will bring in traffic engineers to make an official recommendation.

The park that serves as an overlook at Lake Belton, though Brown says that is not the parking lots actual purpose.

Instead, he says the parking lot exists on the dam to give engineers a place to park when they need to check high water levels.

For that reason, he says there are no talks of opening a parking lot down below for people to walk up to the lookout point.

Brown says the department is close to the end of its fiscal year and is still evaluation possible solutions to the intersection.

“Working on something to make it right to make is safe for the public is going to take a bit of time,” Brown said.

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