Abstract: History is continuing to repeat itself tragically through our society, because people are easily forgetting the crucial lessons suffered in the past. But for these deadly and unfortunate incidents, we cannot afford to forget. Thus, in the case of the dam safety profession, it is by reviewing failure cases and major safety incidents that we learn our lessons and document them as to avoid repeating them. The dynamic nature of the dam and its foundation and upstream/downstream developments due to unexpected changes over its entire operating lifespan should be recognized. It is through spatiotemporal experiences causing various loading conditions, that interpreting how the dam and it’s foundation perform, will allow dam safety engineers to understand a dam’s behavior and when an inconsistent data trend might be indicating an ensuing issue. By way of lessons learned and this understanding the dam, potential remedial decisions can be made in a timely manner. The key word between a tragedy and its prevention is “how” a strategic risk management process is implemented. This paper uses a spillway system as an example of how to recognize and remedy its behavior in light of risk factors relating to potential failure modes in order to ensure its integrity and thus to protect dam safety.