Oroville dam within Quarter inch of overflowing over emergency spillway

Another update on FNC - Some homes are being looted, they said, that have been evacuated. Wow, some people!

Edited to add - news conference being aired now, from local authorities.

The spillway has never been used and was built in 1960. Wonderful. That design is a failure just looking at it. Flat concrete poured in thin flat tile sections that water can erode in and quickly rip out. That is exactly what happen. Concrete on video flying through the air LOL. Those are retainer walls? ROFL There is thicker concrete walls in a prison than those lol. It appears the walls are not buttressed to well either if at all. All I can say is when this calamity of crappy craftsmanship completely falls apart I hope all you got a row boat.

originally posted by: sean
The spillway has never been used and was built in 1960. Wonderful. That design is a failure just looking at it. Flat concrete poured in thin flat tile sections that water can erode in and quickly rip out. That is exactly what happen. Concrete on video flying through the air LOL. Those are retainer walls? ROFL There is thicker concrete walls in a prison than those lol. It appears the walls are not buttressed to well either if at all. All I can say is when this calamity of crappy craftsmanship completely falls apart I hope all you got a row boat.

The design issue is with the footing/foundation that gave way, leaving the spillway unsupported and leading to the partial collapse. Why it gave way is a bit more worrying.

If not for that, the spillway itself would have held and they could have cranked open the gates to match the inflow.

originally posted by: LadyGreenEyes
Another update on FNC - Some homes are being looted, they said, that have been evacuated. Wow, some people!

Edited to add - news conference being aired now, from local authorities.

Unbelievable.

200K people evacuated and there are looters in their homes?

If the Governor declares a state of emergency and sends the national guard in, I believe looters can be legally shot. I'm not certain, but I do know that the rules/laws are different when an official state of emergency exists.

If I was a homeowner, I'd get my family out, and then I'd go back with a .12 Gauge shotgun and .40 cal pistol with extended clip and protect my home.

And I'm not even a gun guy...but I do own both as they were given to me when my father passed away, and he taught me how to use them way back when I was a teenager.

The older I get, the smarter my father gets...

originally posted by: Riffrafter

originally posted by: LadyGreenEyes
Another update on FNC - Some homes are being looted, they said, that have been evacuated. Wow, some people!

Edited to add - news conference being aired now, from local authorities.

Unbelievable.

200K people evacuated and there are looters in their homes?

If the Governor declares a state of emergency and sends the national guard in, I believe looters can be legally shot. I'm not certain, but I do know that the rules/laws are different when an official state of emergency exists.

If I was a homeowner, I'd get my family out, and then I'd go back with a .12 Gauge shotgun and .40 cal pistol with extended clip and protect my home.

And I'm not even a gun guy...but I do own both as they were given to me when my father passed away.

They can legally shoot the looters if national Guard is called and a state of emergency declared.

I have a friend that does executive extractions in severe cases like these and was involved in two during Katrina in New Orleans. He was a contractor at the time and was given the go ahead to shoot then. He never had to as the looters were not life threatening and he used good judgement, but had the situation escalated I can assure you that he would have taken lethal action.

Sucks that people take advantage in a situation like this. Hopefully karma will rush through the area and wash them all away....

This link has live broadcasts as more information is coming in.

www.krcrtv.com...

a reply to: crappiekat
Thank you for the updated link Kat! This is so heartbreaking and scary!

a reply to: Martin75

www.dailymail.co.uk...

apparently 12 years ago it was brought up that fixing was needed to be done...federal and state officials rejected the concerns..... they never learn, do they (gonna be hell to pay) 23,000 national guards are ready to be deployed....the situation is a little better getting a break from the rain...but another storm will hit tomorrow.

dang looters...what is wrong with people

a reply to: Riffrafter

I can understand the sentiment, but it seems like a poor idea. Lets say there's merit to the evacuation and the dam bursts. Is it really worth dying so that you can say you stayed behind to protect your families stuff?

Insurance exists for a reason. If everything is fine, and you get looted you should have homeowners/renters insurance to cover it. If it gets flooded, your stuff (and your home) is going to be ruined anyways. In which case you're probably doomed because no one is going to give affordable flood insurance to someone on a floodplain.

a reply to: research100
I think there will be somebody who has some questions to answer! If this started in 2013 then why wasn't it corrected before it came to this?

Recently a photograph surfaced showing crews working on a crack in the same vicinity of the spillway in 2013. The State Division of Dam Safety reported that the last inspection was performed in 2015 and was reportedly "visual" and at "some distance."

