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Oroville Dam Spillway in NorCal Failing (1 Viewer)

100,000 people told to evacuate on such short notice, and that within one to two hours the emergency spillway would fail.

And there is another storm headed this way Wednesday/Thursday.  Fingers crossed... 

 
100,000 people told to evacuate on such short notice, and that within one to two hours the emergency spillway would fail.

And there is another storm headed this way Wednesday/Thursday.  Fingers crossed... 
Yeah, that impending storm may be the last straw.

My brother's in-laws live in Yuba City and the entire region (about 150,000) has been evacuated. Bumper to bumper traffic along Hwy 99.

Our infrastructure in this country is ####ed.

 
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Yeah, that impending storm may be the last straw.

My brother's in-laws live in Yuba City and the entire region (about 150,000) has been evacuated. Bumper to bumper traffic along Hwy 99.

Our infrastructure in this country is ####ed.
Any region with the verve  to name a highway after Barbara Feldon deserves our help.

 
How come they didn't start evacuating sooner?  Anybody familiar with the situation know?  TIA

 
How come they didn't start evacuating sooner?  Anybody familiar with the situation know?  TIA
Supposedly the spillway,  though damaged,  could handle the runoff needed when combined with the emergency spillway,  which had never been used before today. 

I'm not sure what has changed today to cause evacuations. They've told us that the Dam itself is still structurally sound and in no danger. 

 
Supposedly the spillway,  though damaged,  could handle the runoff needed when combined with the emergency spillway,  which had never been used before today. 

I'm not sure what has changed today to cause evacuations. They've told us that the Dam itself is still structurally sound and in no danger. 
The emergency spillway that they used for the first time, ever, today started to crumble. It developed a huge hole towards the top and looked like it was going to breach even more as the water spilled over. Then they upped the drainage on the already damaged spillway to 100,000 cfs to alleviate the pressure. It seems to have worked.

the big but is that nobody knows if there is "boiling" going on that's undermining that part of the dam and could lead to a collapse of that whole side of it. The dam being structurally sound doesn't mean a dam thing, if the emergency spillway erodes down to bedrock. My understanding is that that kind of breach would completely destroy property in a huge swathe from Oroville/Chico all the way down to Stockton, and take out a wide stretch to the sides. Which is where I live.

We were evacuated today at 5. Went to the in-laws ranch in the high country and hung there for about 5 hours. When we hit over 100 people, and I realized we didn't even have sleeping bags or blankets, I told my wife I was gonna make a run for home. The updates on the situation seem stable for now, and we have a good 5-6 hours of warning if anything bad happens at the spillway, so I had my wife and kids come home, too. I'm on fire watch tonight- watching news feeds and keeping the neighborhood looter free. They still haven't made the decision to lift the evacuation, but should be soon.

The storm coming in on Wednesday is now the huge worry. Especially with all the snowpack at elevation. 

 
You were evacuated but decided to go back home??
Yeah. My take is they made the order to evacuate thinking we were pretty close to a catastrophic event. Turns out, we weren't as close as originally thought. Which is good, because traffic getting out is still a cluster 5-6 hours later, and lots of people would have died. 

even if the spillway breaches massively, we have a good 5-6 hours to get out to higher ground. But it seems to be stable, now that they've run off enough water to lessen the pressure and stop the emergency spillway from flooding. I needed to grab more/better supplies than when we initially bugged out. 

 
Yeah. My take is they made the order to evacuate thinking we were pretty close to a catastrophic event. Turns out, we weren't as close as originally thought. Which is good, because traffic getting out is still a cluster 5-6 hours later, and lots of people would have died. 

even if the spillway breaches massively, we have a good 5-6 hours to get out to higher ground. But it seems to be stable, now that they've run off enough water to lessen the pressure and stop the emergency spillway from flooding. I needed to grab more/better supplies than when we initially bugged out. 
Be careful, man.  This could go either way but you sure as hell don't want to guess wrong here.

