Posted on 02/12/2017 9:36:04 PM PST by Kartographer
An immediate evacuation for Oroville and areas downstream has been ordered. Supervisor Bill Connelly said specifically people who live in Downtown Oroville, Thermalito, and Palermo. The Department of Water Resources said the the mandatory evacuation is now extending to the Sutter County line.
An evacuation center has been set up at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds in Chico. The Elks Lodge in Paradise is also opening their RV Park for free to evacuees. Space is limited in the RV Park.
Highway 99, leaving Oroville, has been shut down to all southbound traffic and all four lanes will be open to northbound traffic.
(Excerpt) Read more at krcrtv.com ...
I used to live near there and you will find to this day huge mounds of tailings where the gold miners used pipes coming down the mountains and with high pressure water literally washed away whole hillsides. Sure there is rock around the dam but its not solid rock like you have in Colorado. You get enough water pressure against it and it will erode, its also not hard rock either for the most part.
The power pant can only handle something like 10-12k cubic feet per second. The earthen dam core isn’t under threat. The spillway and the auxiliary spill area appear to be separated from the main body by significant bedrock.
This is the kind of problem we (Americans) used to kick ass on. If I had to manage this I’d take the current dry break and rip-rap and fast set shotcrete the hell out of both areas, even going so far as to lay a temporary rail spur in there to get in material. That would probably enable it to make it through successive storms, repeating after each until you got a long enough break
That you could rough form the spillway to receive backfill in the form of controlled density fill followed by forming the actual spillway up and casting it with a reinforced concrete that would attain at least 3500+ psi compressive strength in 5-7 days.
Realize though that their is a host of clowns whose bread and butter are going to come from thinking this to death, and feeing and studying the shit out of it, plus with that kind of water possibly offline the politicians get to keep riding the summer water restriction gravy train.
From watching and reading earlier this evening, seems like they—the authorities—did not take this seriously. They should have been warning people to get moving 24 hours ago, not last night.
Thanks. I’m trying to persuade a friend not to drive to Sacramento in the morning.
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BART could have been third rail electrified as was done in Europe. However, it was decided that BART should be one of a kind new, and so it remains today, much more expensive because it is all non-standard, and cannot handle grade crossings due to the third rail.
who decided to hold back the water
to endanger everyone?
National Guard activated
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/12/the-latest-officials-order-evacuation-near-california-dam/
OROVILLE, Calif. (AP) — The Latest on problems with an emergency spillway at the nation’s tallest dam (all times local):
11:50 p.m.
A California National Guard official says they will provide eight helicopters to assist with emergency spillway reconstruction at the nation’s tallest dam located about 150 miles northeast of San Francisco.
Adjunct General David S. Baldwin said at a news conference late Sunday that the helicopters will also be available for search and rescue Monday near the Oroville Dam.
He added that the California National Guard put out a notification to all 23,000 soldiers and airmen to be ready to deploy if needed.
Baldwin says the last time an alert like Sunday’s was issued for the entire California National Guard was the 1992 riots.
Evacuations for at least 188,000 people were ordered after officials warned the emergency spillway was in danger of failing and unleashing uncontrolled flood waters on towns below.
I have friends that were in Barstow driving to Redding last night, told them to get a couple jugs of extra gas at Buttonwillow plus food and drive nonstop, dont stop for nobody and take I5.
99 is crazy right now, everyone is heading to Sacramento.
Hopefully if they get fed dollars all that studying and feeing will be completed in 7 days or less- Trump effect
I’m not sure how any recent pol is responsible for this. This lake/dam/spillway has been in existence for over 30 years. This has never happened before. What should they have done differently (all the past governors) that would have prevented this?
This is the first I've heard that any maintenance was deferred. Do you have a link? What maintenance could they have done to prevent this?
emergency spillway, real close:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQkVr98xai0
Axen - there’s an old rail spur in place; can it be used?
“The tunnel is part of the Brad Freeman Trail that can be accessed from the end of Lakeland Blvd. From that trail head you can bike or walk the 3.5 miles through the tunnel and right on to the Oroville Dam Spillway area.”
http://djkuba.tripod.com/ODamTrainTunelWreck.html
If ameliorate means fix with my tax dollars then, ehhh NO.
Seems the generator drains are plugged with debris, the main spillway has a pothole the size of a football stadium, the emergency spillway is uncontrolled and eroding, and rain has been relentless. There is no good option.
Should this turn into a true catastrophe, I pray the president is fully prepared to get the necessary aide to the people IMMEDIATELY!! He promised he would be president to all the people and this means ALL of us.
If he or any of his people even attempt to play politics with something like this it will go very, very badly for him and the rest of us who so strongly support him.
Don’t forget the POS working on a way to blamer Trump if the dam blows.
California cannot be trusted with emergency money. They will use it to build a golden statue of Barack Obama instead. California does not need federal help...they have said so.
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