At 10:39 p.m., a massive landslide of about 260,000,000 cubic metres (340,000,000 cu yd) of forest, earth, and rock fell into the reservoir at up to 110 kilometres per hour (68 mph), completely filling the narrow reservoir behind the dam. The landslide was complete in just 45 seconds, much faster than predicted, and the resulting displacement of water caused 50,000,000 cubic metres (65,000,000 cu yd) of water to overtop the dam in a 250-metre (820 ft) high wave.[1][2]Hopefully, that won't happen here. Byrne's book was written with the local geography around Sacramento in mind, and described the result of a failure like this in pretty graphic detail. (He was an engineer by trade, and researched all of his books very thoroughly.)
(If I remember correctly, Oroville was one of the structures he studied when he was writing the book... I think it mentioned it in the appendix, if I’m not mistaken.)