Agree Oroville was *this* close. But it seems the advantage they had was being able to get in there fairly soon and stop the potential catastrophe. Here, we have resources already strained, and it’s a question of how soon even emergency repairs can be made.
I didn’t see the time stamp on the video but it had to have been sometime around 2 pm. ( edst or ast, not sure). How much worse has it gotten in the last several hours I don’t know. I was interested to read the flash flood warning for the area is until 2 am. Not clear to me why they chose that time,but tthat’s it for npw.
Managers at Oroville re-opened the damaged spillway to take pressure off the emergency spillway, and they got away with it.
There’s nothing to be done at Guajataca. Inflow, outflow, and erosion are simply going to do as they will. They may have options upstream, but not locally, and the whole watershed is under pressure, limiting those options, if they exist.
The sun is pretty low in the video you linked. Eyeball squint estimate, 5-6 pm? Problem emerged at 2:30 pm edt, call it 3:30 local, as a guess.
Where the powerlines cross the spillway look to be remains of “dragon’s teeth.” Huge concrete blocks placed to break up and slow velocity of outflow.
A whole string of assumptions here...but...
In two hours, 30 to 40 percent of the horizontal spillway armor, above dragon’s teeth, washed away. Real problem potential, then, as of 8:30 pm EDT. Or,sooner, if an alternate channel develops. Or later, if increased flow velocity and overshoot slows head-cutting.
Variables yes. Options, few.