BREAKING: Lake Oroville flowing over emergency spillway for first time in dam’s history

Sacramento Bee ^ | 02-11-2017 | Dale Kasler

[Kevin in California]

State water officials said water has begun flowing over the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam. Doug Carlson, a spokesman for the state Department of Water Resources, said water started topping over the auxiliary spillway shortly before 8 a.m. at a rate of between 5,000 and 10,000 cubic feet per second.

[vette6387]

Take a look at this:

http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/resDetailOrig.action?resid=ORO

Oroville, like virtually every other reservoir here in California is FULL, and yet I saw a headline on a paper here the other day stating “California Inches It’s Way Out of It’s Drought!”

Here is Folsom showing how they are releasing water to be pumped to Mexico City Del Norte (aka Los Angeles) http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/resDetailOrig.action?resid=FOL

[fella]

Trump’s fault

If he hadn’t of. . .

If only he had . . .

[PAR35]

The bridges would be what would worry me. That overflow spillway is going to probably pick up a lot of trees and debris. The first downstream bridge in Oroville looks like it will probably be OK. But those next two look lower and look like they might catch some debris. Hopefully the earthquake proofing will be of some help in withstanding additional pressure. And the three bridges in use there look to be fairly new.

[Gay State Conservative]

Haven't they gotten much more than the normal snowfall in the Sierras this winter? Don't know when the melt begins but the sun is much stronger in mid February.

[ExTexasRedhead]

Californians are being told that even though we’ve had tons of rain, CA still has to conserve water. The politicians in CA are Liberal wackjobs who have done “NOTHING” to build reservoirs to store the water. They let it run out to the ocean and then want the people of CA to suck it up with fees. In my opinion, they’re Liberal human debris committing theft 24/7.

[mad_as_he$$]

The Middle Fork got hammered Wednesday and Thursday. I hope all that water is down to the lake by now. Portola is a mess.

[Jack Hydrazine]

California’s Tallest Dam Overtopping, Spillway Fails from Sinkhole Damage, Possible Evacuation (307)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIQpbylBtbg

[Jack Hydrazine]

There’s a lot more rain on the way.

[LouAvul]

Not to worry. I saw in a related article that govt bureaucrats were working diligently to protect salmon from the debris. After all, in kommifornian politics, that’s all that matters.

[keat]

A debris boom on the upper arm of Lake Don Pedro preventing trees and dead wood , torn loose be the heavy flow in the Tuolumne River, from floating into the main part of the lake.

Boaters remain wary of collisions with "dead head" logs. Floating inches below the surface and weighing up to 800 pounds,these invisible hazards can destroy a boat at just about any speed.

Going up for a sail later today. Don Pedro is at 825' this morning, 5' from full.

1997 was epic when they miscalculated runoff, opened spillway gates and caused major flooding and damage.

[Black Agnes]

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/oroville-dam-failure-scott-cahill

Interesting article and comments.

[mad_as_he$$]

Take a chainsaw.

[factoryrat]

Nope, the california fish & wildlife found the high water snail darter river delta smelt coming over the spillway at Oroville dam. Therefore, DF&W has declared all land downriver as a sanctuary for the high water snail darter river delta smelt, and all human activity downstream must cease.

For the children. Think of the chilrun.

[null and void]

Nevada is nice.

[CIB-173RDABN]

I no longer trust anyone in Authority.

When this “emergency” started they assured everyone that the emergency spill way would not be needed. Now that the dam is overflowing the emergency spill way they assure us that we don’t have to worry about erosion, once the water works it way to bed rock all will be well.

They assure us that even with the water from the emergency spillway is no more than the river can handle.

In the late 1800s the miners used something called Hydraulic mining, that is water from high pressure hoses to wash away hill sides.

Water over the emergency spillway will do what the hydraulic miners did, wash away dirt.

It is currently not raining, but that does not mean the water stops. Snow will be melting. Often the biggest flood levels are days after the rain stops.

If I lived in the flood plains I would self evacuate the area.

[detsaoT]

Reposting for those who didn't see it yesterday - an engineer who studied Oroville Dam wrote the textbook on what could go wrong. Let's hope it doesn't!

[Cold War Veteran - Submarines]

Woohoo! I am sure that all of that water was channeled to the increased reservoir capacity that was built with all the water bonds approved since the last water shortage in the 80s. Oh wait. All that money (billions) resulted in exactly zero increase in reservoir capacity. Drought = natural occurrence. Water crisis= politician caused

[ctdonath2]

Time to set up some video cameras recording 24/7 just to catch the big moment as it happens.

[null and void]

They let it run out to the ocean

Point of order, they didn't LET it run to the ocean, they REQUIRED that it be allowed to flow freely to the ocean without being used by homeowners, industry, and farmers.

[lewislynn]

I remember traveling through the beautiful Feather River canyon several times in the late 50’s when I lived in Quincy. I even rode the (now famous) California Zephyr through there.