Oroville Dam

[87maniac]

Looks like the spillway is wide open again, 100K outflow.

Oroville Dam Flow updates here:
CDEC - Data Application

[Tobra]

There have been at least two different hundred year floods since that dam was built. 1987 and 1999

[legion]

Are they testing the repairs today?

Did they give up on the fishery?

[GWN7]

Originally Posted by legion

Are they testing the repairs today?

Did they give up on the fishery?

I read they moved the fish to a portion of the watershed that will be unaffected by the flooding.

[rusnak]

Originally Posted by 87maniac

Looks like the spillway is wide open again, 100K outflow.

Oroville Dam Flow updates here:
CDEC - Data Application

Did they fix the hole in the main chute?

Originally Posted by Tobra

There have been at least two different hundred year floods since that dam was built. 1987 and 1999

I wonder how this year will compare statistically with those. Around here, I remember 1982 and 2010 as freakishly heavy rain years. Probably the biggest rain storm that I remember was 2012. That one storm lasted at least a week.

[stomachmonkey]

Water is no joke.

All of our lakes were at record lows prior to last year.

We got a month or two of solid rain and they all hit capacity. We are talking 100+ feet in depth in some instances.

One of our local lakes has a spillway with a road that runs in front of it.

The overflow scoured the concrete road right off the face of the planet.

[Crowbob]

Originally Posted by island911

Clearly, before any repairs are made, we need a few years of environmental impact studies....

Seriously, from what I see, the engineers built in plenty of safety factor. What's being washed away appears to be fill-dirt on top of some serious granite.

From the looks of photos during construction, the parking lot, the access roads, and the entire area left of the dam including the spillway and the emergency spillway down to the river was filled in and graded. A half-century or so later it appears original. There was allot of earth moved.

[Laneco]

There is a rather substantial storm headed this way for the end of the week. Maybe it will miss, maybe not - you know how that goes. That said, hope they keep moving water out of the reservoir to give some cushion just in case they get walloped.

angela

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

Water is no joke.

Water is all I care about in hurricanes. I have faced a bunch of Cat 2 hurricanes and a lot of tropical storms. For me, with a wooden sea wall stretching 1500 feet on the Potomac, storm surge is all I worry about.

As I have written before, water is an inexorable force, pitiless and unforgiving...water carves the face of continents.

I hope they can fix what ails the dam in the short term and repair for the long term. I don't care about politicians, I care about the people down stream.

[Por_sha911]

https://thinkprogress.org/how-much-of-californias-drought-was-caused-by-climate-change-scientists-now-have-the-answer-56ae9e33555f#.9058lb4rn

[Crowbob]

What I find interesting is how the crises in governance will morph from the social problems like healthcare, homelessness, abortion, Social Security, civil rights, etc. into physical challenges like dams, sewers, WALLS, power grids, roads, etc.

All that stuff that was created 60 years was only supposed to last 50 years. And surprise, surprise, there's no money in the kitty.

[daepp]

Originally Posted by Crowbob

What I find interesting is how the crises in governance will morph from the social problems like healthcare, homelessness, abortion, Social Security, civil rights, etc. into physical challenges like dams, sewers, WALLS, power grids, roads, etc.

All that stuff that was created 60 years was only supposed to last 50 years. And surprise, surprise, there's no money in the kitty.

Yep - and built for a state of 20 million souls, rather than the near 40M we have now!

[jyl]

Originally Posted by Crowbob

What I find interesting is how the crises in governance will morph from the social problems like healthcare, homelessness, abortion, Social Security, civil rights, etc. into physical challenges like dams, sewers, WALLS, power grids, roads, etc.

All that stuff that was created 60 years was only supposed to last 50 years. And surprise, surprise, there's no money in the kitty.

Not gonna morph, the previous problems aren't going away, the new ones are simply being added to the pile.

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by daepp

Yep - and built for a state of 20 million souls, rather than the near 40M we have now!

I dated a woman who lived in Brentwood who thought the entire USA should move to California. Imagine 325M in California...

[KNS]

Gov Brown asking for federal emergency aid. Do those folks wanting California to secede still think they can go at it alone?

[Tobra]

K Money, I tell you what it makes me think.



My house and office are in spots that would be dry if'n the dam above me cut loose. Parents and one brother would lose their houses. If it was going that direction, they would pack up and head to my sister's place in the hills. I was talking to my son in law tonight, and the subject of rivers running high comes up, because of the current situation. I did not realize exactly where their place is relative to the river, , and it is not a great spot if Folsom Dam were to cut loose. They are like 5 houses from the end of the street. I would expect that 2-3 at the end would end up with pieces of them floating past Stockton. There is a bend in the river near San Juan Rapids, and they are on the wrong side of the curve, but the right side of the river. Houses on the other side would all be underwater at least over to I 80.

Place in Texas was above the dam. Water would go over the top before it would touch my patio, and I would have a great view of it. Floods down there you get fire ant balls floating around though, and that is bad. You don't want to know how it is if they bump up against something swimming.

[red-beard]

[Tobra]

No effing way I am watching that scheisse, not even when you are the POTUS will I watch that, black helicopter guys disappear my ass before I watch that. I've seen it in real life.

[Noah930]

I think Harvey Weidman lives in Oroville, so all of us Porsche guys should be hoping that damn dam holds.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by Crowbob

What I find interesting is how the crises in governance will morph from the social problems like healthcare, homelessness, abortion, Social Security, civil rights, etc. into physical challenges like dams, sewers, WALLS, power grids, roads, etc.

All that stuff that was created 60 years was only supposed to last 50 years. And surprise, surprise, there's no money in the kitty.

And they could built it for 1/50th the cost to build it today, because they didn't have to deal with all the regulatory bureaucratic bull shoot laws and rules we have now.

To protect ourselves from ourselves!