Oroville Dam

Status
Not open for further replies.
This is scary - you have to stay with it, a worker said they have only been able to fill 8% of the hole in the dam even working day and night, and they spoke to military there is telling someone that they are there to evacuate people "again" and they expect if this gets "bad" they are setting up evacuation centers all the way down to Merced... Merced is 189 miles from this dam....... below Sacramento, Stockton, etc......

 
Not only does this dam supply water for 2/3 of the State of CA, there is a lot of underground gas lines running through the area. I wonder if she secessionists will think about how Gov. Brown spent 25 Billion tax dollars on illegals when he knew this dam needed major work and nothing was spent on the dam. Sort of like Scarlett Ohara, think about that tomorrow...... but sometimes, tomorrow is too late. I pray for the people affected by this as this storm moving in tonight has been named Lucifer and is going to drop record rain on the entire state.
 
They are getting rain, but the really heavy rain is not due in the area until Sunday and Monday.... but there is a stream of storms and from today into next week it is predicted for steady rain [and snow in the mountains].. I did see they had a heavy snow all day today in the Sierra Nevada.
 
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/201...massive-storm-pounds-california-photos-video/

New Photos Show Damage To Oroville Dam As Massive Storm Pounds California (Photos & Video)

Ryan Saavedra Feb 19th, 2017 5:58 pm

10-575x381.png

New Photos Show Tremendous Damage To Oroville Dam
A new report from Fox News on Sunday indicates that if the Oroville dam fails, residents who live in harms way will most likely will be advised in time which adds to the mounting stress as new storms pound California.

From Fox News:

Communities immediately downstream of California’s Lake Oroville dam would not receive adequate warning or time for evacuations if the 770-foot-tall dam itself — rather than its spillways — were to abruptly fail, the state water agency that operates the nation’s tallest dam repeatedly advised federal regulators a half-decade ago.

Reuters is now reporting that large parts of Northern California are being place on a flood advisory as new storms pound Northern California

From Reuters:

The storm is expected to drop as much as 5 inches (13 cm) of rain in the San Francisco region through Wednesday, bringing more water to already saturated land that has been inundated with heavy precipitation since early January, the National Weather Service said.

“We could see flooding in areas that haven’t flooded in a long time and there will be additional stress on levees, rivers, creeks & streams,” the service said.

“The heaviest rainfall and higher elevation snow will be from Monday through Tuesday,” it said.

It added the Sierra Nevada mountain area could receive as much as 40 inches (101 cm) of new snow.

Fortunately there are no new warnings for the areas near the Oroville dam which is roughly 150 miles northeast of San Francisco.

New photos have been released by the California Department of Water Resources that show the significant damage at the Oroville dam and the spillway.

Photos
Photos provided from the California Department of Water Resources, all photos used are labeled as public domain.

1.png

Airlifted by helicopter, a specialist works on the power lines near the Oroville Dam main spillway in Oroville, California, on February 18, 2017. Florence Low / California Department of Water Resources

2-575x383.png

The Oroville Dam main spillway is flowing at 55,000 cubic feet per second at the Oroville Dam in Oroville, California, allowing engineers to get a better look at the damaged spillway at Lake Oroville in California. Oroville is a city in Butte County. Photo taken in the late afternoon of February 18, 2017. Florence Low / California Department of Water Resources

3-575x340.png

Despite current inclement weather, work continues on the area below the Oroville Dam emergency spillway, located in Oroville, California. Rock, aggregate, and cement slurry continue to be placed into areas affected by erosion. This work will continue 24 hours a day. The California Department of Water Resources continues to aggressively monitor the status of the dam, spillways, the Hyatt Power Plant, related structures, and progress of repair activities. Photo taken on February 19, 2017. Florence Low / California Department of Water Resources

4-575x381.png

The California Department of Water Resources continues to examine and repair the erosion below the Oroville Dam auxiliary spillway. More than 125 construction crews are working around the clock, and placing 1,200 tons of material on the spillway per hour using helicopters and heavy construction equipment at the Butte County site. Photo taken February 18, 2017. Florence Low / California Department of Water Resources

