Looks like they’re getting a little rain at Oroville. Just checking the progress on the Dam Cam video page.
They’re making a nice clean cutoff on the upper spillway. They’ve made it completely across now, and are digging out the debris. Drilling for blasting continues on the lower section, and the concrete plant to the right (towards the dam side of the spillway) is taking shape.
Only until the spillway was cranked up to 100,000 cfs did these massive slab blocks disappear. That is the time that the curious "Large Block" appeared at the end of the Main Spillway Chute - lodged against one of the flip bucket Chute Blocks.
That key picture from the worker makes him a hero for capturing critical evidence. This points to a larger problem of "void filling" on a big scale. DWR may be facing a difficult position as they are expecting 75% of the repair funding from FEMA. But, under FEMA's rules, this funding can only be from designated "disasters". If determined that the spillway crisis was from "negligent maintenance and/or repair activity (incompetent)", then CA & DWR risk losing the FEMA funding.
**distance to blocks from camera shot plus the relevant size of the reference dimensions of the upper main spillway seams.
Fig 8. from article - original pic taken by worker & posted on social media - was fired over this. Yet provides the only huge critical evidence no other pictures captured.
Fig 2. from article
Fig 3. from article
Fig 4. from article