KRCRTV
So who did this "visual" inspection?

I think we're going to see dollar signs all over this Snafu.$$$$$$

a reply to: corblimeyguvnor

To quote a friend (whose identity I will keep a secret), this is total bullsh*t

The US has known about problems with this dam for 12 years. It did nothing to fix it. Now, entire towns will be wiped out if this dam breaks. Eight days of rain are starting this week. The US has unlimited money to start nonsensical wars, buy trillion dollar military equipment, spend many billions in foreign aid, give all kinds of freebies to illegal aliens, etc. It's not a budget issue either as the US had no problem running up 20 trillion in debt. Any kind of spending is apparently OK unless it benefits ordinary Americans and then it's too expensive.

a reply to: Riffrafter

It's a mess, to be sure! Oddly, in the press conference, there was ambiguity on the looting. One statement made was that there was "no looting" in one town, but other statements made sounded as though there was some in other places. The talking heads definitely stated looting was occurring. With that many people being moved, I'd imagine there would be some. I don't think I'd stick around, though; have a bad feeling about that spillway, and think they will see a real problem soon.

Today's report isn't very clear - water down, but no repairs as of yet, and weather coming by Wednesday, so the people there won't be able to go home just yet! This I found interesting -

Department engineer and 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 after flows peaked at 12,600 cubic feet per second.

Seems the rating isn't what they thought it was!! Makes me wonder f the dam is, either.

It wasn’t long after water began flowing over the [emergency spillway, aka,] weir, however, that the emergency spillway revealed a major weakness: An area of earth downhill from the weir had begun to erode and was creeping uphill, closer to the concrete wall.

If enough earth washed away, the hole would undermine the wall and breach it, releasing a 30-foot-wall of water on the valley below.

In other words, millions of gallons of uncontrolled water would begin to pour down the Feather River, the largest tributary to California’s largest river, the Sacramento, overwhelming towns along its banks.
...
Fortunately, within about 90 minutes after state water officials decided to dramatically accelerate the draining of water through Lake Oroville’s damaged main spillway, the erosion on the emergency spillway slowed down.

By late Sunday night, the lake’s water level had fallen below the weir and was no longer flowing over the emergency spillway. The erosion had stopped.

LATimes.com, Feb. 13, 2017 - Here's the nightmare scenario at Oroville Dam that officials are fighting to prevent .

This is a pretty good write up in the LA Times. The water spilled over the emergency spillway, which is 30 feet (9.1 m) tall, and on the other side it began to dig away the foundation from the force of falling over the spillway. Had it done enough damage on the far side it would have toppled the emergency wall releasing all the water down stream. Glad there was no "worst case scenario"!

But the article only states that it did not have issues... this time. What happens when spring time comes?!?

Nice to see all the cooperation on this thread getting a comprehensive story out!

originally posted by: LadyGreenEyes
Seems the rating isn't what they thought it was!! Makes me wonder f the dam is, either.

Happy thought of the day: Every piece of infrastructure in the US can't perform at it's rating, due to poor maintenance, age, and corners cut when building it, plus a general sense among contractors that engineers are just overengineering and adding costs, and that they know better and can cut back because the chances of needing that rated capacity are low.

originally posted by: Aazadan
a reply to: Riffrafter

Insurance exists for a reason. If everything is fine, and you get looted you should have homeowners/renters insurance to cover it. If it gets flooded, your stuff (and your home) is going to be ruined anyways. In which case you're probably doomed because no one is going to give affordable flood insurance to someone on a floodplain.

Insurance is one option, although it doesn't bring back sentimental items, boobytraps are another option and what I'd go with.

I'd rig my house with boobytraps and if someone tried to loot, I'd return to a corpse hanging upside down.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Spring?

We have another storm coming in a couple days.

a reply to: MysticPearl

I was thinking of all the snow in the mountains melting!

But yeah, that is not good either. Hope some repairs can be made before then.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

www.washingtontimes.com...

the governor jerry brown had millions allocated for fixing various things...but THIS is NOT on the list??? he is going to go beg trump for some money.

they knew 12 years ago there was a problem and ignored it...they knew in 2013.......someone has some splainin' to do.......going to be lawsuits up the wazoo

originally posted by: MysticPearl
Insurance is one option, although it doesn't bring back sentimental items, boobytraps are another option and what I'd go with.

I'd rig my house with boobytraps and if someone tried to loot, I'd return to a corpse hanging upside down.

You have time to evacuate in a situation like this, if there's an item that really matters to you, you can put it in your car and take it with you.