Oroville, Ca, Under Evac Orders
 

The emergency spillway at the Oroville Dam is in danger of collapse tonight.

http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/cal...illway%2002-13

“It’s uncontrolled. It’s uncontrolled.”
5:30 p.m.
Fearing a gush from Lake Oroville if the emergency spillway collapses, officials are releasing as much as 100,000 cubic feet per second from the main, heavily damaged spillway in a frantic effort to drain the lake below where it spills out the emergency structure when the lake reaches maximum capacity, said Kevin Dossey, an engineer and Department of Water Resources spokesman.
The levee-line downstream channels in the Feather River could hold more than 150,000 cubic feet per second, said Maury Roos, a DWR hydrologist, but he said there’s a possibility that a levee could breach from the pressure.
Roos said that below where the Feather River merges with the Yuba River, levees are rated for a capacity of around 300,000 cfs.
When asked how much water could be released should the spillway collapse, DWR spokesman Chris Orrock said, “It’s uncontrolled. It’s uncontrolled.”
Dossey said the emergency spillway was rated to handle 250,000 cubic feet per second, but it began to show weakness Sunday at a small fraction of that. Flows through the spillway peaked at 12,600 cfs at 1 a.m. Sunday and were down to 8,000 cfs by midday.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/cal...#storylink=cpy

Seen this on the news. Man that looks bad!



Barney

The Sierra Nevada range is under mountains of snow like 180% of normal already and more coming this week. Took me 10.5 hours to drive to Tahoe on Friday that normally takes me 3.5hours.

Oroville is not that far and the last several days have been warm and thus accelerating snow melt not to mention the major rain storms that passed through last week.

Looks like I will have a long drive back tomorrow.

BBC just stated massive evacuations underway!


Prayers going out to all those effected.



Barney

I thought you wre having a drought and a water shortage out there?:confused:

A common misconception about a drought is they are always dry. During a drought there can be rains but of the deluge varieties. Not a slow soaker but more cats and dogs. Where run offs and floods are all to common.
This dam's spillway was damaged by the forces caused by the water flow.



Barney

Lakes and reservoirs were getting very low till last year. We had decent precipitation last year but being too warm snow was melting fast which then flows into creeks and rivers and out into the bay.

This year we are already at 180% precipitation and mountains of snow and relatively cold. And on top of the snow, we have had above average rainfall. The reservoirs are all full or nearly full. My backyard has already flooded twice although we have underground drainage since the rain is coming down faster than the drainage system can keep up.

So it's feast or famine. I believe the SoCal has not had the level of precipitation that NorCal has had, so Bob and Ice better behave. :)

The holding ponds in my neighborhood are filling up fast but the canal is still low.

Son went to mokelumne river yesterday and said it was muddy from the extra flow.

Several levees have broke and they are shoring things up with sand bags.