by Jack
Nobody could have foreseen that part of the spillway would wash out because of massive sink hole. That was 4 days ago and situation has grown steadily worse. The Water Resources folks at the tallest dam in North America have never had to rely on the emergency overflow system since the dam was built back in the 1960’s. Now they do and they’ve discovered some serious design flaws that could comprise it as well.
Despite the water flowing over the top of the dam, the volume is still manageable within the levee system that runs about 7 miles down to the City of Oroville. That’s right now, but what if the snow pack melts and the lake begins to fill again? What happens if we have more rain storms like we’ve had in the past few weeks? These are questions that nobody seem to have a clear answer for much less what happens if both events occur?
The washout of the main spillway and the damage ongoing to the emergency overflow have emergency services taking the unprecedented action of evacuating parts of the town immediately below the dam. Just now the order to evacuate Biggs, Gridley and parts of Marysville and Yuba City has just gone out. Those folks living above Gridley have been told to head north, the others will be heading south. This threatens to create a monument traffic jam, so any unnecessary trips that involve Hwy. 70, 99 or 162 is probably not a good idea at this time.
What is the probability that the emergency spillway will fail shortly? How much water could it release if it does fail? What will be the area of inundation (flooding) if 160k CFS of water suddenly enters the Feather River? There are a lot more questions than answers and that has added to the anxiety.
The Silver Dollar Fair Grounds has now been converted into a shelter for people leaving Oroville.
The good news is, at this moment (1937 hrs) the water going over the top of the emergency outlet is not increasing. The bad news is the water has just washed out the nearby scenic road that snakes through the valley just below the dam and that’s just the beginning of damage. We could be looking at $100 million or more in damage to the dam, if nothing else happens.
If you are living in this area, all I can say is good luck and I’ll keep you posted as best I can.
Helicopters are coming in non-stop. My firefighter son just contacted me and other members of the family to see if we could house firefighters being sent up here because all motels in the area are full.
“Nobody could have foreseen that part of the spillway would wash out because of massive sink hole.”
Perhaps, but there are going to be a LOT of questions about the photo in this article–
http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2017/02/10/maintenance-records-show-oroville-dam-spillway-previously-patched/
Some interesting observations here—
http://dailytimewaster.blogspot.com/2017/02/oroville-update.html#comment-form
Prayer sent for all those downstream.
I sure feel for the people affected by this. The rains aren’t over and the spring melt off is yet to come. They could be displaced for some time. Let’s hope for clear answers and found money for repairs! Glad to see people are willing to evacuate.
It could be that this problem is something no one could have anticipated…anything is possible. But it is also possible that money that should have been spent on thorough maintenance was directed elsewhere.
The various departments of our state government should be made more accountable for their budgets. I’m to the point where I’d like it down to the penny!
RHT447, one comment echoes my thoughts, “If we had a governor that put as much into existing infrastructure as has been put into that stupid bullet train with a multi billion dollar overrun…”
The drought showed us that the important things that our governor and legislature should take care of take a back seat to fun stuff like the bullet train or the personal issues of special interest groups.
An elderly mother was just interviewed on KRCR who said she had to leave her wheelchair bound daughter at their home because they had no way to evacuate her. They called for transportation, but no one would help. Her son said they couldn’t afford a van.
Hope someone gets there ASAP and gets her out of there. She must be terrified all alone.
Glad to see I was wrong about the repairs, but still leaves the question about what did they do or more what didn’t they do?
Helicopters are still coming in all of the time.
The news coverage said the dam was inspected visually from a distance in 2013 and a crack was visible, but no repairs were made then or at any time since.
That dam was built in 1968. According to an interview I heard the plans were drawn up in the 50s and if built today would be very different.
The failures I heard were the erosion from the axillary spillway was working toward the maim spillway, which could cause structural damage to the dam and cause a catastrophic failure. The other is the 100 CFIs being released a second on the main spillway is eroding the hole even faster.
The helicopters flying into Chico airport will be dropping rocks into both erosion areas starting tomorrow. Hopefully, they’ll be done before the next storm comes in Wed.
Channel 7 has been providing constant coverage.
Mr. Jack and Mrs. Tina,
There have been problems with this dam(n) for many years. Maintenance has long been neglected.
Mr. Jack and Mrs. Tina, aren’t you glad that Brown stain in the governor’s office, Diddlyleon in the Senate and the rest of the Dimwitcrats have spent hundreds of billions on the bullet train to nowhere and global warming and other ‘sustainabilty’ non-sense and programs for illegal aliens over the years instead of maintenance on infrastructure???
