OROVILLE DAM in California

[Wayne M.]

Not on the news, I saw this on Twitter while the Grammys were at the center of the universe.

This is serious where the dam and spillway are about to fail.

I hope anyone in TDR land is safe from this.

A link to a good blog to bring you up to speed--
http://geotripper.blogspot.com/2017/02/liveblogging-deluge-reflections-on.html?m=1

Prayers to those affected.

 

[BIGNASTY]

Not a Great loss it's just like flushing the toilet to get rid of all the WASTE thats collected. California's not what it once was. NOT EVEN CLOSE!!

 

[JR]

A Dam operator - that is a job you can have.

I bet those boys are chewing their finger nails to the bone right now.

 

[ScottLewis]

Thanks Big. Not all of us are liberal wastes of oxygen! The area affected is primarily occupied by conservatives. Sad when anyone makes light of someone else's tragedy.
Primary urgency is passed but 188K people (per local paper) remain evacuated until officials are confident crisis is over. More storms are predicted later this week.

The blog mentioned above is an excellent summary of events and is pretty much up to date.

 

[Deleted member 995608]

All of my family is displaced right now. I have relatives living From Chico, all the way south to Yuba City along the Feather River. I was just able to make contact with my mom this morning. She lives at 2200' but was in town picking groceries, and left her cell phone at her home.

Their are rumors that boils are starting to develop near the base of the earthen portion of the actual dam. I truly hope not. If the dam were to collapse, literally 1000's of people would be swept away. It's a very daunting thought.

The water level is just a few feet from the top of the emergency spillway, which is the area of concern. They want it at 50' below. To get to those levels, an enormous amount of water is being let go from Oroville, which is causing the Feather River downstream to rise and swell, increasing the risk of severe flooding.

Some of you may remember the levee failures of 1986 and 1997 here in Ca. Those were awful times for us.

 

[fest3er]

"We have chosen to allow our population to grow beyond the capacity of our landscape to support us" ??

Straw man.

How, exactly, does population growth cause failures to properly construct and maintain infrastructure? If the spillways could not handle the overflow, then either the engineers failed to properly design them (including design to withstand earthquakes), the project managers failed to properly manage construction of the dam and spillways, or the government allowed a grossly underfunded dam construction project to proceed. Increase in population had nothing to do with these failures.

 

[RVTRKN]

God willing, all will be ok. Been there a few times in my life.

On the political side of it, if my large Commifornia taxes were actually spent properly, the Damn would have been better taken care of. As large as the lake is, just one foot of water would equal to a few hundred acre cubic feet of water. What a waist of water now if they drain it to 50' feet below current level.

 

[jgillott]

A large number of my family lives in the El Dorado Hills area of CA. Not in the area of evacuation.

When I was out there in 2012, Folsom lake and other dams in the area were bone dry from the lack of rain. It's amazing how things change.

 

[RVTRKN]

Now the idiots will claim global wetting.

 

[Regcabguy]

Wishing ill on anyone regardless of political persuasion is just wrong.
Best of luck to those folks downstream.

 

[seafish]

Wishing ill on anyone regardless of political persuasion is just wrong.
Best of luck to those folks downstream.

Couldn't agree more!!! Thanks for posting this!!!

 

[BIGNASTY]

Thanks Big. Not all of us are liberal wastes of oxygen! The area affected is primarily occupied by conservatives. Sad when anyone makes light of someone else's tragedy.
Primary urgency is passed but 188K people (per local paper) remain evacuated until officials are confident crisis is over. More storms are predicted later this week.

The blog mentioned above is an excellent summary of events and is pretty much up to date.

We've recently returned from out of the Country. Its pretty sad that when the news reported on the US Election they would give a joking point of view from the ignorance of California's residents. Being a Citizen of the US it shamed not only our group but several others that WEREN'T from California. If being the Countries embarrassment is something to be proud of then California should STAND TALL.
This is JMO others being said are FAR WORSE!!

 

[Wayne M.]

Updates on this are spotty. Seems that things are holding out, and shoring up is taking place via helicopter drops.

 

[Deleted member 995608]

None of my relatives returned home today, and they don't when they will be able to get home. Some of the towns closer to Sacramento lowered the evac notice to voluntary. The Feather River down stream from Oroville is on the rise, so flood concerns and the chance of levee failures are increasing every hour. My family is displaced for the time being but they are okay and that's a good thing.

 

[NIsaacs]

I would not want to live down stream of any dam. I have seen first hand the damage that can occur when they fail. Rexburg, Idaho was 80% destroyed in 1976 when the Teton Dam failed on it's first fill.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teton_Dam

Nick

 

[Deleted member 995608]

^^^ It's a risk. Just like people that build next to river banks; it will flood at some point.

Here's a quote from another website I read:

(1)

When the South Fork Dam collapsed in 1889 it released 11,000 acre ft of water and wiped out Johnstown Pennsylvania 14 miles downstream, killing 2209 people.

When the St. Francis Dam in southern California collapsed in 1928 it released 38,168 acre ft, killing over 400 people, sending victims and debris into the Pacific Ocean 54 miles away.

The numbers at Oroville lake are truly impressive. Oroville dam impounds a whopping 3,537,577 acre ft of water. That's 32,159% more water than was released on Johnstown.

The Johnstown flood is just a drop in the bucket compared to a total collapse at Oroville.

3,537,577 acre ft is 154,096,856,340 cubic feet of water. If it took 10 hours for the lake to completely empty the lower feather river would average 4,280,468 CFS for 10 hours. The river is currently full at just 100 CFS. The enormous flood would scour the city of Oroville down to bedrock. Yuba City would be buried in sediment and debris. The delta, Sacramento, and Stockton would flood.

With more storms predicted and a huge spring snow melt there is no way they can shut down the spillway any time soon. I sure hope everything holds together until the inflow to the lake subsides.

(1) http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/index.php

 

[jgillott]

Johnstown is not far from me and I have visited the flood museum there many times. The destruction from that flood is beyond comprehension. I can't imagine what the scale would be if that would happen in California.

 

[Tractorat]

I just heard the evac order has been lifted.

 

[Deleted member 995608]

I just heard the evac order has been lifted.

Yep. It's good news. However there is a storm coming in over the next several days that's expected to drop 5-6" of rain, and the river below the dam are rising. No way are they in the clear......yet.

 

[The patriot]

One has to wonder why when they were in a 7 year drought, this has not been addressed sooner.