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 ...
Right now it looks like nobody knows when the thousands of people will be able to return toothier homes. Returning to their jobs is also a huge issue for many, their employers being located in the evacuated zone. The inexcusable failure of Moonbeam to spend a piddling $100 million on maintaining that dam is going to cost billions now that repair is far more difficult than it would have been during the drought. Good God, weather's cyclical and has been since the time of Noah, with droughts being followed by floods and floods followed by droughts. Moonbeam never even thought of that.
DEMOCRATS: Always the keys to destruction, hopelessness and mayhem that CA voters just can’t get enough of.
It’s confusing because much of the media is referring to the “main” concrete flume spillway as the “emergency” spillway.
But as I understand it, there is another earthen spillway running roughly parallel to the main concrete one. I guess that one is higher than the main concrete one. I would assume that one would be the emergency or auxiliary one, but the media makes it really confusing.
In high school one of my summer jobs was mowing grass. I used mow a neighbors yard who was an FBI agent. He retired later and stayed put. I grew up and saw him whenever I visited my folks. He was always very friendly and we talked quite a bit. When on leave from the military I would come and chat.
If I was transferring he would ask questions about my plans for moving and where I thought about living. He gave me great advice concerning choosing a location. Checking stats like NOAA, NWS, statistics like crime rates, demographics and many other resources I would never have considered at that point in time, had he not told me. And yes I always checked flood plains, checked with my insurance to see what info they could provide etc... I never picked a spot based on feel or intuition; I learned to trust in, and to be always guided by facts and trusted data.
The facts are out there. People need to take a lot of info into consideration before they choose a place or neighborhood and here - in this sleepy hollow located in California is an example of choosing wisely.
In the long run it doesn’t matter who is to blame for lack of upkeep or whatever the reason. The facts remains that it would (and did) fail indeed. Just like New Orleans is doomed to fail (witness Katrina), and will inevitably, over time fail again! Physics and hydraulics (at el) demand that it should be so.
Thanks
Mainly because they didn’t prepare and self evacuate when the spillway first was overflowing the way that it did. Smart people got out early
Jerry Brown’s fault.
I agree that most of the writing has been rather poor. You are right that the main spillway (concrete lined) is lower than the emergency one. The main one has the gates that can be opened and throttled to control outlet flow. The emergency weir just does what it does when the water overflows the top. I’m amazed that the emergency spillway just flows over earth! That’s what the environmentalists were complaining about a decade ago — that too much dirt would be washed into the river if it were used.
Thanks for clearing that up.
So the only flow mechanism is on the main spillway. I read that they had to cut the flow on the main spillway back to about half on Sunday because they feared it would be undermined. That sent much more flow over the auxiliary one and severe erosion of the hillside.
So the rush is to get the main spillway close to full capacity, so the level will not rise up to the auxiliary outlet.
I’m sure they have the brightest and best working on this, but they need help from Mother Nature.
Hopefully, they can get enough water out of the lake before the next rains hit. They were hoping to lower it 50 feet, but don’t know if they can make that in time.
Also, this is not the tallest dam, but the tallest earth filled dam. Lou Dobbs made this same error last evening.
Remember, journalist don’t study science and putting a differential equation in front of them could cause panic. Several years ago, I saw a study that journalist and elementary teachers had the lowest GRE scores for graduate schools and from most of the writing, I agree.
Here in the south SF Bay Area, the weather forecast for Thurs shows 100% rain probability. I don’t think I’ve ever seen 100% two days out.
Two years ago during the drought this spillway could have been easily repaired.....elevated trains were the priority...Democrats go figure!!!
One of the reasons they are having problems with the emergency spillway is that the state did not follow design standards and keep the plain underneath the spillway covered in grass. The trees and other growth took root in the ground, and allowed the water to erode the hillside more rapidly than it would have otherwise. (There should have been more rocks and breakwater placed directly underneath the spillway, but under the design standards of the time, those weren't necessarily essential.)
The biggest concern (to me) is water overtopping the dam itself, if both spillways (maximum possible output is about 400,000 cfs) can't cope with the amount of water being brought in by the storm. The entire thing will fail if that happens, a disaster of unimaginable proportions!
All spelled out in plain writing 35 years ago, for those that bothered to read ahead.
FDR was (later) reamed for taking people out of their houses and putting them in camps.
Jerry Brown and his State of California predecessors deserve some of the same.
From 2009 incident. Hope the river valves hold up...http://www.chicoer.com/article/zz/20100223/NEWS/100227917
The auxiliary spillway has been quoted as able to handle 250,000 cfs; but, was only diverting 5% of that amount when severe erosion threatened it’s destruction.
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