Free Republic

multiple videos in comments

<p>OROVILLE, Calif. - An immediate evacuation from the low levels of Oroville and areas downstream is ordered.</p> <p>A hazardous situation has developed with the Oroville Dam auxiliary spillway. Officials say that operation of the auxiliary spillway has lead to severe erosion that could lead to a failure of the structure.</p>

Oroville Crews worked into the night Wednesday to shore up the emergency spillway at troubled Oroville Dam, racing to fortify the structure before the next series of storms, the first of which was forecast to hit before midnight. 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. Forecasters are confident that the first two storm...

Oroville dam, the tallest in the nation, is currently in danger of structural failure. Thousands living downstream from its desperate cascading water releases are evacuating their homes in Hollywood disaster-film fashion. Something premodern and apocalyptic like this was not supposed to have happened in a postmodern California of Google, Hollywood, and Napa Valley wineries. California’s politicians and pundits in recent years of drought swore the state was entering a cycle of permanent drought (and thus saw no need to start construction on a single dam to store the rain and snow that supposedly would not return). Instead, they warned of...

Five separate videos shot by CA DWR as the emergency spillway becomes active (overtops) at 8:a.m. on Saturday morning through Sunday p.m., and work on Monday to drop rock to fill the erosion channels. Most videos are from drones and the relationship of the spillway to the main spillway on the right (direction southeast) and the parking lot on the left (direction northwest) can be easily seen. It appears that the fear of failure of the emergency spillway was two-fold with erosion moving back up to the narrow base of the spillway and possibly undercutting the concrete spillway, and the...

Bears that barge in on people in the forest have become enough of a nuisance that more of them should be hunted, state wildlife managers have decided. The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, responding to a spike in human-bear contacts and an 11-year-old boy's death in June, want to issue 296 black bear hunting permits for Utah's 2008 spring and fall hunts, a 20 percent increase from the 248 permits offered this year. DWR officials say the state's black bear population is high enough to warrant the permit increase. Wildlife managers also say bears and humans clashed too many times...

It is happening with more regularity now, particulary in certain areas. It happened several times yesterday while driving in the West L.A./Santa Monica area. What is happening? Being flipped off by angry drivers. No, I didn't cut them off or tailgate them and make a lane change without a signal or slow them down in the fast lane. I did none of those. What I did is have the audacity to have bumper stickers on my care that defend the president and mock the other side. I have coined a name for it: DWR -- Driving While Republican. The other...

<p>New York, Dec. 19 (Bloomberg) -- California's bond rating was cut by Standard & Poor's because of a projected $34.8 billion budget deficit in the next two fiscal years, tying the most- populous U.S. state with Louisiana for the lowest credit rating.</p>

Existing power supply resources owned by or under contract to the IOUs, governmental entities, and non-utility generators are not expected to be sufficient to meet the needs of the Customers and all other electric consumers in California during the Study Period. Consequently, DWR (through December 31, 2002) and other end-use providers will need to rely on new generating facilities constructed within California and the continuation of imported power to satisfy the capacity and energy requirements of electric end-users within the State.

<p>Folsom, California, July 3 (Bloomberg) -- Dynegy Inc., Williams Cos. and 10 other electricity suppliers were fined $122.1 million for failing to deliver enough supply during California's energy crisis in 2000 and 2001, the agency that manages the state's power grid said.</p>

<p>SACRAMENTO -- Determined to avoid blackouts, California's own electricity grid managers ordered power they didn't need and forced the state to pay top dollar for excess energy that was sold later at a loss, according to the head of the Legislature's probe into energy market price fixing.</p>