“Take a close look at this dam and you’ll see it’s a disaster just waiting to happen.”
What’s the current status of the Spillway? I hear there’s been heavy rains again.
The emergency spillway is broken - badly. However, they were able to short it up a bit and as long as it does not create more erosion behind the dam itself and around the edges it is likely to withstand the heavy rains they are seeing.
It will need big repairs this year, but long-term, the best solution would be to increase the reservoir capacity upstream. Just my .02 and yes, some may lose their homes/land in the process.
They are currently in a “Damned if you do and damned if you don’t” situation.
If they continued to use the spillway to prevent rising water from topping and breaching the earthen dam, erosion around the spillway will cause Oroville Dam to breach at the spillway, but if they shut down the spillway, water will top and breach the earthen dam.
The proper course of action is to evacuate downstream populations and hope the rain stops long enough for them to shut down the spillway and repair it.