[refreshed]

I don’t know why the tree falling part made me laugh. I really like trees, but...

[deport]

Another thread, different source if anyone cares to read
the comments there on.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3523808/posts
BREAKING: Lake Oroville flowing over emergency spillway for
first time in dam’s history
71 comments

[gunsequalfreedom]

http://www.kcra.com/article/water-begins-to-spill-over-oroville-emergency-spillway/8732032

20 minutes of raw footage from helicopter over the emergency spillway.

[digger48]

IOWs, the emergency spillway is doing exactly what it was designed to do.

I’ve built scores of them, on a much much smaller scale.

The overflow is contained when the main outlet cannot handle the load.

[House Atreides]

Well, as the alarmists say, because of man-caused climate change California has moved into perpetual drought. So that’s fortunate or Lake Oroville would really be in trouble now. /sarc

[SamAdams76]

I better not hear anybody from California hollering about their “drought” for a while.

[jim_trent]

There are not supposed to be trees on emergency spillways. Not even bushes. They are supposed to be cut out each year. If not done, it can cause failure of the dam when water flows over it. Uprooting trees is not good on the side of a dam. It weakens them and uncovers a weak spot for the water to continue washing away. Sounds like someone was not doing the maintenance they should have done.

[upchuck]

From the end of the article:

Earlier this week, chunks of concrete flew off the nearly mile-long spillway, creating a 200-foot-long, 30-foot-deep hole. Engineers don't know what caused the cave-in that is expected to keep growing until it reaches bedrock.

Answer: union labor.

[glasseye]

There is something going on there.
There have been no aerial views of the dam since the emergency spillway opened.
They have ‘closed the airspace’ over the dam. You are not allowed to fly within 4 miles.
http://tfr.faa.gov/save_pages/...
I do not expect California to tell me the truth...but I do expect them to cover their asses.