Oroville Dam Spillway in NorCal Failing (1 Viewer)

[Wooderson]

They definitely aren't in the clear yet.  Another week of rain coming.  I'm a bit surprised they lifted the evacuation order.  Hopefully the work will hold.

Sun is out now but it rained today. It's going to be an interesting week. 

 

[Wooderson]

@ProstheticRGK where are you at, if you don't mind me asking.

Yeah I was in the area for both 1986 and 1997 events.  '86 was probably a little worse, considering the entire town of Linda took a bath from a levee failure on the Yuba River.  The Shanghai bend problem was before my time, in December, 1955, before Oroville Dam was built.  Pretty much all of Yuba City flooded on Christmas Eve that year.  My grandfather told me that he looked at it from the south, where hwy 113 crosses the Sutter Bypass.  It was flooded from there all the way to Yuba City (15 miles or so).  There are plenty of photos available in Google images of all of these events.

My wife's family is in Yuba City, my brother is in BFE south of there, and my mom is in Knights Landing.  I'm on the high ground in Woodland.

He's by Yuba if I'm not mistaken. 

 

[ProstheticRGK]

@ProstheticRGK where are you at, if you don't mind me asking.

Yeah I was in the area for both 1986 and 1997 events.  '86 was probably a little worse, considering the entire town of Linda took a bath from a levee failure on the Yuba River.  The Shanghai bend problem was before my time, in December, 1955, before Oroville Dam was built.  Pretty much all of Yuba City flooded on Christmas Eve that year.  My grandfather told me that he looked at it from the south, where hwy 113 crosses the Sutter Bypass.  It was flooded from there all the way to Yuba City (15 miles or so).  There are plenty of photos available in Google images of all of these events.

My wife's family is in Yuba City, my brother is in BFE south of there, and my mom is in Knights Landing.  I'm on the high ground in Woodland.

We're in YC. my wife grew up here and Marysville. Family has property in Sutter and up in the Foothills around Browns Valley.

I've seen some of the pictures from those floods, and heard the stories about how bad it was. We almost bought a house in Plumas Lake, last year. Thank God we didn't. If there's any flooding, that place will be a swimming pool.

 

[FatMax]

They definitely aren't in the clear yet.  Another week of rain coming.  I'm a bit surprised they lifted the evacuation order.  Hopefully the work will hold.

Well, the order was issued when they feared failure of the secondary spillway at Oroville.  Now that those fears have been calmed, the only reason to keep the evacuation order would be because of high river levels and fear of levee failure.  The group of people affected by the spillway failure is A LOT higher than the group affected by potential levee problems.  But there is some overlap.  The city of Oroville is a good example.  They are just fine with high river levels.  Not so much walls of water.

 

[FatMax]

We almost bought a house in Plumas Lake, last year. Thank God we didn't. If there's any flooding, that place will be a swimming pool.

Every.  ####ing.  Time.

It was pretty surreal to see new homes constructed in a place where you would not have been safe, even on the roof of a two story house, less than ten years before.

 

[FatMax]

Here is this morning's National Weather Service forecast discussion for the Sacramento Area.

.EXTENDED DISCUSSION (Monday THROUGH Thursday) Models continue to trend stronger with the system forecast to move into NorCal Sunday night and Monday as it taps deeper moisture over the eastern Pacific. Both GEFS and recent operational runs of the GFS and ECMWF have been indicating that the deeper moisture is likely to reach further north with an 24-30 hour period of moderate to heavy precipitation possible across much of the region. Unfortunately, the focus of heaviest QPF is lining up on the northern Sierra north of Highway 50 up into the Feather River basin. Have boosted wind and QPF forecasts for Monday with 1-3 inches of rain possible in the valley and 3-10 inches of rain for the foothills and mountains. Snow levels forecast to briefly climb back into the 6000-8000 foot range as deeper moisture moves up from the southwest, but will return to around 4000-5000 feet by Monday night resulting in heavy snow across the higher elevations. Needless to say, impacts from the increased runoff, wind and heavy snow will be considerable.

Buckle up, guys.

 

[Beef Ravioli]

How are things going? 

 

[ProstheticRGK]

How are things going? 

Good, thanks. They've lowered the Oroville Dam down to almost 850' (from 907') so, there's lots of room for Lake Oroville to fill up without the Emergency Spillway being used. They've also decreased the amount of runoff from the main spillway, so they could do debris clean up in the emergency reservoir and decrease outflows to the Feather River. So, the dam seems safe.

bad news is that storm that was downgraded has picked up more moisture and is going to dump on the area. Most spots, the rivers are still below flood stage, but there's a lot of roads getting washed out. The levees are near flood stages in a couple of spots, and the biggest worry is whether they've all been designed/maintained well enough.

Still have all our stuff packed in case we need to bug out fast. And I'll probably send my wife and kids back up to her parents' house when I work again on Tuesday. But we're all hanging in.