 
Yeah. My take is they made the order to evacuate thinking we were pretty close to a catastrophic event. Turns out, we weren't as close as originally thought. Which is good, because traffic getting out is still a cluster 5-6 hours later, and lots of people would have died. 

even if the spillway breaches massively, we have a good 5-6 hours to get out to higher ground. But it seems to be stable, now that they've run off enough water to lessen the pressure and stop the emergency spillway from flooding. I needed to grab more/better supplies than when we initially bugged out. 
I'm in Chico let me know if you need anything. Stay safe. 

 
Thanks, man. We're spending the night here and then figuring out what to do tomorrow. The ranch is fine in an emergency, but there ended up being over 100 people there. We put all the old and sick in the houses with blow up mattresses, and got food cooking for people, but places to sleep were limited to outside.

I got everybody out of the house in a half hour with about 3-4 days worth of clothes, a couple cases of water and some food, but no sleeping bags, tents, cooking gear. Hopefully, they re-open the bridges tomorrow, so I can take my wife and kids to her folks' house. Otherwise, at least we'll have camping gear and maybe take a trip further north to stay with friends up there.

 
Thanks, man. We're spending the night here and then figuring out what to do tomorrow. The ranch is fine in an emergency, but there ended up being over 100 people there. We put all the old and sick in the houses with blow up mattresses, and got food cooking for people, but places to sleep were limited to outside.

I got everybody out of the house in a half hour with about 3-4 days worth of clothes, a couple cases of water and some food, but no sleeping bags, tents, cooking gear. Hopefully, they re-open the bridges tomorrow, so I can take my wife and kids to her folks' house. Otherwise, at least we'll have camping gear and maybe take a trip further north to stay with friends up there.
Looking at your profile your also an Eagles fan. I should buy you a beer as well.

Go Eagles !!!

 
I just hope the down stream levees can handle everything.  All of my family is in Live Oak,  Yuba City,  and Wheatland.  

 
Thanks, man. We're spending the night here and then figuring out what to do tomorrow. The ranch is fine in an emergency, but there ended up being over 100 people there. We put all the old and sick in the houses with blow up mattresses, and got food cooking for people, but places to sleep were limited to outside.

I got everybody out of the house in a half hour with about 3-4 days worth of clothes, a couple cases of water and some food, but no sleeping bags, tents, cooking gear. Hopefully, they re-open the bridges tomorrow, so I can take my wife and kids to her folks' house. Otherwise, at least we'll have camping gear and maybe take a trip further north to stay with friends up there.
Please don't end up like the people in New Orleans who didn't evacuate. I'm not an expert, but that 5-6 hour timeframe you keep saying seems awfully optimistic to me. When dealing with the safety of me and my family, I think I'd err to the side of extreme caution in a situation like this.

 
On October 17, 2005 three environmental groups filed a motion with the federal government urging federal officials to require that the dam’s emergency spillway be armored with concrete, rather than remain as an earthen spillway. Federal and state officials said it was unnecessary and concerns were overblown

http://www.orovillemr.com/general-news/20170212/state-was-warned-about-inadequacy-of-emergency-spillway

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/12/oroville-dam-feds-and-state-officials-ignored-warnings-12-years-ago/

 
That first link gives a good idea of the scale.

So the main spillway has a section collapse, erodes a huge chunk of the hillside, they reduce the flow to slow the erosion down, but the dam backs up because there's still a lot of rain water and snow melt coming in, the auxiliary earthen spillway overflows and quickly erodes, threatening to collapse, so they fully open the main spillway and it seems to have stabilized things for now, but there's more rain coming later in the week.

Is that the full story?

 
Prosthetic are you saying you are 5-6 hours away from this and that the water will still get to you or that the water just moves that slowly. Trying to understand. Stay safe

 
I mapped some damn breach analysis data serveral years ago, and they likely warn/ evacuate more than necessary.  Just like hurricane evacuation zones, they would rather be safe than sorry.

