CA - ‘Uncharted territory’ as Lake Oroville rises toward damaged dam

[Niner]

My friend in Yuba City just returned an answer to my email I sent him this morning. He said he has not evacuated and no need to do so.... I HOPE he's right! He said tons of people on the road, and lots of panic!
As far as he is concerned there is no reason to evacuate YET! So they are staying put.

All your links are unbelievable!!

 

[CARIIS]

photos of the spillway


http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/article131475564.html


photo 20 of 22 shows the hole all the way across.

http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/02/11/emergency-spillway-used-at-oroville-dam-for-first-time/

From this pic to today doesn't it seem that a huge amount of the slide after the hole is gone today?How can that not keep going?

I don't know if it goes up to the top do they have to just turn it totally off?

I wonder how long it takes to slow it down to just get a real quick peak?

 

[LaborDayRN]

It's a crying shame how we, as a nation, no longer maintain our vast infrastructure. Doing so makes sense, saves money and creates jobs.

It's amazing to observe this system, built in the late 60's, still working, still providing necessary water to millions of people. It's an engineering marvel, the kind of thing we used to be proud of back in the old days. Growing up, many of the smartest kids in high school went on to get college degrees in civil engineering. Today, they're lucky to find decent paying work.

Time to invest in research, innovation and infrastructure again.

Betty P,
I agree with every word you typed! It's a crime to let all of our infrastructure deteriorate to the degree it has.

 

[Betty P]

Photo here of the damage in 2013, it appears to me that it is the same area that has given way now.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02...d-with-high-releases-now-about-4-feet-to-top/

A lot of good information at that link, including the comments.

Here's a link I found there, showing the history of the building of the dam. It took 7 years and the dam provides water, electricity and flood control.

[video=youtube;CF4ToIhKEeI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CF4ToIhKEeI[/video]

 

[Gardenista]

I am sitting here in Sacramento ,3 blocks from the American river ,thinking bout maybe unhooking my boat.

Did you unhook your boat?

 

[CARIIS]

The helicopter guy on channel three is like a great professor - he explains things in a way I can follow



the spillway he says and they zoomed it is getting wider - he said it has started to erode on the right side whereas yesterday it was only on the left

They need at least three days to get to goal of 50 feet lower, but inflow makes it hard to exactly figure out how this is gonna go

 

[Betty P]

Good live stream right now at local TV station with helicopter cam looking at the area. They just panned around and you can see how close all this is to the city of Oroville. Very close!

http://www.kcra.com/nowcast

 

[CARIIS]

Emergency deal Visually it looks like baseboards at the bottom of it -- where like 50% of the baseboards surrounding the bottom of it are gone.

 

[CARIIS]

They went off live anyone got a live feed now ?

 

[CARIIS]

This one is the biggest reservoir in California. Another mess :

Water releases from Shasta Lake are at the highest they've been in 20 years as the lake nears full capacity Monday.

The lake stood at 96 percent of capacity and 137 percent of the historical average, as of midnight Monday,

There close to each other

This comes as nearly 190,000 residents in Butte, Sutter and Yuba counties remain evacuated as Lake Oroville's emergency spillway was in danger of failing while the reservoir's water levels have receded.

http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/getResGraphsMain.action

WOW

the damage now occurring as water continues to erode the dam under the gaping hole which has split the main concrete spillway



that's new angle to the story and if ya think about it makes sense --all that water splashing from the hole in actual spillway is directly in front of the actual dam

theres no way for them to get under there cause the dont want to turn it off.

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/02/is-failure-of-the-oroville-dam-possible/

 

[CARIIS]

Washington Post

February 13 at 2:32 PM

Angela Fritz is an atmospheric scientist and The Post's deputy weather editor. She has a B.S. in meteorology and an M.S. in earth and atmospheric science



The Lake Oroville dam stress test isn’t over

Three storms are lined up to drench Northern California over the next week. Beyond that, the melting season looms with more snow piled on the peaks of the Sierra than there has been in years....



