Terminus Dam was constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1962 to help relieve the Kaweah Delta's chronic flooding. Prior to damming, the river could reach very high flows during winter storms, with a maximum of in December 1955. However, the capacity of the main channel of the Kaweah River is only , and its distributaries have an even lower capacity. Four years after the dam's completion, it prevented $19.6 million of damage during a single storm in December 1966. However, the capacity of the reservoir, Lake Kaweah, was too small to control the most severe floods, and was so for many years until the completion of a spillway enhancement project in 2004. Six huge fuse gates, the largest of their type in the world, were added to the dam; the reservoir can now safely hold of water, an increase of 30 percent from the original capacity.