These Dimwitcrats ought to pay complete Hell for their negligence and corruption!
Who will hold these criminal accountable???
Well Joe, thats just it, there will be no accountability and I think we all knew that, right? Of course, if the voters had any common sense these corrupt fat-cats would be out of Sacramento tomorrow, but they don’t. The liberals are under some kind of spell it seems, unable to form a single rational thought about their State government and so the stupid continues to be stuck.
What do you want to bet that we will find out at some future date that top democrats in Sacramento were asked to spend money on safety upgrades for this dam and they instead spent it on the bullet train or some other pet project? I’m not saying this is what happened, I am only saying if such a thing was discovered it would not surprise me one bit.
Gee guys, weren’t we told by the losers of the last election that only the voters in the blue areas count…and therefore, if they want a bullet train, instead of a reliable source of water for THEM, they should have it?
The left is a basket of deplorable children, irresponsible, bratty, and totally full of themselves!
I want to hear Moonbeam begging President Trump for federal funds while he tells them he’s still going to make Calif. a sanctuary state.
That should be a hoot!
He may get bullet trains financed by japan if he plays nice too.
Another crow to add to Moonbeams dinner plate.
After Insulting President, California Needs His Help:
“This is particularly interesting, as there has been a growing movement in California to leave the United States to avoid dealing with a Trump presidency. Governor Brown also made a series of comments in 2016 saying “If Trump were ever elected, we’d have to build a wall around California to defend ourselves from the rest of this country.” Apologies were later made for this comment, with Brown claiming it was a joke.
Also, the 9th circuit court, which blocked the President’s travel ban last week, putting the country at risk, is also located in California.
Governor Jerry Brown also recently made headlines when he announced that there was a prediction that California would have a $1.6 billion deficit by next summer – when just four years ago, upon election, Brown proudly stated that California’s budget was “balanced for the foreseeable future.”
http://reagancoalition.com/articles/2017/after-insulting-president-california-needs-his-help.html?utm_source=fnot2&utm_medium=facebook
$pending on Illegals and a train to nowhere results in no $$ for repairs.
I’d like to encourage the Demwits in the Legislature to stand before the waters and perform a “laying on of hands” in an effort to curtail the flow . . . . .
LOL, or maybe we just need to do a mass exorcism in Sacto at the State Capitol.
And another thing, Mr. Jack, the terrorists don’t need to raise a finger to destroy this state. The Dimwitcrats will do it for them and you know it. And with the Dimwitcrats corruption and incompetence can you imagine what a terrorist could do if a terrorist wanted?
I think you know the state of Jefferson is our only hope and it is fading fast.
You just be glad you’re not the State of Jefferson. Those Southern Californians who didn’t want to pay for mitigation WILL pay for the spillway rebuild.
It could’a been you left holding the fiscal bag.
To put this in some minor perspective, here we have a Government controlled ( I mention this for our government dependent posters) water release schedule.
So what were they thinking about, or do they think?. We currently have a heavy wet snow pack,( not unknown to even idiots) just waiting for a warm rain or weather to add to this issue.
Also we are still in a rainy season that is above normal levels, yet back in mid January when things were quite and a higher release could have been enacted they did nothing, and just let the reservoir rise, or is there also a drought of common sense and intelligence in government (rhetorical)
Now, those idiots that control the state policies that Joe mentions, who’s narrow perspective of actual needs of California. It is those same that have been so busy with anti-gun, high speed trains to nowhere, promoting sanctuary cities/state and fish over people, while handy-capping police and turning a blind political eye to violent protests and destruction of property built with taxes and totally ignoring it seems our aging infrastructure.
Yes Jack I hope the reality of damage that California’s current liberal establishment is causing sets in with voters and motivates voters to replace the elitist coastal dimwits in upcoming elections.
I also wonder if anyone in Sacramento’s majority recognizes the potential damage all that debris filled water is causing to bridge foundations, with that much rock, sand and dirt that water is like liquid sandpaper grinding away the bases of bridges along those waterways affected.
This is the tail end of a double whammy. At least some of the damage caused by recent drought conditions could have been avoided with an improved and repaired water system. Now we have flood conditions that will cause the types of damage you’ve described.
It would be nice if our liberal friends could learn a lesson about the value and purpose of government to do the things that people are unable to do themselves, like defense of the nation or massive water projects. Instead they focus on personal issues that, frankly, are better addressed at the local level or through our legal justice system or they focus on luxury goodies like the bullet train which, if we were flush and our infrastructure fully repaired might be defensible.
