Posted on 02/13/2017 10:20:19 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
UPDATE: Drone video over spillway added.
Collapse of emergency spillway expected, evacuation ordered
Department of Water Resources officials say they expect the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam to fail, and say residents should evacuate northward.
The emergency spillway suffered erosion and could fail, according to DWR. If that happens, the water behind that barrier will comedown the hill and down the river.
Flow through the broken main spillway was increased to 100,000 cubic feet per second in an effort to lower the water level in the lake more rapidly.
The Butte County Sheriff’s Office reports helicopters will be depositing rock-filled containers to strengthen the potential failure point.
Bud Englund, a public information officer for the incident, said downtown Oroville and low-lying areas, including residents along the Feather River from Oroville to Gridley, are being evacuated.
Reporter Andre Byik said Caltrans and the California Highway Patrol have converted the southbound lanes of Highway 70 into northbound lanes to expedite the evacuation. Traffic there is still nearly gridlocked.
An evacuation center has been set up at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds in Chico. Black Butte Lake west of Orland has also opened up the Buckhorn Campground to evacuees.
Emergency operations centers as far south of Sacramento have been notified, Englund said.
Evacuation orders have also been made in Yuba and Sutter counties.
From ChicoER.com
My local newspaper publishes a scathing editorial of DWR idiocy and mismanagement
Live video here: https://www.facebook.com/KCRA3/videos/10155026580966514/
UPDATE: DWR issued this statement.n their track record so far…not sure its all that reassuring.
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Earlier today, before erosion of the emergency spillway began
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Earlier today, before erosion of the emergency spillway began
OROVILLE DAM, Calif. – The Department of Water Resources has provided an explanation as to why the mandatory immediate evacuations in Oroville and areas downstream are occurring. The concern is that erosion at the head of the emergency/auxiliary spillway issued evacuation orders for residents. The concern is that erosion at the head of the emergency spillway threatens to undermine the concrete weir and allow large, uncontrolled releases of water from Lake Oroville. Those potential flows could exceed the capacity of downstream channels.
To avert more erosion at the top of the emergency/auxiliary spillway, DWR doubled the flow down its main spillway from 55,000 cubic feet per second (CFS) to 100,000 cfs. The next several hours will be crucial in determining whether the concrete structure at the head of the auxiliary spillway remains intact and prevents larger, uncontrolled flows.
Current flows are contained with downstream channels.
Flow over the auxiliary spillway weir began Saturday morning and has slowed considerably. DWR officials expect that flow to stop entirely soon, according to a press release sent at 6:11 P.M. Sunday. This would reduce the erosion on the downstream side of the structure.
DWR officials stress that Oroville Dam itself is sound and is a separate structure from the emergency/auxiliary spillway.
Source: http://www.water.ca.gov/news/newsreleases/2017/021217-pm_release_oroville_evacuation.pdf
UPDATE: Live view from the State Emergency Operations Center
Might be a bit new here.
Rebuild the spillway this summer.
Oroville dam spillway expected to collapse (Photos and video )
Thank you for the ping, Lucy.
Praying for all who are affected.
Here is a link to the long ongoing thread with many photos...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3524221/posts
I should steal your tag line...
I love my Desktop for so many reasons..
The Main spillway has problems too...
AI is still, apparently, really stupood...
Its monday night and the lake level is almost 8 feet below the emergency spillway, today they dropped riprap and pumped grout into a fissure gouged out by the water, a fissure nobody is talking about. Its stable for now, they cannot use the emergency again and are calling it the auxiliary instead. They cannot prep it enough to use again. Total design failure even at a 5% release rate.
36 hours is the current estimated time left, it’s literally dammed if they do, dammed if they don’t.
Main spillway is at 100,000 cubic feet per second, undamaged it can go more than twice that rate but will flood downstream.
Really depends on the next storm, final solution is they must drain lake low enough so that even with the spring melt they won’t need to use the main spillway which may take six months to rebuild if they went all out. But they also need to get the pennstock valves open at the powerhouse, its flooded.Must get wster below main spillway gates.
I envy the guys sitting across the dam doing live streaming.
Alot of us feel that way...
Guess the SF TV station decided to let fewer people see the drone video.
Thanks.
What is the Pennstock and where is the powerhouse? Do you work there?
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This is worth reading - a summation by a dam engineer:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/oroville-dam-failure-scott-cahil
Here is another video showing the main spillway with the dam in the background.
Here is another video showing the main spillway with the dam in the background.
If these jerks want to stop erosion, ask the Pentagon if CA can have a few hundred 40 ton mothballed tanks. Sikorsky twin rotor choppers can drop them inthe giant hole.
Unconfirmed:
This comment is from arfcom’s ProFryan, who was live streaming on Periscope from the dam over the weekend.
2/14/2017 12:02:24 AM EST
All right, I just got home. Where are we at?
Clearly O town is f***ed. The latest pictures show the cracks right beneath the Espill are the deathblow. Anyone with half a brain knows that it’s not Fill it’s decomposed granite or who knows what that’s just rock sitting on top of a rock.
( The word from the people working on it who are not allowed to talk publicly is there are seven monster cracks beneath the emergency spillway )
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