....nine inches of precipitation is possible in the region over the next seven days. That’s what global weather forecast models are predicting as three storms line up back-to-back

if we assume widespread rainfall totals of six inches in the Oroville runoff area, that would mean [video=twitter;831183439403548675]https://twitter.com/RyanMaue/status/831183439403548675[/video], or 1.23 million acre-feet, of water input over the next five to 10 days.

lower snow levels may limit flooding impacts,” the National Weather Service said in a Monday briefing.

the spillway failure will be affected by any amount of additional rainfall and snowmelt between now and the time it’s repaired, which may be on the order of months

been more rain and snowfall in the 2016-2017 water year than any other season on record, to date

significant portion is parked on top of the Sierra Nevada in the form of snow, and it will stay there until temperatures begin to warm in the spring. At that point, dam officials will be forced to manage two sources of inflow: melting snowpack and storm rainfall.

“What we’ve seen this year is moderately strong storms that come so frequently that there’s not enough time to draw down the reservoirs between them,

will be the challenge at Lake Oroville in the coming months —

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/02/13/the-lake-oroville-dam-stress-test-isnt-over-more-rain-this-week-then-spring-thaw/?utm_term=.f65996c5fa2b

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...am-threatens-to-flood/?utm_term=.4b776a7b5e7e

 

[CARIIS]

Has anyone heard if a presser is supposedly coming? What time EST?

The awesome helicopter guy got all fueled up and is back live !!

Truly do not understand how an "angle" of this story is full hotels.

Worse, people interviewed were shocked at how hard it was to find a room ???????????????

 

[CARIIS]

Here we go

I am anxious

 

[DeDee]

This emergency op is going too fast for me. What a sheer challenge for the boots on the ground!

The size of the sinkhole is growing by leaps and bounds and will continue to do so with the force of the water pressure pounding it every second.

Officials are attempting to control erosion below the spillway with the bags of rock. Surely they are not attempting to fill a sink hole with bags of rocks. The water/erosion has now wiped out the road to the spillway. Isn't that the road that is now missing? First, it was the parking lot that fell into the water, then it was the road. This is potentially a highly dangerous situation and officials know it. If the compromised spillway blows, the lake releases her contents.

I reside near a large dam built in the early sixties. When the reservoir (lake) is too high, the spillway is opened to release water from the lake into the river. Too much water released causes the river to flood over its boundaries, thus, low lying areas can become flooded south of the spillway. Generally, residents in those areas pay additional insurance premiums due to the possibility of flooding. We have a special water commissioner and board that oversees the reservoir and her spillway. Many homes on her North and Eastern shores are constructed on Section 13 land; therefore, those homeowners pay annual fees on the property but they never will own the land their mansion style homes were built on. The money paid into Section 13 goes to fund public education.

This SS image was of Day Two. The damage doubled in size within 24 hours, or overnight.



https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02...d-with-high-releases-now-about-4-feet-to-top/

 

[Elley Mae]

From what I am seeing it is the emergency spillway to the left of the cement spillway that is showing the erosion of soil, it also appears that between the cement spillway and the dam to the right there is also breaches.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Lake-Oroville-discharging-water-over-dam-s-10926950.php


photo 14

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/12/oroville-residents-told-to-evacuate-spillway-failure-imminent/

Water flows over the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017, in Oroville, Calif. Water started flowing over the emergency spillway at the nation's tallest dam for the first time Saturday after erosion damaged the Northern California dam's main spillway. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

 

[DeDee]

From this pic to today doesn't it seem that a huge amount of the slide after the hole is gone today?How can that not keep going?

I don't know if it goes up to the top do they have to just turn it totally off?

I wonder how long it takes to slow it down to just get a real quick peak?

