Emergency: California’s Oroville Dam Spillway Near Failure, Evacuations Ordered

Breitbart ^ | Feb 12, 2017 | Joel B. Pollak1

[tomkat]

 think    thing

dam

[WildHighlander57]

Many thanks for the list!

https://www.youtube.com/user/MegaEknight/feed?activity_view=3

This one shows the bottom of the main spillway, where it meets the river down a ways from the dam’s bottom outlet:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DnpezN_UU8I

Look for similar ones, to see if there is debris that would block the river flow from the dam itself.

[Mariner]

Thanks Daisy

This dam is doomed.

For any dam once you get water over the top or you have an undercut main spillway, it’s in a precarious place.

But this dam has both, and the emergency spillway is a joke of erosion. As is this engineering effort.

They cannot fix this monster soon enough. The dam hasn’t been touched in nearly 50 years. They didn’t even keep the emergency spillway clear and the main spillway has been damaged since 2013.

Their only hope is the rain is lighter and colder than now forecast. And that’s just to get through the next 10 days. There will be so many more close calls between now and June.

But one thing is certain, a sustained flow over the emergency spillway, or further damage to the main spillway will result in disaster. The water could cut the entire mountain in half.

[Ray76]

Good point!

[Mat_Helm]

"Perhaps would it be too politically charged if that work was done for a non safety related purpose?"

Point of fact the article is a lie. The valve was not being tested in 2009. Department of Fish & Game, and other fish and wildlife management agencies, that have way to much say and control under abused Endangered Species Act over reach, pressured DWR into opening the safety relieve valve in 2009 for cold water pool release from the lake for migrating fish on the Feather River. It was not a routine or functioning test for operations or dam safety or for any normal operating procedures for dam safety. It was a fish agency action 100% pure and simple. Nearly catastrophic what that article does not state is that the control room that was being flooded in seconds after the concrete wall gave way was the only place to shut the valve off. If the one of the injured workers had not managed to hit the emergency close switch for that valve they all would have drowned, the valve would have stayed open, the lake would have drained with no way to stop it. pure nuts and operational risk for fish in a non emergency situation. Time to end the madness of fish before people, buildings, cities, counties, farms, and the state keeps on electing left wing democrats and liberals letting our infrastructure crumble and letting morons run the show.

[janetjanet998]

new GFS model just in has 6-12 inches of precipitation over the DAM and its basin over the next week

[KC Burke]

I think that a media that ignored this coverup before will have local components that find the story too too too juicy to pass up now. What do you think?

[The Westerner]

Not good news. Saw a photo of the spillway in which the water between the dam and river is muddy brown.. Brown water is a bad sign.

[tomkat]

Even IF by some miracle it didn't get any worse:

200,000 evacuees, not knowing if everything they own will be washed away .. the amount of physical/financial/emotional stress this has already caused is incalculable.

[The Westerner]

Matt Helm, a great Ametican. Also Donald Hamilton. Imagine he would agree with your people before fish plan. I believe the impending disaster is the ultimate end of the New Left and environmentalism.

[maggief]

[MurrietaMadman]

What am I missing?

The link at #622

[Ray76]

Nice find!

[WildHighlander57]

tomkat,

yes, keepvid will save those vids.

go to the utube, copy n paste the url into the box next to the blue download button, click download, then when the vid name comes up, right click on MP4 and pick “save link as”; then when the popup window comes up, name the file & save it.

I got all thirtysomething files from this link.

https://www.youtube.com/user/MegaEknight/feed?activity_view=3

[TXnMA]

Thank you! My guess is that the hole (when the first helicopter arrived) was not full of water -- as you'd expect an ordinary mudhole to be. IOW, the water that ran into and formed that hole, drained out through its bottom or through adjoining cracks -- somewhere underground -- right?

The problem is -- wherever it went -- that "disappearing water" is BAD NEWS!

~~~~~~~~~

BTW, you confuse me: I don't see that hole as on the "water side" of the spillway. Until the lake overtops the spillway, that site should be on dry land -- and stay dry.

But, therein lies the problem: there are flaws in both the the spillway weir and road design.

[maggief]

Chatter of spillway and ES leaking.

https://m.facebook.com/groups/1177703145582317?view=permalink&id=1481432701876025

[TXnMA]

Thank you.

IIRC, I posted something similar (except from the other end) not long ago.

However, immediately behind this photographer, the large weir shown here ends abruptly -- only to be continued (at the same height) by a much smaller weir that is not much more than a curb...

[maggief]

Controlled blasts?

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/nc71105749#executive

1.0
4km NW of Oroville East, California
2017-02-14 10:56:01 (UTC)
-0.0 km
0.8
4km NNW of Oroville East, California
2017-02-14 10:39:52 (UTC)
1.6 km

[maggief]

http://www.kcra.com/article/majority-of-flood-control-reservoirs-in-norcal-are-above-90-full/8836132

Five of the nine flood control reservoirs in Northern and Central California are more than 90 percent of capacity, according to data from the California Department of Water Resources.

http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/reservoirs/RES

[maggief]

https://scontent-ord1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/fr/cp0/e15/q65/16665633_1304001899682517_6756007405011408620_o.jpg?efg=eyJpIjoidCJ9&oh=5a82e81fd979b5c10f57c75d0ff7f5ad&oe=593F74B7