 
Dinsy Ejotuz said:
That first link gives a good idea of the scale.

So the main spillway has a section collapse, erodes a huge chunk of the hillside, they reduce the flow to slow the erosion down, but the dam backs up because there's still a lot of rain water and snow melt coming in, the auxiliary earthen spillway overflows and quickly erodes, threatening to collapse, so they fully open the main spillway and it seems to have stabilized things for now, but there's more rain coming later in the week.

Is that the full story?
almost...the emergency spillway was working fine, but due to the lower flow in the main spillway (because of said damage) the damn dam filled up to the auxiliary which ties to the emergency.  So they are concerned that the auxiliary would erode the emergency spillway which if that happened I believe would be a sudden release of about 30 vertical feet of water.

yeap...30 vertical feet per this...

http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/article132332499.html

 
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Dinsy Ejotuz said:
That first link gives a good idea of the scale.

So the main spillway has a section collapse, erodes a huge chunk of the hillside, they reduce the flow to slow the erosion down, but the dam backs up because there's still a lot of rain water and snow melt coming in, the auxiliary earthen spillway overflows and quickly erodes, threatening to collapse, so they fully open the main spillway and it seems to have stabilized things for now, but there's more rain coming later in the week.

Is that the full story?
That's what I'm getting from it.

 
almost...the emergency spillway was working fine, but due to the lower flow in the main spillway (because of said damage) the damn dam filled up to the auxiliary which ties to the emergency.  So they are concerned that the auxiliary would erode the emergency.
Pretty sure that there are only 2 spillways. The auxillary and emergency are the same spillway. The state just stopped calling it the emergency spillway to try to downplay what is going on.

 
Out of curiosity, why do they let people into areas that are supposed to be evacuated? Seems odd that you can go back. Obviously for safety, but also looters as was mentioned.

 
The initial videos of this are pretty impressive.  Hopefully there are some courageous drone pilots that will catch some good footage.

 
The initial videos of this are pretty impressive.  Hopefully there are some courageous drone pilots that will catch some good footage.
Here's the link to some official drone footage a day ago.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3O3y-sNz04

It first starts out panning toward the emergency (auxiliary) spillway which had never been used before.  After taking a fly-by near the top of the main spillway (the huge breach in that one is about halfway down...not seen in this video, though here is a pic from a few days ago..a lot more damage has taken place since then: http://hips.htvapps.com/htv-prod-media.s3.amazonaws.com/images/oroville-dam-spillway-jpg-1486575369.jpg) it comes back to emergency spillway.  If you look in the foreground of that footage you can see a large boil (kind of like a whirlpool) that is emerging a little further down the hillside.  This reveals just how compromised this hillside is.  I guess a lot of further damage is at the base of that concrete 'lip' of the emergency spillway which rises 30 ft above the hillside.  That's why they talk of a 30 ft wall of water if that emergency spillway were to give way.  The huge main dam is on the other side of the large ridge of the main spillway (though that is getting mega cut into right now by 50K to 100K cfs pouring down that damaged spillway :unsure: ).  That main dam does not appear to be under any danger at this point.  So their biggest concern is the emergency spillway (30 ft height) giving way....then the damage to the main spillway which has been taking a mega beating along with the ridge next to it.  Hopefully they can really get down that pool (and thus the pressure on emergency spillway) before the next midweek rain which looks significant. 

 
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They're working to shore up the damaged auxillary spillway this morning, then trying to assess the damage to the main spillway.  They've upped the output to 100,000 cfs, which is more than double what was coming out, and the lake level has dropped 4' since yesterday.

The real issue, as the above video touches on, is that Oroville is already basically at capacity and there is so much more water on the way - huge snowpack in the sierras this year, and in the short term a potential of another 10"-12" of rain in the next 10 days or so in that area.

 

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