FANNIN COUNTY, Tex. -- Last year, north Texas saw widespread, damaging floods, but Fannin County officials say they are now prepared and have a new tool to prevent similar flooding. A flood control dam has been completed south of Savoy, but not without many years of hard work and a lot of money.

It has been a project in the works since 1957 and after all the time and effort, officials say the Caney Creek Watershed is ready to control flooding.

It was the final inspection in what has been a long process for engineers trying to design a dam that will prevent flooding for many years to come.

"It’s a great conservation practice and prevents a lot of erosion, makes a lot more usable the agricultural land downstream."

Randy Moore is with the Natural Resources Conservation Service and says Caney Site 3-A took a little while longer to finish because of a lack of federal funding available for watershed projects.

But thanks to the help of Congressman Ralph Hall and some local neighbors, the flood control lake is now a reality.

"The watershed project has been just nearly non-existent and it’s been very difficult to get money from congress to deal with flood control structures," lead engineer Trent Street says.

Engineers walked around the dam one last time Wednesday to make sure it met with their original specs, and after a quick pass through, it did and should be able to hold enough water to prevent flooding of agricultural lands downstream.

"The water will build up and eventually flow through our auxiliary spillway that runs through our end of the dam but that wouldn't occur unless we received something over a 25-year rainfall."

Now that it's complete, there should be no flooding, and because of the easement purchases, residents will have a nice lake to call their own.

"Even though federal money was used to build this, it still doesn’t give people the right to come in here and go fishing unless they contact the land owner."

This is the 18th structure completed in Fannin County. Officials say it could cost up to $2 million, a small price to pay to keep everything downstream immune to flooding.