5-575x381.png

The California Department of Water Resources continues to examine and repair the erosion below the Oroville Dam auxiliary spillway. More than 125 construction crews are working around the clock, and placing 1,200 tons of material on the spillway per hour using helicopters and heavy construction equipment at the Butte County site. Photo taken February 18, 2017. Florence Low / California Department of Water Resources

6-575x380.png

The California Department of Water Resources continues to examine and repair the erosion below the Oroville Dam auxiliary spillway. More than 125 construction crews are working around the clock, and placing 1,200 tons of material on the spillway per hour using helicopters and heavy construction equipment at the Butte County site. Photo taken February 18, 2017. Florence Low / California Department of Water Resources

7-575x382.png

The California Department of Water Resources continues to examine and repair the erosion below the Oroville Dam auxiliary spillway. More than 125 construction crews are working around the clock, and placing 1,200 tons of material on the spillway per hour using helicopters and heavy construction equipment at the Butte County site. Photo taken February 18, 2017. Florence Low / California Department of Water Resources

8-575x381.png

The California Department of Water Resources continues to examine and repair the erosion below the Oroville Dam auxiliary spillway. More than 125 construction crews are working around the clock, and placing 1,200 tons of material on the spillway per hour using helicopters and heavy construction equipment at the Butte County site. Photo taken February 18, 2017. Florence Low / California Department of Water Resources

9-575x382.png

The California Department of Water Resources continues to examine and repair the erosion below the Oroville Dam auxiliary spillway. More than 125 construction crews are working around the clock, and placing 1,200 tons of material on the spillway per hour using helicopters and heavy construction equipment at the Butte County site. Photo taken February 18, 2017. Florence Low / California Department of Water Resources

10-575x381.png

The California Department of Water Resources continues to examine and repair the erosion below the Oroville Dam auxiliary spillway. More than 125 construction crews are working around the clock, and placing 1,200 tons of material on the spillway per hour using helicopters and heavy construction equipment at the Butte County site. Photo taken February 18, 2017. Florence Low / California Department of Water Resources

11-1-575x382.png

Crews construct a barge to carry excavation equipment, that will dredge debris and sediment that has built up below the flood control spillway at the Oroville Dam in Oroville, California, February 18, 2017. Florence Low / California Department of Water Resources

12-575x382.png

Water continues to move down the damaged spillway at Oroville Dam with an outflow of 80,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) on Friday morning. The California Department of Water Resources continues to repair the erosion areas below the Oroville Dam emergency spillway. Photo taken February 17, 2017. Brian Baer/ California Department of Water Resources

13-575x379.png

A long line of concrete trucks wait on the top of Oroville Dam to deliver concrete for the erosion repair work at the base of the Oroville Dam emergency spillway. The California Department of Water Resources continues to examine and repair the erosion with more than 125 construction crews working around the clock, and placing 1,200 tons of material on the spillway per hour using helicopters and heavy construction equipment at the Butte County site. Photo taken February 17, 2017. Brian Baer/ California Department of Water Resources

14-575x381.png

A worker walks down the damaged roadway near the Oroville Dam emergency spillway. Last weekend overflow waters from the emergency spillway eroded much of the area below the spillway. The California Department of Water Resources continues to examine and repair the erosion with more than 125 construction crews working around the clock, and placing 1,200 tons of material on the spillway per hour using helicopters and heavy construction equipment at the Butte County site. Photo taken February 17, 2017. Brian Baer/ California Department of Water Resources
 
That line of concrete trucks is something to see! I think concrete can only sit for a maximum of one hour once it's inside the truck. I think there are 16 trucks in that line, imagine how fast they're going through concrete at 10 yards per truck!
 
Now they are firing the workers who posted the pictures of how bad the damage is online.

http://fox40.com/2017/02/19/oroville-dam-workers-fired-for-posting-spillway-photos-to-social-media/

Oroville Dam Workers Fired for Posting Spillway Photos to Social Media
Posted 4:07 PM, February 19, 2017, by FOX40 Web Desk

OROVILLE — Five Oroville Dam workers were fired for posting spillway photographs to social media.

A spokesperson for the California Department of Water Resources told KRON that a number of employees working under the Folsom contracting company Syblon Reid violated the terms of their contract by posting the pictures.

A Syblon Reid contractor had forbidden a spillway team from capturing any activities at the dam and sharing the footage via social media. The contracting company has enforced this “no social media/no photos” policy at all of their construction sites.
 
