“Per @William Conelly
To all my friends, constituents, the truth about the Oroville Lake facility, if you live near the river or in any low lying areas take precautions move your equipment pick up your basements get some belongings together as there is no controlling of the emergency spill way. Period end of the BS being spread around. There is a good chance declining flows may help but why not be prepared. The out flow over the emergency spillway will be the total of the inflows into Lake Oroville. Again that total is dependant on weather conditions and precipitation. If the weather patterns change with colder conditions more snow or clearing skies we will be OK. But again it must be noted DWR screwed this up. They have lost the historic knowledge that Oroville Lake should be kept below the spillway most of the time as an event where warm rain falls on an above average snowpack may cause a need to use the spillway. It was not supposed to be used this often or so heavily depended upon. So they screwed the volume up to 70 thousand blew it up, then they claimed it was 50 thousand now even 35 thousand at least that is what Sacramento put out today.
So to recap the emergency spillway is going to release water in an UNCONTROLLED volume why take a chance get prepared. The season isn’t over yet neither is the regular spillway fixed and DWR is in charge.”
And Bill is right. Canyon Drive is down there along the river and with an uncontrolled spillage over the top, there is no way to predict outflow over the top. Those that live in the area SHOULD prepare in case things get sticky. That’s only prudent. Bill Connelly is Supervisor in this part of Butte County and he knows...The dam itself is not in danger of failing, but uncontrolled release COULD present problems. Bill’s advice is prudent for those homeowners living in the direct area. For someone like me, absolutely no danger whatsoever...we live on the other side of the dam.