It’s worth remembering that all those dams in various rivers that the Environuts destroyed while claiming to “save the fish” also served as flood control.
Moonbeam can round up all of his Illegals and let THEM fix the dam!
Remember during Moonbeam’s State of the State speech/rant he attacked Trump and said if Trump wouldn’t pay for the environmental satellite then we would? I swear all progressive liberals are fiscal idiots.
Now, we find out that in 2005 the state was warned about Oroville’s exact possible disaster going on today. That old saying, “Pay me now or pay me later,” comes to mind. Will the loss of lives and property be worth the cost of what should have been spent when advised to do so?
Oroville Dam: Feds and state officials ignored warnings 12 years ago:
“More than a decade ago, federal and state officials and some of California’s largest water agencies rejected concerns that the massive earthen spillway at Oroville Dam — at risk of collapse Sunday night and prompting the evacuation of 185,000 people — could erode during heavy winter rains and cause a catastrophe.
Three environmental groups — the Friends of the River, the Sierra Club and the South Yuba Citizens League — filed a motion with the federal government on Oct. 17, 2005, as part of Oroville Dam’s relicensing process, urging federal officials to require that the dam’s emergency spillway be armored with concrete, rather than remain as an earthen hillside.
The groups filed the motion with FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. They said that the dam, built and owned by the state of California, and finished in 1968, did not meet modern safety standards because in the event of extreme rain and flooding, fast-rising water would overwhelm the main concrete spillway, then flow down the emergency spillway, and that could cause heavy erosion that would create flooding for communities downstream, but also could cause a failure, known as “loss of crest control.”
Continued…
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/12/oroville-dam-feds-and-state-officials-ignored-warnings-12-years-ago/
yak tak yak
in 2005 Liberal groups brought attention to the lack of a concrete spillway. They wanted it to be part of the relicensing process.
ya know ol Arnie was the gov .
Arnie called a special election costing taxpayers millions for a bunch of policies no one wanted instead.
So I guess ol Arnie is a hero eh?
You all moan groan and hate but never fix anything
Ya know Flint still pays high water bills and has no usable water ? Ya know that horrible liberal Gov R Snyder is wonderful too Eh?
This was a Major issue in 2005 and I have a copy of the construction proposal. Where were you then? I remember fighting for the concrete spillway.
BTW look it up federal Regulators were contacted on this. Oh who was President then? And where is your congressman? I guess he is a Liberal eh?
While your at it dew drip. Look up the most recent elected who dismissed the need to do work on Oroville Dam, Here’s a clue:
FEDS, CA STATE OFFICIALS IGNORED OROVILLE DAM WARNINGS…While Obama, CA Gov Brown Obsessed Over Spending $15 BILLION To Dig Two Controversial Tunnels
It seems both parties might have blame for this one. However Obama and Brown who are the most recent involved, should be assigned more of the responsibility.
Don’t they have the shortest memories on this earth, though?
People … BushCo was dictating policy when the dam was being re-licensed, and BushCo was not going to require those Southern Californians to pay more for their water, just to mitigate some design defects … “that might not ever cause any trouble at all.”
Own it.
Excellent article today documenting the LACK of infrastructure responsibility.
http://www.breitbart.com/california/2017/02/13/jerry-brown-california-governor-legacy-dam-failure/
The Oroville dam spillway has reactivated an old 1974 bumper sticker when Moonbeam ran for governor the first time: “If It’s Brown, Then Flush It!”
J the bottom line when assessing responsibility for me is right there in your Breitbart article:
They do not serve the people. They serve their special interest groups and of course, themselves.
Good read forwarded by Doug LaMalfa.
The Oroville Dam disaster is yet another example of California’s decline:
“A year ago, politicians and experts were predicting a near-permanent statewide drought, a “new normal” desert climate. The most vivid example of how wrong they were is that California’s majestic Oroville Dam is currently in danger of spillway failure in a season of record snow and rainfall. That could spell catastrophe for thousands who live below it and for the state of California at large that depends on its stored water.
The poor condition of the dam is almost too good a metaphor for the condition of the state as a whole; its possible failure is a reflection of California’s civic decline.”
Continued…
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-hanson-oroville-20170214-story.html
Another good discussion here—
https://www.peakprosperity.com/podcast/107126/expert-what-need-know-about-oroville-dam-crisis
Also, check out the latest from Anthony Watts—
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02/15/super-soaker-atmospheric-river-taking-aim-on-beleaguered-orovilledam/