Just curious. Is that lake one of the ones that Mulholland snapped up for LA for like 200 years or whatever the term was?
We’re all praying for you and your neighbours. Take care.
Three storm systems will move into Northern California during the next six days, according to the National Weather Service. The first system will drop about an inch of rain in the Oroville area between 10 p.m. Wednesday and 4 p.m. Thursday. Greater amounts of precipitation will fall in the mountains northeast of the reservoir.SacBeeForecasters are confident that the first two storm systems will not cause huge inflows into Lake Oroville. They are less confident about the third system, which is due sometime Tuesday. That storm could be bigger and warmer, meaning more rain and snowmelt streaming into the swollen reservoir.
Thank you for this update. A whole lot of us in this country are praying for the safety of everyone downstream from this dam. Stay safe.
If that dam was identified a dozen years ago as needing replacement, why has no one demanded that Gov Moonbeam repair it? Was it because he spent all the tax dollars on illegal aliens?
If my tax $ are going to be wasted on the land of fruits and nuts, I hope it’s to rebuild a collapsed dam. Otherwise, Californians can fix their own problems. Anyone who is physically harmed at this point has had ample warning to get out of the way. Let the mayhem begin!
Has Gov. Moonbeam asked to activate the Guard yet?
Who was in charge of the water level prior to this emergency and why was the dam so full going into the rainy season? Had they been dumping water at full capacity or did someone screw up and not see the spring rains and snow melt coming just like the other obvious missteps with the dam’s maintenance?
I read in the Sac Bee that they aren’t too concerned about the rain during the next couple of days. Temps are cooler and much will fall as snow.
They are concerned about the system coming through next Tuesday as temps will warm up and most will fall as rain.
So not out of the woods yet, but definitely looking better.
Rain is not the only problem.
It is getting warmer. The snow packs will be melting. It is the combination of the two that should have them worried.
A little Dam Info.
A typical dam has several ways to release water.
Outlet Works is one. It is a vertical pipe installed from the base of the river bed. It has several openings, as it rises, with plugs that can be opened and closed. Is purpose is to maintain stream flow, at a predetermined level, so the river below the dam does not go dry.
Main Gates is another. This releases water onto the main spillway to control the lake level when you have to either stop the lake from rising or lower the lake level. It is only used when needed. The bottom of the gates determine how low you can lower the lake. They can be very tall gates.
Emergency Spillway. This is installed to prevent topping of the dam during an emergency. Topping of the dam can cause dam failure. (this would be catastrophic). Failure of the emergency spillway would be bad but not near as catastrophic as a dam failure. It is designed primarily as a buttress against the pressure of the water. In this case 30 feet or so. Whether to include a reinforced spillway for the emergency spillway is a design decision.
Power turbines are used in some dams to generate power. This releases water to generate power and is not part of the designed water release.
This lake developed problems when its main spillway started breaking down. Because of this breakdown the gates were partial raised to slow the controlled release to prevent further damage. This slowing down of the water release caused the topping of the emergency spillway and the possibility of failure.
There are two problems here. First, the design decision to construct the emergency spillway with out reinforcing it and the later decision to continue that way and not reinforce it in 2005 or so. Second, the failure of the main spillway. Any routine competent inspection would have uncovered this problem and allow it to be repaired.
https://livestream.com/KRCR/events/3724366
Best website for Oroville dam updates, latest photos, technical discussion, diagrams, analyses, etc.:
https://www.metabunk.org/oroville-dam-spillway-failure.t8381/page-18
The revised forecast is calling for 10 inches of rain.