Not sure this article is not sky is falling, but the photographs are quite something - there is a live-stream video at the link

http://www.thebigwobble.org/2017/02/breaking-news-oroville-dam-spillway-has.html

Monday, 20 February 2017
Breaking News: Oroville Dam spillway has been compromised and is breaking up: Whole section of concrete has been washed away and huge cracks appearing.



Live streaming of the Oroville Dam is suggesting the spillway has been compromised and a whole section of concrete has been washed away.
A large breach can be seen in the concrete slipway with a huge crack opening up further down
Residents are nervously watching the Oroville Dam and have packed their bags prepared to evacuate again if necessary.
Another area of concern is the Don Pedro reservoir, which officials said was at 98 percent capacity on Sunday. The reservoir captures water from the Tuolumne River.
In Stanislaus County, where the Don Pedro Reservoir is forecast to reach capacity by Tuesday, authorities are warning residents along the Tuolumne River 45 miles away in Modesto to consider evacuating voluntarily until the flood danger is past.


Sacramento Bee.com claims the town of Maxwell is flooded and two stretches of Interstate 5 north of Williams were barely passable because of encroaching waters. Roads throughout the region were closed from flooding and mudslides. Reclamation districts patrolled levees, monitoring boils and sandbagging.
In Colusa County, the Sheriff’s Office blamed local creeks and canals for the widespread flooding “due to the overabundance of water the last 24 hours” and announced “voluntary evacuations for those who felt their safety was at risk.”
Another Northern California reservoir is at full capacity as a new "Weather Bomb" is pounding the area: Flooding is inevitable as another 6 inches of rain expected.
Storms will resume their track across the region following a brief break from heavy precipitation to start the weekend.

Precipitation will become more widespread and heavy throughout Monday, with the heaviest rain expected to slam Northern California.
 
http://www.breitbart.com/california/2017/02/21/oroville-lake-52-feet-9-upstream-reservoirs-flood/

Oroville Lake Down 52 Feet, but 9 Upstream Reservoirs to Flood

Oroville-Dam-spillway-rainbow-Getty-640x480.jpg

Elijah Nouvelage / Getty

Although the California Department of Water Resources is claiming Oroville Dam is safer because the water level has fallen by 52 feet, that feat was largely accomplished by over-filing 9 upstream reservoirs that are all expected to flood as another Pineapple Express storm-train brings 48 hours of heavy rain through Wednesday.
The last winter storm caused an evacuation of about 200,000 people downstream from Lake Oroville due to the threat of a catastrophic failure of the dam.

Although most Americans have been told that the fissure in the side of the dam has been stabilized by opening up the spillway to drain the lake, and helicopters have dropped huge bags of rocks in a crack, the water flow into Oroville Lake has been restricted by overfilling the upstream reservoirs.

The nine State Water Project and PG&E earthen reservoirs on the Upper Feather River Watershed that feed directly into Lake Oroville were already at maximum capacity prior to the new storms. This next storm is expected to bring 1-3 inches of rain in the valleys. But the Central Sierras are expecting 10 inches of snow and rain over the next 7 days.

With all the higher elevation reservoirs brimming, Supervisor Kevin Goss from mountainous Plumas County told the Sacramento Bee, “I’m watching, and I’m worried.” Flooding from the last set of storms shut down escape in all directions in his Indian Valley district.

The towns of Greenville and Taylorsville were isolated, and sewer systems for the sparsely populated county suffered extensive damage as many roads washed out. The flooding from the new storm is expected to be much more serious.

In addition,tRelatively warm temperatures of up to 49 degrees in nearby Tahoe caused snowmelt this week. With the “Snow Water Equivalents” for this time of year in the Central Sierras at 183 percent and the Southern Sierras at 205 percent; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned that the mountains could see significant runoff.

The total capacity of the upstream dams is about 400,000 acre feet, or about one tenth the capacity of Lake Oroville. Last week, the upstream reservoirs were allowed to fill in an effort to take pressure of Oroville Dam. But with the dams full, virtually 100 percent of the rain and runoff from the coming storms will flow into Oroville Lake.

