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Post Info TOPIC: Holy cow - California's biggest damn is about to blow.
Lawyerlady


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Holy cow - California's biggest damn is about to blow.
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This is awful!  These people are running for their lives.  

 

At least 188,000 people were under evacuation orders Monday as crews raced against time to keep an emergency spillway at the country’s tallest dam from failing and potentially unleashing uncontrolled flood waters on towns below.

Lake Oroville, about 150 miles northeast of San Francisco, is one of the state’s largest man-made lakes. Sunday’s evacuation order came because of concerns the 770-foot-tall Oroville Dam’s emergency spillway could fail.

Hours later, hundreds of cars carrying panicked and angry people were sitting in gridlocked traffic.

"The police came and told us to evacuate," said Kaysi Levias who was with her husband, Greg, at a gas station as they attempted to flee.

Officials warned residents that the spillway could fail within an hour.

"I'm just shocked," Greg Levias said. "Pretty mad."

"Not giving us more warning," said Kaysi, finishing his sentence.

"We've never been through this before," said Kaysi Levias. "We have two boys and our dog. All the stuff we could fit in the trunk — clothes and blankets."

What they couldn't fit they piled as high as they could in their downstairs Yuba City apartment and joined the line of traffic attempting to leave the city where they had moved just three weeks ago.

“This is very serious” California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Scott McClean told the SF Gate as he was stuck in massive amounts of traffic. “I’m just trying to get through traffic.”

The cities of Oroville, Gridley, Live Oak, Marysville, Wheatland, Yuba City, Plumas Lake and Olivehurst were all under evacuation orders. The order was sent out at around 4 p.m. after engineers discovered a hole that was eroding near the top of the spillway.

The erosion at the head of the emergency spillway threatens to undermine the concrete weir and allow large, uncontrolled releases of water from Lake Oroville, the California Department of Water Resources said. Those potential flows could overwhelm the Feather River and other downstream waterways, channels and levees.

Unexpected erosion chewed through the main spillway earlier this week, sending chunks of concrete flying and creating a 200-foot-long, 30-foot-deep hole. Engineers don't know what caused the cave-in, but Chris Orrock, a spokesman for the state Department of Water Resources, said it appears the dam's main spillway has stopped crumbling even though it's being used for water releases.

Late Sunday, officials said the evacuation orders remained in place despite the fact water was no longer spilling over the eroded area.

Butte County Sheriff Koney Honea said engineers with the Department of Water Resources informed him shortly after 6 p.m. that the erosion was not advancing as fast as they thought.

"Unfortunately they couldn't advise me or tell me specifically how much time that would take so we had to make the very difficult and critical decision to initiate the evacuation of the Orville area and all locations south of that," he said. "We needed to get people moving quickly to save lives if the worst case scenario came into fruition."

Honea said there is a plan to plug the hole by using helicopters to drop rocks into the crevasse.

The California Department of Water Resources said it was releasing as much as 100,000 cubic feet per second from the main spillway to try to drain the lake.

Department of Water Resources spokesman Kevin Dossey told the Sacramento Bee the emergency spillway was rated to handle 250,000 cubic feet per second, but it began to show weakness Sunday at a small fraction of that. Flows through the spillway peaked at 12,600 cubic feet per second at 1 a.m. Sunday and were down to 8,000 cubic feet per second by midday.

Water began flowing over the emergency spillway at the dam on Saturday after heavy rainfall damaged the main spillway.

Northern California is set for another round of rain on Wednesday. The storms are expected to bring about 4 inches of rain to parts of the Central Valley, according to the SF Gate.

“We need to do everything we can to maximize our ability to move water our of this reservoir — not just for the coming storm but for the coming storms,” said Bill Croyle, acting director of department of water resources. “Our planning is both short term and long term.”



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LawyerLady

 

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Lawyerlady


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Video at link -

www.foxnews.com/us/2017/02/13/at-least-188000-urged-to-evacuate-as-concerns-over-california-dam-increase.html

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lilyofcourse


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Have heard my whole life that California was going to slide of into the ocean.

