Posted on 02/14/2017 5:14:04 AM PST by ColdOne
It was sudden, potentially deadly — and nothing any of the residents of a California valley town could have imagined.
Nearly 200,000 people were told to grab what they could — now — and head for higher ground or face being swept away by a breach in the Oroville Dam, the nation’s tallest.
Panic set in as the mass of northern Californians were forced to confront a threat of biblical proportions: a 30-foot wall of water that threatened to come crashing down on their homes.
“Everyone was running around. It was pure chaos,” Oroville, Calif., resident Maggie Cabral told local TV news station KFSN.
The ensuing exodus resembled a 1970s disaster movie.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Ah, the “chaos” buzzword with which to associate Trump.
Big Media sure is good with a “narrative”.
Even many HERE will believe everything they read, as long as it’s not DIRECTLY related to politics.
Moonbeams fault
Don’t imagine this has done much for the property values.
This is the fault of the politicians who believe in Global Warming and that these snow/rain levels would not happen for the next 30 years. Democrats thought those predictions were real and no need to worry about water structures.
Pray America woke
The result of poor allocation of resurces by the State of California.
If California state assemblymen and the various recent governors had not gone whoring after the phantom of a “bullet train”, and WASTED BILLIONS on the “train to nowhere”, there would have been funds aplenty to have done the necessary maintenance work on the Oroville dam YEARS ago. But of course dams are “bad”, in the eyes of the froot loops bat-guano crazy political majority in California now, and their destruction is but one of the many courses of action they deem to be “environmentally necessary”.
So how well is this self-destruction of the Oroville dam in any way less than an environmental disaster, by any measure?
Live by the politically correct, die by the politically correct.
It was not sudden, problems have been known for years and left unaddressed by the Democrat state government. As far as being unimaginable, what idiot thinks no one living below a 700 foot high earthen dam worried about it? Solid concrete dams less than half that height are pretty ominous looking, when viewed from downstream. The only thing they get right is the "potentially deadly" part.
Leftist are hard-wired to finger-point others at fault.
A really important issue here is that with any major evacuation (think Katrina), means of self defense, especially guns, are *vital*.
While these evacuees are mostly “honest people”, a lot of them are going to be ‘strapped’ for money and the essentials of life, wherever they have evacuated to. As soon as they leave, the clock is running.
An evacuation before a possible disaster is also a great time to evaluate the effectiveness of SHTF planning, so needs to be carefully watched to see what happens.
It is fortunate that the dam did not fail at that time.
I was watching the evacuation and could not believe the escape route was a bridge over the feather river, the river that that flood would follow. I saw a line of cars barely moving over that bridge.
If the dam had failed as warned (within the hour) thousands would have died trapped in their cars.
While the government has most blame for the chaos of the evacuation, those living in the area share the blame.
I actually saw a line at a gas station as people lined up to get gas. I could not believe how many people living in the shadow of a disaster would not keep their car topped off.
Personally I would have self evacuated when the water topped the emergency spillway. The people of Oroville were very lucky.
“Leftist are hard-wired to finger-point others at fault.”
In this instance, are the Leftist going to point at the Rove-Bush weather machine, or blame Trump because Nazis hate dams?
Of course, this makes no sense, but there you are.
The headline is incorrect. The dam was not breached. The dam itself is fine.
The main spillway sustained damage which they are attempting to repair before the next storm. Because of the damage to the main spillway, that spillway could not handle the PSI it was rated to handle. Water had to be diverted to the auxiliary spillway, which was not designed to handle what they sent to it, so that spillway was being eroded as well.
Add to that the fact that the turbines were plugged with debris so they had to be stopped. They’re cleaning them out to get them going again.
Reporting is so bad on this.
Citizens that wait to take action until told to do so by “Authorities” are doomed to live in chaos.
You're right. The dims bought into the global warming lie and believed that CA was in a permanent drought. Why fix a dam if the water level is going to be negligible forever? Idiots.
I recommend the book Johnstown Flood by McCullough. In the late 19th century, the elite had a private lake up in the Pennsylvania mountains. The dam breached and the story of the flood ensued. Great book.
Democrats were thinking, why do dam maintenance on one of the most dangerous dams in America? If the dam breaks all of a sudden, think of all the guns we’ll get rid of. Why, it’s better than registration and confiscation. And all those rich people who have been reveling in their white privilege... gone. Bonus, bonus! Getting rid of a million of them is just like bringing in two million illegal aliens!
Okay, okay, I’m just kidding - a little.
The problem is actually negligence. On DEC 8, the dam was only holding 1.5 million acre-feet. As of FEB 11, it was holding 3.57 million acre-feet, it’s full capacity. For two whole months, they watched it skyrocket, and did nothing about it. Had they been releasing water steadily since DEC 8, like everyone else has been, they would have no problem now. But now, even releasing everything at full capacity will not be enough to stay ahead of the volume that is coming, especially with the 6 days of rain that start in 2 days. That’s why the failure will begin at the auxiliary spillway, and not at the dam or the main spillway, (which are both being worked on at the moment, but will not be able to prevent the failure, even if they are both repaired and opened to full capacity by tomorrow).
Whether it’s a flood of water or a flood of illegals the state of Ca govt is incompetent at securing and maintaining safe borders of security.
If they survive. Let's hear it for the nanny state.
Note to the rest of the nation: Depend on government for your health and safety at your peril.
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