UPDATE: Drone video over spillway added.
Collapse of emergency spillway expected, evacuation ordered
Department of Water Resources officials say they expect the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam to fail, and say residents should evacuate northward.
The emergency spillway suffered erosion and could fail, according to DWR. If that happens, the water behind that barrier will comedown the hill and down the river.
Flow through the broken main spillway was increased to 100,000 cubic feet per second in an effort to lower the water level in the lake more rapidly.
The Butte County Sheriff’s Office reports helicopters will be depositing rock-filled containers to strengthen the potential failure point.
Bud Englund, a public information officer for the incident, said downtown Oroville and low-lying areas, including residents along the Feather River from Oroville to Gridley, are being evacuated.
Reporter Andre Byik said Caltrans and the California Highway Patrol have converted the southbound lanes of Highway 70 into northbound lanes to expedite the evacuation. Traffic there is still nearly gridlocked.
An evacuation center has been set up at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds in Chico. Black Butte Lake west of Orland has also opened up the Buckhorn Campground to evacuees.
Emergency operations centers as far south of Sacramento have been notified, Englund said.
Evacuation orders have also been made in Yuba and Sutter counties.
From ChicoER.com
My local newspaper publishes a scathing editorial of DWR idiocy and mismanagement
Live video here: https://www.facebook.com/KCRA3/videos/10155026580966514/
UPDATE: DWR issued this statement.n their track record so far…not sure its all that reassuring.
OROVILLE DAM, Calif. – The Department of Water Resources has provided an explanation as to why the mandatory immediate evacuations in Oroville and areas downstream are occurring. The concern is that erosion at the head of the emergency/auxiliary spillway issued evacuation orders for residents. The concern is that erosion at the head of the emergency spillway threatens to undermine the concrete weir and allow large, uncontrolled releases of water from Lake Oroville. Those potential flows could exceed the capacity of downstream channels.
To avert more erosion at the top of the emergency/auxiliary spillway, DWR doubled the flow down its main spillway from 55,000 cubic feet per second (CFS) to 100,000 cfs. The next several hours will be crucial in determining whether the concrete structure at the head of the auxiliary spillway remains intact and prevents larger, uncontrolled flows.
Current flows are contained with downstream channels.
Flow over the auxiliary spillway weir began Saturday morning and has slowed considerably. DWR officials expect that flow to stop entirely soon, according to a press release sent at 6:11 P.M. Sunday. This would reduce the erosion on the downstream side of the structure.
DWR officials stress that Oroville Dam itself is sound and is a separate structure from the emergency/auxiliary spillway.
Source: http://www.water.ca.gov/news/newsreleases/2017/021217-pm_release_oroville_evacuation.pdf
UPDATE: Live view from the State Emergency Operations Center
UPDATE: Drne video shot earlier today:
Above there was a question of boulders vs sandbags for spillway breach repair.
I drove to Sacramento Airport this morning for a flight out.
On the way I saw more than a few semi–flatbeds with stacks of what looked like 1cubic yard bags of sand with slings for connection to conveying apparatus.
These trucks were all headed towards Oroville.
Add this to all the boulders I saw being moved on the news this morning and I’d say it will be a combination of both.
She likes toys tossed by girls or boys
Multiple choppers dropping rock to shore up the emergency spillway. Even here in the Bay Area there was movement of military choppers over the weekend. I saw some Chinooks apparently gathering at Moffett. Not sure if the military choppers were for rock dropping or evac support. Fronts coming in later this week may not be as moisture rich as recent ones however current prog is for another series with no break. The cumulative impact may be a worry. It’s going to be a difficult summer, first with the melt and then the more permanent repairs that need to be done prior to the next rainy season.
Why is it so difficult to find current pics or video of the auxiliary spillway.
WUWT?
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/queryF?s=ORO&d=13-Feb-2017+11:53&span=25hours
latest data shows the water is a good 5ft below the lip now. They’ve got themselves some breathing space but it all depends on the new storms on the way in …
not out of the woods yet.
http://www.kcra.com/nowcast
The best seem to be here,either live or recently broadcast.
http://www.kcra.com/nowcast
Imagine the enhanced erosion by big blocks of rock and angular concrete being propelled by rushing water …
yep. Madness. They’re just doing disaster theater at the moment.
A bad message about the regular spillway: Current damage vs. original damage. It has gone up the hill about 300 feet in six days (mostly with lower flow). See:
https://www.metabunk.org/oroville-dam-spillway-failure.t8381/page-7#post-200045
Evacuations in Butte, Sutter, and Yuba counties. All of them voted for Trump. A clear example of a coincidence.
Not necessarily.
Well I’ll be buggered the water really did go in the dam. Has anyone told our Tim yet?
The issue is silt, plain and simple. The floodgate operaton was limited due to damage to sluice but once emergency spillway was flowing, further damage to sluice was less silt than emergency spillway use.
What would have happened without the lake? I posit even more silt.
I posit that when all the crap and corruption makes it downstream to the next dam, there might be issues.
The next step ahead will be that you’ll have to use a high-clocked Zorin “Z80”-CPU because then there’s
no Silicon Valley .In the later future, the EMP will erase all data and you’ll wonder why this also affects magnetic data storages. Uran dURA
It’s “A View To A Kill”.
Good mostly informed technical discussion here:
https://www.metabunk.org/oroville-dam-spillway-failure.t8381/page-7#post-200045
As expected the CBC global warming peddling “science blog” Quirks & Quarks, could not resist:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/failing-oroville-dam-facts-1.3979961
“It might be surprising to hear of flood advisories and evacuations in a state that has endured more than five years of drought conditions.