Despite the upstream restricting of water flow, Lake Oroville added over 1 million acre feet of water in three days during the last storm. Engineers from the California Department of Water Resources hope that a combination of releasing 800,000 acre feet of water from the lake will be enough to prevent another Oroville Dam flood.
 
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/02/21/blame-oroville-president-trump-can-fix/

GAFFNEY: Whom to Blame for Oroville — and How President Trump Can Fix It

Oroville-Dam-at-night-Getty-640x481.jpg

(Josh Edelson / Getty

by Frank Gaffney21 Feb 2017

The forecast is for more rain around the Oroville Dam – and potential disaster for hundreds of thousands of Californians living downstream from its poorly designed emergency spillway.
Many bear responsibility for the real prospect of a catastrophic failure of that spillway. But ultimately, the buck stops with an obscure government agency 3,000 miles away: the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

FERC has known about systemic defects of the Oroville Dam for over a decade. In fact, back in 2005, this dam was supposed to be relicensed for fifty-years. But objections were heard from various citizen groups. They warned about soil-erosion at the emergency spillway giving rise to the potential for its catastrophic failure during high water conditions like those now present. Their calls for the spillway to be reinforced with concrete were ignored by the FERC which, instead, began granting annual one-year operating licenses in 2007.

Those licenses have been renewed on the basis of a “Potential Failure Mode Analysis” of the Oroville Dam. According to an October 14, 2016 letter sent by FERC’s Office of Energy Projects to the California Department of Water Resources, the latest Failure Analysis – which was submitted to FERC in December 2014 – was “a significant improvement” over its predecessor. The public is being kept in the dark about this justification for ignoring the actual, high potential for failure of this dam, however, because FERC treats these these Failure Analysis documents as secrets.

Unfortunately, this catastrophe-in-the-making in California is just one example of FERC’s shortcomings. The agency is overwhelmed by its extensive regulatory responsibilities and it is often captured by regulated interests. Consider the following contributing factors:

  • FERC is charged with overseeing far more than the nation’s dams. Each year, the agency processes over 1,000 orders for, among other things, electric utilities, natural gas pipelines, and hydroelectric facilities, with limited time for any individual matter, no matter how important.
  • FERC routinely adjudicates complex technical matters, yet many FERC commissioners in recent years have been lawyers, congressional staffers or lobbyists.
  • In addition, and especially of late, the five ostensibly “independent” FERC Commissioners have taken advantage of a “revolving door” between their official positions and well-paid jobs at entities they regulate – or the law firms or lobbying shops that serve them. For example, former FERC Commissioner Phillip Moeller left the commission to be a lobbyist at the Edison Electric Institute; former Commissioner Tony Clark left to become a counsel at a law firm serving utilities. (For more evidence of such inherent conflicts of interest, see here, here and here.)
  • Given this sweetheart-deal dynamic, it should come as no surprise that FERC has earned a reputation for serving as a “rubber stamp” for industry interests.
Bad as the dangers associated with FERC’s failure to assure the safety of the Oroville dam are, these factors have contributed to the agency’s culpability for even more serious malfeasance: the uncorrected vulnerability of the U.S. electric grid to physical, cyber and electromagnetic pulse attack, as well as to the effects of intense solar storms.

Should the grid – our most critical of critical infrastructures – suffer widespread and sustained collapse as a result of one or the other of those very real dangers becoming reality, the consequences would dwarf those associated with massive flooding of areas below the Oroville Dam.

These potential catastrophes underscore a long-neglected reality: The safety and security of the American people requires that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission have as commissioners individuals who have been, are and will remain genuinely independent from the industries that their agency regulates. This is especially so as the commissioners are, by statute, essentially unaccountable to either the President or Congress.

As it happens, three out of five FERC commissioner slots are currently open. It is imperative that President Trump nominates, and the Senate confirms, only commissioners who will have the requisite technical expertise, independence and vision to use their considerable power to protect the people of this country, and not simply the utilities they regulate.
 
Waterbaby said:
Take a look at the size of the next storm to move in over the weekend - it looks like it will cover all the west.. we are also in for cooling this weekend, so it means in the mountains more snow - heard last night the Sierra is already at a record 510" [Mammoth Mountain] and more on the way.........

http://www.accuweather.com/en/hurricane/east-pacific
Click to expand...
I will be going up to Mammoth this weekend so I will let you know.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top