It’s a smaller Kentucky/Barkley

If you’ve got an idea of how Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley are related, picture them on a much smaller scale and you’ll understand the Fort Loudoun Lake/Tellico Lake relationship.

“They lay out a lot like Kentucky and Barkley,” Jason Christie said. “There are two lakes connected by a canal at the bottom. That’s the best analogy I can give you.”

But, again, on a much smaller scale. Tellico Dam impounds 16,000 surface acres on the Little Tennessee River; Fort Loudoun Dam impounds 14,600 acres on the Tennessee River. Multiply those combined 30,600 acres by a factor of seven and you get the approximate total of Kentucky Lake (160,000) and Lake Barkley (57,000) – 217,000 surface acres.