Free Republic

The damaged California dam is in the spotlight now, but it’s not alone among the facilities needing upgrades if more problems are to be avoided.How many U.S. dams are at risk of a crisis like the one currently unfolding in California, as officials work to stave off disaster at the compromised Oroville Dam? The short answer is, we don’t really know—but probably quite a few. Until this month, Oroville’s emergency spillway had never been used in its nearly 50-year history. After weeks of rain and a breach in the dam’s main spillway, officials turned to the auxiliary one to help...

Rising water filling up Santa Clara County's Anderson Reservoir, which was 99.3 percent full as of Wednesday, is expected to flow over the dam's spillway as a result of this week's impending storms. Unlike the potentially catastrophic situation with Lake Oroville's emergency spillway, the Anderson Reservoir's operational spillway is not at risk of failure, according to Santa Clara Valley Water District officials. Despite that good news, officials in Santa Clara County are warning residents living along Coyote Creek and near Kelley Park to be on the lookout for potential flooding. Water officials for the past month have been releasing water...

Millions Went To California Dam In Good Shape The Washington Free Beacon is reporting that of the $34 billion that the State of California received from Obama’s 2009 stimulus package, $0 went to the failing Oroville dam while millions went to a dam that was in ‘good shape’. From The Free Beacon: Despite more than a decade of warnings about Oroville, there is no public record of the country’s tallest dam receiving any of the more than $34 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act sent to California for infrastructure projects. Over $22 million in stimulus funds did go...

It rained through most of the night in the Oroville area. A storm passed over and is currently dumping rain in the foothills and mountains to the east of the lake. It's a warm storm and can be expected to trigger some snow melt and runoff. As of 5 a.m. the reservoir level stood at 870 feet, 30 feet below the lip of the emergency berm. Inflow from the storm should begin late today and max out over the weekend. It remains to be seen whether this will cause the lake to rise dangerously as releases continue at the maximum....

The 2009 stimulus package funded millions of dollars for safety improvements for a dam in California that was in “good shape,” but not to the Oroville Dam that is now on the verge of a spillway crisis. Nearly 200,000 residents north of Sacramento were ordered to evacuate after fears that erosion would cause the emergency spillway to fail, which would lead to “catastrophic flooding“ from a 30-foot wall of water. Despite more than a decade of warnings about Oroville, there is no public record of the country’s tallest dam receiving any of the more than $34 billion from the American...

We’ve already had two big events like this so far this year, now forecasts show a clear pattern of a heavily moisture laden “atmospheric river” taking aim directly onto the Oroville Dam watershed over the next week. Accumulated precipitation forecasts show that the Lake Orovile watershed will score a direct hit with the maximum amount of precipitation over the next 10 days (see graphic near bottom of this article). Meteorologist Paul Dorian of Vencore Weather writes: There have been many occasions in the past in which floods have followed droughts in California and this recent time period is yet another...

Oroville Crews worked into the night Wednesday to shore up the emergency spillway at troubled Oroville Dam, racing to fortify the structure before the next series of storms, the first of which was forecast to hit before midnight. Three storm systems will move into Northern California during the next six days, according to the National Weather Service. The first system will drop about an inch of rain in the Oroville area between 10 p.m. Wednesday and 4 p.m. Thursday. Greater amounts of precipitation will fall in the mountains northeast of the reservoir. Forecasters are confident that the first two storm...

In Oregon, seven dams have been deemed unsatisfactory - one in Josephine County, another in Curry County. Oregon Water Resources Department and Josephine County Parks say they know the McMullen Dam in Lake Selmac has problems. They have known for years. "With the parks budget being just over $1 million, the cost of the dam itself is going to come in between {$1 million and $3 million] dollars to improve it," Josephine County Parks manager Sarah Wright said. To get an 'unsatisfactory' result means the dam cannot contain or handle a moderate sized flood. At Lake Selmac, that's rare -...

Photo series with detailed explanations.

Empty buildings, empty streets, empty businesses. It's like a Hollywood ghost town movie set in Oroville, California due to the dam overflow.

California was granted emergency funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency Tuesday for both the situation at Lake Oroville and to help with the damage caused by the severe January storms.

Five separate videos shot by CA DWR as the emergency spillway becomes active (overtops) at 8:a.m. on Saturday morning through Sunday p.m., and work on Monday to drop rock to fill the erosion channels. Most videos are from drones and the relationship of the spillway to the main spillway on the right (direction southeast) and the parking lot on the left (direction northwest) can be easily seen. It appears that the fear of failure of the emergency spillway was two-fold with erosion moving back up to the narrow base of the spillway and possibly undercutting the concrete spillway, and the...

The Oroville Dam — at 770 feet, America’s tallest — is on the verge of failing. And Sacramento, which has been fiddling for decades while Rome burns, is running for cover. This isn’t just any dam; it’s the primary storage facility located on the Feather River for the State Water Project, the state-owned conveyance system that provides drinking water to more than two-thirds of California’s population. If the dam were to fail, it could inundate not only the city of Oroville but numerous other communities downstream, including Yuba City, Marysville and even West Sacramento. At the moment, the emergency spillway...

Authorities lifted mandatory evacuation orders Tuesday for communities below the Oroville Dam. At a news conference Tuesday afternoon, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea announced the order had been changed to an evacuation warning after he said the risk of flooding had been reduced. "We have concluded it is safe to reduce the emergency evacuation order to an evacuation warning"said Honea, who had made the initial call Sunday to evacuate a large swath of three counties below the imperiled dam. At the time, residents were told the spillway to the dam could collapse within an hour. Roadblocks on the two main...

Praise God and thank all you FReepers for your prayers and offers of assistance!

Footage of crews using helicopters yesterday to move large bags of rocks into Oroville emergency dam spillway.

The massive evacuation of the area surrounding California's Oroville Dam would not have been necessary if state officials had heeded the warnings of experts a decade ago. But defenders of Governor Brown claim that fixing the emergency spillway now threatening to collapse and cause catastrophic flooding was never a priority and that the massive rainfall that has led to the crisis could not have been foreseen. That may be true.  But it is also a fact that the state spent billions for the $100-billion high-speed rail system, and billions more were spent on caring for illegal aliens.  A tiny fraction...

Fast forward to about the 8:30 mark to hear the germination of the CYA seed that is sure to grow into a mighty oak. Disgraceful.

While more than 180,000 residents remain evacuated from their homes in Butte, Sutter and Yuba counties, there is no timetable as to when people can return home as water officials and engineers assess the damage and situation at the two damaged Oroville Dam spillways, the Butte County sheriff said Monday. As tensions remain high around the area, some good news came early Monday morning when water levels at Lake Oroville dropped below capacity, stopping water from spilling over the potentially hazardous emergency spillway. However, officials are still looking to lower the lake another 50 feet to less than 850 feet...

It was sudden, potentially deadly — and nothing any of the residents of a California valley town could have imagined. Nearly 200,000 people were told to grab what they could — now — and head for higher ground or face being swept away by a breach in the Oroville Dam, the nation’s tallest. Panic set in as the mass of northern Californians were forced to confront a threat of biblical proportions: a 30-foot wall of water that threatened to come crashing down on their homes. “Everyone was running around. It was pure chaos,” Oroville, Calif., resident Maggie Cabral told local...