I don't want to mark on your SS. That entire spillway road on the left side of the spillway is gone. They stopped the flow of the auxiliary spillway. Six Geo Techs surveyed the compromised damage today. Officials are using the bags of rock to shore up the area to control the directional flow of water. Eventually, plans are to close the main spillway to survey its damage as well. The footage is something I've not seen in America. This thread is aptly named "Unchartered Territory".

http://www.kcra.com/article/water-stops-spilling-over-oroville-auxiliary-spillway/8736758

 

[CARIIS]

What has been going on over there is called
ARkStorm


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARkStorm

 

[DeDee]

From what I am seeing it is the emergency spillway to the left of the cement spillway that is showing the erosion of soil, it also appears that between the cement spillway and the dam to the right there is also breaches.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Lake-Oroville-discharging-water-over-dam-s-10926950.php

photo 14

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/12/oroville-residents-told-to-evacuate-spillway-failure-imminent/

Water flows over the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017, in Oroville, Calif. Water started flowing over the emergency spillway at the nation's tallest dam for the first time Saturday after erosion damaged the Northern California dam's main spillway. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

Yes, both spillways created troublesome erosion. First, the breach in the form of a sinkhole began in the cement spillway causing massive erosion when it collapsed. There was erosion on the left toward the auxiliary spillway that grew to encompass both sides.

When they operated the unused auxiliary spillway, erosion became an issue again due to the breach in the cement spillway causing erosion coupled with the very fact that the auxiliary spillway was earthen and not constructed of concrete reinforced with rebar. They were forced to close the auxiliary spillway for inspection on the extent of erosion damages.

They are concerned with the stability of the lake's dam if the auxiliary spillway cannot be used this season. Concrete repairs on the main concrete spillway will have to wait for dryer weather.

This sinkhole occurred at the same location that a crack was inspected on the cement spillway in 2013. Officials had to be aware for three years that the soil base UNDER the concrete slab was not stable. There would be easier and less costly fixes at that time than there will be now. This is very unsettling to me.

 

[CARIIS]

Yes, both spillways created troublesome erosion. First, the breach in the form of a sinkhole began in the cement spillway causing massive erosion when it collapsed. There was erosion on the left toward the auxiliary spillway that grew to encompass both sides.

When they operated the unused auxiliary spillway, erosion became an issue again due to the breach in the cement spillway causing erosion coupled with the very fact that the auxiliary spillway was earthen and not constructed of concrete reinforced with rebar. They were forced to close the auxiliary spillway for inspection on the extent of erosion damages.

They are concerned with the stability of the lake's dam if the auxiliary spillway cannot be used this season. Concrete repairs on the main concrete spillway will have to wait for dryer weather.

This sinkhole occurred at the same location that a crack was inspected on the cement spillway in 2013. Officials had to be aware for three years that the soil base UNDER the concrete slab was not stable. There would be easier and less costly fixes at that time than there will be now. This is very unsettling to me.

How does our media remain idiots?

This relentless use of moronic semantics is frustrating. "Officials were "forced " to use the "emergency" thing.

That is not what happened at all. There is a on/off for the spillway. The emergency thing is 301 feet high. When the lake got 301 and 1/10 a millimter over that is started going over.

This silliness that officials chose to "use it" is wrong..

If our bathtub wall is 18 inches high and the water hits 18 inches and the faucet is still on it is going to flood ones bathroom --until the faucet is turned off the water will overtop our 18" bathtub.

There is no "choice" here. When the lake hits 301 and 1/10 th the water will start to go over again.

simple

 

[CARIIS]

I don't want to mark on your SS. That entire spillway road on the left side of the spillway is gone. They stopped the flow of the auxiliary spillway. Six Geo Techs surveyed the compromised damage today. Officials are using the bags of rock to shore up the area to control the directional flow of water. Eventually, plans are to close the main spillway to survey its damage as well. The footage is something I've not seen in America. This thread is aptly named "Unchartered Territory".

http://www.kcra.com/article/water-stops-spilling-over-oroville-auxiliary-spillway/8736758

What does SS mean!!

I don't want to mark on your SS