That's why I made the point.

I have a more sinister theory of the order of events, they "magically" had a ton of heavy equipment in place on the news last night preparing rock & boulders for airdrop. I think they didn't evacuate the people because they needed the highways clear to move in all of the assets, the material, workers, etc. As soon as the evacuation order was given, the roads became impassable. It's about 60 miles from Oroville to Sacramento, but apparently it was taking people until 3 and 4 am today to make the trip.

I live on the high side of Folsom Dam (federal, not a state piece of shit). I'm not in any danger, but driving to work today in downtown Sacramento was eerie - hardly anyone on the road. I think the citizenry already voted a "no confidence" in the government to deal with this. Sac Metro Airport and Downtown Sacramento would be the ultimate destination of a deluge. I-5 actually cuts through downtown through something of a tunnel/channel, about 30 feet below the normal top of the river.

Thanks skidance ,
My error , of course you are correct.

Fish before people is kind of like grapefruits before wheat in AS.

The primary spillway was "magically damaged" last week. Realistically, there has been water boils or something underneath the concrete spillway that caused a sinkhole to form under the concrete, and then the spillway collapsed. A section of about 200 feet long by 100 feet wide by 40 feet deep when it first occurred, but the water level was coming up so fast (with 185,000 cubic feet per second going into the lake) that they had no choice but to keep using the damaged (primary) spillway. They could only get it up to about 60,000 CFS, but even with that, (1/3 of what was coming in), the spillway continued to blow itself apart with big 20 foot chunks of concrete blowing down the hill. Now they just don't care, they have it ripping at 100,000 CFS to try and bring the dam lake level down, which with inflows dropping to around 60,000, they are now kind of getting ahead of it - but not by much, its going down by 4 inches per hour, and they need to drop it 50 feet before the next storm event (Thursday). The spillway can do 250,000 CFS if it was healthy, but the Feather River below can only handle about 210,000 at total flood-stage.

The emergency spillway/weir is actually the problem though - the water kept coming up and overtopped it. The fast rush of water eroded the hillside below the weir and now the danger is that the weir might blow out if the soil erodes enough that is holding it in place. Lake Oroville is about 25 square miles, and we're looking at 30 feet +/- of water depth blowing out (at once), plus the continued flow of water afterward, plus the storm event this weekend, plus the snow pack melting in a month or so, and at least 4 or 5 more storms before and after that. Size-wise, it's 1700 feet long and about 30-50 feet high. By itself, it holds a heck of a lot of water back.

The dam itself is pretty big, the face is about 900 feet tall, the lake is about 900 feet deep. If the main dam blew, we would have a cataclysmic type of asteroid-hitting-California kind of event, but that doesn't seem to be the concern right now and not likely, but releasing 30 feet on the top is very possible.

Here's the Atlas Shrugged moment, they admitted they only do 1 annual "visual inspection" of the dam and the spillways. Which, in California state engineer speak, is with a cup of coffee from the truck sitting on the service road that no longer exists (it was washed away with about 100 feet-thick of hillside on Sunday). Their brilliant plan is air-dropping rocks onto the hillside with Cal Fire helicopters. Let's revisit how it was blowing 20-40 foot chunks of concrete down the spillway... I'm not really thinking that some 3 & 4 foot roll-friendly round boulders are going to really do much, but whatever, I guess its the only option they have.

On the news they are blaming (then-Governor) Reagan for not "testing the emergency spillway when the dam was built". It really doesn't get to be a more profound reality distortion field than what we have to endure here. It's not the lack of testing & maintenance for 50 years in favor of the welfare state, it is that Reagan should have tested the thing in the 1960s.

CA DWR was high-fiving themselves in their Twitter feed on Thursday and Friday for the successful evacuation of all of the salmon from the Feather River hatcheries.

They actually had heated tanker trucks come in to move the fish 2 days before bothering to tell people to get out of the way.

