If the spillway fails won’t that fail the rest of the dam?
Its an earthen dam. You come to your own conclusions. And I aint saying that to be a smart ass.
210,000 acre feet of water..
Sacramento has large amounts of its urban area BELOW levies that hold back the river that this water will flow through.
If the dam breaches, there isnt gonna be a good time to be had from that dam all the way to the ocean.
There's a good chance that it won't - the concrete main spillway is between the structure at risk and the main dam. It may depend on whether the water goes straight down to the river, or cuts over to the area that's been dug out by the failure of the main spillway runoff, and then eats back uphill toward the dam.
But it really won't matter if the main dam is still standing if a 700 foot wall of water finds another path to the downstream areas.
To make a long story short, “I don’t think so”.
See photos here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3523218/posts
The spillway is not on the main body of the dam; it goes over an abutting geological formation, which appears to be a few feet of dirt over bedrock.
But then, I didn’t even stay at a Holiday Inn last night.