While the drought can’t be declared officially over, conditions have certainly improved. California has seen above-average precipitation and the snowpack — essential in providing groundwater — has also vastly improved. As of Monday, the snowpack in the northern, central and southern Sierra was at a capacity of 179 per cent for this time of year.
As for Lake Oroville, which suffered severe drought conditions over the past few years, wet weather has brought it to 124 per cent of the historical average. More rain is expected over the next week, which could further complicate the situation.”
5 years of drought was brought by the unprecedented man made global warming that threatens humanity’s existence… Are you afraid yet? Only FIVE years…
And since they need to keep the scam alive, the “drought can’t be declared officially over”…
And it’s about to rain even more… Must be global warming!
According to wikipedia, the dam is used as a stored hydroelectric facility, utilising surplus power, and the pump generators have a larger MW capacity than the hydroelectric generators. Thus can pump water into the dam faster than the hydroelectric generators can drain it. We know that ‘renewables’ frequently produce large power surpluses and the dam would appear to be one the major ways in which this surplus power is ‘stored’.
I wonder to what extent pumping water into the dam (using surplus renewable power) contributed to the current situation.
Instead of reinforcing the dams in preparation and building desalination plants to battle the drought, California built wind and solar farms.
Hey California!!!, Wind and Solar Don’t Work in a Flood
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/02/13/hey-california-wind-and-solar-dont-work-in-a-flood/
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PHtqLHjMaLw/TzMoNsCxK8I/AAAAAAAAGDE/hqBvt3wU65g/s1600/JohnWayne.jpg
So…. Is this imminent failure of plan B due to sheer all-round incompetence, or is it an instance of Yesmaniasis as appears to have been the case at Fukushima?
Environmentalists blocked gates to add 10 ft to reservoir
YCWA concerns about Oroville’s auxiliary spillway
is this is sorta disturbing? Lake Shasta is almost full and they can’t drain it fast enough to avoid flooding below?
“way too much for this time of year
“40 feet too high”
“River is due to rise to levels not seen in about two decades”
“Shasta is about 6 feet from being completely full, that’s way too much at this time of year,” Bader said. “We’re about 40 feet higher than we normally want to be at this point. We’re going to take advantage of the break in the weather to evacuate more space in the reservoir.”
http://www.redding.com/story/news/local/2017/02/11/sheriff-hold-news-conference-high-river-releases/97790988/
“Public safety officials in Shasta County urged caution and vigilance Saturday as the Sacramento River is due to rise to levels not seen in about two decades.
Officials continued to dump water from a nearly full Lake Shasta on Saturday.
Shasta Dam shown Saturday, when officials increased”
http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/abc24fbd7747a50af62bd39601855788dddef857/c=5-0-4027-3024&r=x408&c=540×405/local/-/media/2017/02/11/Redding/Redding/636224348950980116-IMG-4149.JPG
Cue the “dam failure due to climate change” claims.
Moderator, or Anthony: Since you are in the Chico area, is there a charitable organization, or a short list, doing work on the ground in Butte County helping with the evacuation that you could recommend we donate directly to? I know there are the large organizations like American Red Cross, but my preference is for smaller local or regional groups that respond immediately and do not have a big cash balance on hand. Thank you.
This demands a clarification on what the “some distance” was. Google earth?
http://www.redding.com/story/news/2017/02/09/dam-spillway-checked-distance-last-inspection/97723936/
The last inspection …..was conducted in July 2015 by the state Division of Safety of Dams.
However, rather than undergoing a close visual inspection, the spillway was checked “from some distance,” the report says.
“The discharge channel was not walked this time; however, a visual inspection from some distance indicated no visible signs of concrete deficiencies,” the report says.
It wasn’t clear why the dam spillway was not more closely inspected, said Chris Orrock, a Division of Dam Safety spokesman.
“The spillway bridge, service deck (upper), trunnion deck (lower), and trunnion deck walls appeared to be stable and no new concrete cracks or spalling were observed,” the report says.”
No new cracks. OK, so no need to do anything about the old cracks then !
I’m surprised the fact that Folsom Dam is currently receiving a secondary/”auxiliary spillway” hasn’t been mentioned here or on the news.
An interesting history of dam building and dam failures. Oroville is mentioned as having an earthquake in 1967.
http://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/dams_of_ca/Dams-of-California-Presentation-2012.pdf
If Seehofer was a real bavarian politician, 2nd in Germany = 2nd in the EU he’d say
“Aus is’ und gar is’ und guad is’ dass wahr is”
“over and done it’s time that we won.”
approximately
“over and done but at last we have won”
really doesn’t match the original.
If anyone wants to visualise the water level over the last few days:
It is clearly seen where they decided to bite the bullet and let 100000cfs out of the main spillway.
maybe they should have done that earlier and avoided evacuating 200,000 people ?
Wasn’t that the problem? When they started to do that they blew the hole in the spillway so they backed off that and decided to see what the Emergency Spillway could do.
How to properly design and construct an auxiliary spillway:
http://www.waternsw.com.au/supply/Greater-Sydney/safety/warragamba-dam-auxiliary-spillway
That shows the difference between an emergency spillway and an auxiliary spillway !
One is designed to work , the other is not designed to work and if it is ever needed it will create an emergency 😉
Ergo the name: emergency spillway.