Call me stupid perhaps, but if water is going to overtop a dam, isnt there a lot of warning for that?? Thats why they control the flows in and out of the dam. I guess government doesnt have enough sense to watch the water levels.

privatize all waterways, dams, and lakes...

A=A
moonbeam = moonbeam
Dependency is what the liberal statists want because none of them can imagine someone taking responsibility for himself and his family.
Only government can fix such things... after having looted the people so they don't have the means to fix it themselves.
This has been the plan since 1913, to economically enslave everyone except the very top level looters.

As predictable as the missed crop pickup in Minnesota.

posted to facebook...

*its

It's = it is

Mind reading ? jbrenner

I have already seen videos blaming Trump.
Now the governor turned to his potential nemesis for help — specifically, asking the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to declare a major disaster after the state was hammered by storms, floods, and mudslides.

It really amazes me that Governor Jerry Brown would have the audacity to ask for federal money after making such a complete fool out of himself!

An Atlas Shrugged moment?

Next news release will be that this is proof that climate change was created by the rich and only government can save "the planet" from individual liberty.
All the dependent, frightened, liberal morons in CA, NY, MA, DC will believe the rubbish propaganda the statists create.

Latest news indicates 200,000 evacuated. Another big rain and snowfall headed to the watershed.

Thanks for the article update Dobrien. I really wish I was right this time.

Those in Oroville, a city of about 16,000 people, were asked to flee northward toward Chico. In Yuba County, those in the valley areas were urged to take routes to the east, south, or west.


“This is not a drill. This is not a drill. Repeat this is not a drill,” the National Weather Service said. Authorities urged residents to contact neighbors and family members and reach out to the elderly and assist them in evacuating.

The Butte County Sheriff’s Department and the state Department of Water Resources said the failure of the auxiliary spillway — a 1,700-foot-long hillside route — was caused by “severe erosion.”

The evacuations marked a dramatic turn of events at the nation’s tallest dam. For several days, officials have been trying to figure out how to get water out of Lake Oroville after the main spillway was damaged.

The emergency spillway had never been used before, and until the last few hours, it seemed to be working well. But water from rain and snow continued to flow into Lake Oroville at a rapid pace, causing water level to rise to emergency levels.

Lake Oroville is the lynchpin of California’s state water movement system, sending water from the Sierra Nevada south to the farms across the San Joaquin Valley and cities in the Southland.

Video from television helicopters Sunday evening showed water flowing into a parking lot next to the dam, with large flows going down both the damaged main spillway and the emergency spillway.

Officials feared a failure of the emergency spillway could cause huge amounts of water to flow into the Feather River, which runs through downtown Oroville, and other waterways. The result could be flooding and levee failures for miles south of the dam, depending on how much water is released.

The videos also showed lines of cars getting out out of downtown Oroville. An evacuation center was set up at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds in Chico.

Diminished by years of drought conditions, the reservoir had become a symbol of the state’s worsening water crisis. But an unusually wet winter took the lake from nearly full to overflowing in less than a week.

At the same time, the nearly mile-long concrete spillway that the dam’s managers rely on to release excess water began to crumble, with erosion worsening as millions of gallons of water poured over it.

It continued to rain. Realizing the lake might rise to a level that would trigger the use of an emergency spillway, state workers began clearing the area of trees and brush that could be sent hurtling downstream.

Residents of Oroville and nearby towns were ordered to immediately evacuate on Sunday afternoon after a “hazardous situation” developed involving an emergency spillway at the Oroville Dam.

The National Weather Service said the auxiliary spillway at the Oroville Dam was expected to fail about 5:45 p.m., which could send an “uncontrolled release of flood waters from Lake Oroville.”

Sorry Jackson I wish you were right from LA Times 22 mins ago Evacuations ordered below Oroville Dam; failure of emergency spillway 'expected.

The YouTube channel is a scare tactic. FUD. fear, uncertainty, doubt. It also loses credibility with the various links in the description leading to end of days purchases. I'm not saying the dam doesn't have issues but perhaps a stretch of the truth. Just my opinion.