Posted on 02/16/2017 1:09:19 PM PST by nickcarraway
Roughly 50,047 single- and multi-family residential homes could be damaged with an estimated reconstruction cost value of $13.3 billion if the Oroville Dam in California were to fail completely, according to new data analysis from CoreLogic that included the six primary counties in that area.
Fears of flooding from the nation’s tallest dam, which reaches 770 feet, prompted evacuation orders for nearly 200,000 people.
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Water from the storm-swollen lake behind the dam spilled down the unpaved slope over the weekend, eroding the slope to the point that authorities fearing a breach and ordered the evacuations.
On Monday the water level behind the dam fell. However, with more rain forecast area residents were being advised to stay out of their homes.
It was learned this week that environmental activists and local government officials warned more than a decade ago about the risk of catastrophic flooding below the dam.
This chart from data provider CoreLogic shows the number of homes along with the reconstruction value in Butte, Colusa, Glenn, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties in California that are at risk if the Oroville Dam were to fail.
CoreLogic’s reconstruction value reflects the cost to rebuild a property assuming 100 percent destruction.
Of the at-risk homes, only 12 percent are in a Special Flood Hazard Area as designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Homes with a mortgage identified as in an SFHA are required to carry flood insurance, but many homeowners do not carry flood insurance if they are not required to do so, according to CoreLogic.
This CoregLogic chart shows the number of homes along with the reconstruction value for the most at-risk cities that could be affected by the Oroville Dam’s failure.
The majority of homes at risk are between 20 and 60 miles from the dam, totaling 33,967 properties with an estimated reconstruction value of $9.8 billion.
There are another 16,080 homes at risk of damage less than 20 miles from the dam with an estimated reconstruction of $3.5 billion.
The analysis encompasses single-family residential structures and also includes mobile homes, duplexes, manufactured homes and cabins, among other non-traditional home types.
One of the reasons I left California years ago was because of the crumbling infrastructure. Bridges, roads, sewers, road etc. Many built in the 40’s and 50’s. You don’t just build things and then walk away for decades hoping they’ll keep on working. And the new construction built by the mexican labor force is a joke. They build things that start falling apart after a year. Imagine if the mexicans had built the dam
Do you really think the environmentalists wanted money spent on repairs to the dam? Or was it an excuse to get rid of the dam altogether?
Redirect the $10 BILLION wasted on the railway to nowhere, from nowhere.
The environazis warned about the threat to the damn fish who live in the river, certainly not the humans who live nearby.
The best estimates I've found of reservoir dewatering in that instance range from top 30' of the reservoir (901' elevation above sea level down to 871') to the top 100' (901' elevation down to 801'). The latter might entail release of as much as 1.2 million acre feet of the reservoir's 3.5 million acre feet of storage.
A release of the top 30' would probably be in the 400,000 - 500,000 acre foot range. The next big reservoir downstream from Oroville has a capacity of a million acre feet so its dam might be able to handle that if that reservoir is sufficiently emptied by then. But the intervening cities would be gone.
With a new storm arriving tomorrow and going on thru Sat., I’m concerned about the “fill” they have used [huge rocks]. I can just see a few of them plunging down the spill and wrecking a bunch of homes.
The way everything is falling apart in this State it would not surprise me in the least bit if the Dam suffers from a catastrophic failure this weekend.
Hell you need a 4 Wheel Drive to navigate most Freeways in SoCal
California might want to start reevaluating the “illegal alien” spending they are allowing before they have to file bankruptcy while fixing their infrastructure.
Imagine if the mexicans had built the dam
Mexican concrete is made of ground up taco shells mixed with salsa.
There is another storm hitting there today, and will run for as long as 10 days. With the amount of new water coming into the dam, less the outflow they currently are running, the water could rise to 13 feet HIGHER than the emergency overflow, which got the severe erosion. I don’t know how much higher the actual dam top is compared to the emergency overflow, but even if the main dam isn’t breached or topped over, 13 feet of water volume above the height of the emergency overflow would certainly be a disaster.
I don’t agree with telling people they can go back home. IF that amount of water fills Oroville Lake, the water coming down could overflow the roads & then how would the people escape?
I did learn that many large animals were taken to the Nevada County Fairgrounds in Grass Valley, about 40 miles east & UPHILL from the valley.
The most ironic part?
Calif politicians have been stealing water from farmers since 2001, when they shut off irrigation from the Klamath River over the salmon population. They shut off water to the Central Valley farmers over the Delta Smelt.
A couple of weeks ago, a Federal judge told the Farmers that THEIR WATER had been STOLEN by the state & that they were entitled to BILLION & BILLIONS of payment for all that water which was stolen, as the water really did belong to the farmers.
California overreached, and now they are in a bind. Some of the same kind of water taking is under politicians control in Nevada in the current legislature. They want to ‘curtail’ the amount of water a person can use out of their ‘domestic well’, which is attached to their property. We own 2 acre feet of water with each domestic well, and the state water master wants to ‘curtail’ that amount to only 1/2 acre foot—taking 75% of our water—which we own!!!
INFO: There are 325,851 gallons of water in an acre foot.
Acre foot==
1 acre of land (43,560 sq ft) covered 1 foot deep in water.
Metabunk is hoping that the durable bedrock's lowest point is at the 871 foot level. That would entail only a 30' drop in reservoir level and maybe 400,000 acre feet of water loss. The next big downstream dam might be able to handle that.
And the state's overall flood control system seems to be reaching capacity. An early warm storm in the Central or Northern Sierra could easily melt enough of the snow pack so fast that the system will collapse no matter what they do. I suspect there are contingency plans for voluntarily breaching levees in some areas, and letting the adjacent areas flood even if thousands of homes are lost, to save as much as possible of the rest.
I apologize. I hadn’t looked to the post you were responding to, and so just repeated it. I did not intend to be offensive.
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