Oroville Dam evacuation.

[ZenOps]

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/articl...t-10925628.php

Last year drought. This year, too much water. Now that the aquifers have collapsed they now have a brutal flash flood.

Probability the spillway/dam will break tonight.

100,000+ evacuated.

Side notes: Oroville is the tallest dam in the US.

[dirtsniffer]

The Dam is not going to break. You're worse than faux news.

[dirtsniffer]

Derp

[adam c]

All the live views I watched didn't say the damn was going to fail just the emergency overflow

[dirtsniffer]

Based on more reading I may need to retract my derp. This may be very interesting.

[vengie]

Originally posted by dirtsniffer
Based on more reading I may need to retract my derp. This may be very interesting.

What have you been reading? can you post a link??

[Sentry]

Now, are there any dam questions?

[vengie]

Originally posted by Sentry
Now, are there any dam questions?

I'm sure this discussion will generate a lot of interest.

[ZenOps]

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/12/us/cal...ure/index.html

Good pictures of the unrepaired main spillway erosion (nevermind the erosion behind the emergency spillway)

Probably could have benefited from a wider and thicker concrete base, but then again - it would have been a lot more expensive.

[Buster]

God has come to smite the Blue States

[dirtsniffer]

Originally posted by vengie


What have you been reading? can you post a link??

Just random news articles. There were definitely some alternative facts going around.

[ExtraSlow]

Haven't been following this. Since California has so many of it's waterways controlled with dams, are other parts of the state getting into similar situations from all the precipitation?

[ExtraSlow]

Disappointed ZenOps hasn't mentioned Lake Mead yet. So I'll throw this in, it has 142 feet to rise before the reservoir is 100% full.

[FraserB]

Originally posted by ExtraSlow
Haven't been following this. Since California has so many of it's waterways controlled with dams, are other parts of the state getting into similar situations from all the precipitation?

Unless those dams are also faced with damage to their main spillways, this won't happen to them. With the main spillway at Oroville being damaged, the DPW restricted the outflow of water to try to reduce the damage, but were not able to keep up with inflow to the reservoir.

The biggest worry yesterday was that the emergency spillway would collapse, which would have resulted in 30 vertical feet of water being released from the reservoir.

[ExtraSlow]

Gotcha. After reading a bit more, that makes a lot of sense.

[ZenOps]

Lake mead?

http://mead.uslakes.info/level.asp

Yes, its still at historic lows. They will have to reduce electrical output at Hoover this summer again.

[zaider]

While its true that the actual dam wouldn't collapse due the emergency spillway, I'd think that the erosion from flows over the hillside would be of significant concern. Weakening the embankments isn't going to do dam stability any favours as the water would flow across the parking lot and down an unprotected slope.

I was reading current flows out are 2.8ML/s while flows in are around 1.2ML/s so the water level is dropping, but with more rain forecast for Wednesday, the inflows could increase.

Repairs on the spillway would be complicated. You're going to have saturated, unconsolidated material in there. The pictures in that CNN article are a good indication of this because you're seeing further collapse of the overlying concrete without additional water flow, likely meaning you've got settlement underneath. Once you have saturated soils, you are more susceptible to liquefaction events (need a triggering event still - like an earthquake) due to the increased pore water pressure.

[JfuckinC]

https://www.metabunk.org/oroville-da...failure.t8381/

Lots of random info there...

Been following this, pretty interesting shit to be honest. They gave up trying to save the main spillway and are hoping it's done eroding at the point it's at, or at least slow enough to not matter for this season. It's basically lost 50% of it's structure and now just ripped down to bed rock and flowing there I think.

They're currently trying to repair the emergency spill way with bags-o-rocks and cement. Hopefully they can get that under control.

I guess we'll see what happens, how low they can get the levels down before the next rain/snow runoff situation...

[NoPulp]

Dam son.


I designed 7 irrigation gates that are getting installed next week 200 miles south. Hopefully the weather is decent for installation.

[01RedDX]

.