Seriously, though, this is scary.



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I saw this on the morning news.

How scary for all those people.

Fingers crossed that the damn holds.



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I was watching this yesterday on the news. I couldn't believe they didn't start evacuations sooner. This is awful.

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lilyofcourse


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I'm sorry, I shouldn't chuckle.

I'm wonder about this damn.

It's obviously a huge damn.

Damns don't get much bigger.

On the scale of damns, I'm thinking this is a damn of epic damnnation.

Biblical, even.

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Someone needs to stick their finger in it, stat!

But seriously, it is scary. And another storm is on its way.

You know, all this would have been avoided if they hadn't tried to save some useless fish. They created this drought by refusing to release the water to its residents over the last few years, then they get hit with rain (finally), and voila, a build up of pressure.

Idiots.

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have family in sacramento--it's not pretty near the dam--have been through a couple of floods since we moved here but nothing near as catastrophic as a dam failing altogether--the sheriff's department is in a tough spot--if they evacuate everyone and the the dam holds then they cried wolf--if they don't evacuate everyone, they're liable to the public for failing to give them adequate warning/protection--given that choice, would rather err on the side of caution--people might get pissed but they'd still be alive

if the dam fails altogether it's not going to matter much where you happen to be in the downstream floor of that valley--and if it fails, there's no stopping it



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FNW


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I have family in the area as well. And a friend nearby but he assures me he is on high ground.

Apparently the crack was found in 2013 and re-inspected in 2015 from the air. If they spent more on infrastructure rather than entitlements, this would not have occurred. If I were one of the evacuees I would be pist.

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FNW wrote:

I have family in the area as well. And a friend nearby but he assures me he is on high ground.

Apparently the crack was found in 2013 and re-inspected in 2015 from the air. If they spent more on infrastructure rather than entitlements, this would not have occurred. If I were one of the evacuees I would be pist.

 Word.



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Lawyerlady


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Hell, New Orleans all over again.

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FNW wrote:

Someone needs to stick their finger in it, stat!

But seriously, it is scary. And another storm is on its way.

You know, all this would have been avoided if they hadn't tried to save some useless fish. They created this drought by refusing to release the water to its residents over the last few years, then they get hit with rain (finally), and voila, a build up of pressure.

Idiots.

 But fish are people too!



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Lawyerlady


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Adam Housley reports from Yuba City, California



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Frozen Sucks!

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FNW wrote:

I have family in the area as well. And a friend nearby but he assures me he is on high ground.

Apparently the crack was found in 2013 and re-inspected in 2015 from the air. If they spent more on infrastructure rather than entitlements, this would not have occurred. If I were one of the evacuees I would be pist.

 I thought about this too.  They have ignored the infrastructure issues.  Maybe this will be the catalyst that moves CA toward fiscal conservatism.



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If they realize it. I'm chatting with my friend from law school who is an ADA in the area (and a conservative) who thinks it was an unforeseen act of nature. I did advise him about the previous inspections, and he had no idea....guess he doesn't read the Sacramento Bee. Anyway, he doesn't think it was as egregious as the San Berdo gas explosion awhile back...

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Lawyerlady


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If they are going to make a man made structure to go against nature, they should damn well take care of it properly.

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Well, it was my understanding that for several years they created an almost dire drought situation because some animal rights group put pressure on them to protect some little fish, a delta smelt, a fish that provided no benefit to the ecosytem, by cutting water exports from the delta (i.e., not releasing as much water from the dam). Wouldn't it seem that after a period of time, the build-up, even before the heavy rains, would cause a weakening in the structure, which was designed to permit a greater flow of water form the delta? Fast forward 3 years and we have an even greater buildup and what happens? This.

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Frozen Sucks!

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Building the dam for the reason of saving a fish contradicts mother nature. If the fish was being killed off naturally, we shouldn't interfere with nature, it has never worked out, Mother nature always wins.

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It wasn't built to save the fish, but the result of the dam has messed up the habitat. One such fish is at risk of extinction, and so they stopped releasing the water flow from the dam so that the fish would have more water than the citizens of California, to try to prevent extinction. Citizens went on a strict water conservation as a result of the state withholding the water for the benefit of this fish. They were prohibited from watering their yards, washing their cars, etc. It was horrible. I was there in October and never saw it so brown. And not just brown, but dead. Even the cacti was shriveled up and dying.

California has been under drought status since before I was born. I was raised with a brick in the toilet tank (before they came out with toilets that have restrictors built in), told not to flush if you only went pee, water during certain hours when evaporation was less likely, install a drip sprinkler system, turn shower off when lathering up, turn water off when washing dishes, etc. Water conservation was ingrained in me all my life. That is a way of life for Californians. But water was available. Until they decided to protect the smelt.



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This is scary, and the fact that it was likely preventable is sad. I hope there's no injuries or loss of life over this.

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Lawyerlady


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Crikeys - they have no idea why the damn is failing. It's failing b/c you can't stop mother nature. I just love it that the state so gung ho on Global Warming and it's impact can't figure out that you can't control mother nature. Morons.

And suddenly, the California governor is all about working with Washington. I think Trump should help the people displaced directly, and tell the governor of California to clean up his own mess.

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Hundreds of thousands in northern California could be displaced for weeks as emergency crews work Tuesday to stabilize an eroded section of spillway of the United States' largest dam to prevent a catastrophic flood in the area.

There was very little authorities could tell the public, Bill Croyle, the state acting director of water resources, said.


“I’m not sure anything went wrong,” he said. “That system has been installed since the early 1960s. It’s been monitored, but I’m not sure what caused the damage itself. It’s designed for higher flows. Lower flows can create more energy. We don’t completely understand why this erosion occurred.”

It could be at least 15 days before the agency is even able to put together a plan to make repairs, he said. In total, about 200,000 may be displaced.

Authorities fear the damaged spillway at Lake Oroville, which is about 80 miles north of Sacramento, could fail devastate the surrounding area.


"Never in our lives did we think anything like this would have happened," said Brannan Ramirez, who lives in Oroville, a town of about 16,000.

The dam, which stands at 770 feet at its highest point, is the nation's tallest.

Local businesses, including one that sells supplies for gold-panning, dominate a downtown area that spans several blocks. A wide range of chain stores sit a short distance away along the main highway.

Cities and towns further down the Feather River also are in danger.


Yuba City, population 65,000, is the biggest city evacuated. The city has the largest dried-fruit processing plant in the world and one of the largest populations of Sikhs outside of India.

The region is largely rural and its politics dominated by rice growers and other agricultural interests, including orchard operators. The region is dogged by the high unemployment rates endemic to farming communities. There are large pockets of poverty and swaths of sparsely populated forests, popular with anglers, campers and backpackers.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is providing around 150,000 bottles of water, 20,000 blankets and 10,000 cots to help out the residents affected by the evacuation, USA Today reported.

Gov. Jerry Brown said Monday that he sent a letter to the White House requesting direct federal assistance in the emergency, though some federal agencies have been helping already.

Brown has had harsh words for President Trump, and the state has vowed to resist many of his administration's efforts.

But the governor said at a news conference that he's "sure that California and Washington will work in a constructive way. That's my attitude. There will be different points of view, but we're all one America."

The governor said he doesn't plan to go to Oroville and distract from efforts, but he tried to reassure evacuees.

"My message is that we're doing everything we can to get this dam in shape and they can return and they can live safely without fear," Brown said.



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Maybe Jerry shouldn't bite the hand that he is asking to feed him. First he wants to withdraw from the union, now he wants federal funds. Ironic.

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Frozen Sucks!

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So I hear that the structural engineers told the gov't 12 years ago the dam was failing. And CA accepted 100's of millions in TARP funding and did zilch about the dam. Brown should be strung up by is smelt loving toes.

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Give Me Grand's!

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California - land of the high and mighty, who are really dumb and stupid.

This really is their own fault.

Pun intended.

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LOL @ smelt loving toes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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