The California Department of Water Resources issued a sudden evacuation order shortly before 5 p.m. Sunday for residents near the Oroville Dam in northern California, warning that the dam’s emergency spillway would fail in the next 60 minutes.
Prayers to all involved, I have friends in the area and family south of Orville who could be in trouble....
Kalifornia still want secede or do they now want taxpayers to help?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnstown_Flood
The people downriver that heeded the evacuation order were wise.
On the night of June 9, 1972, a flash flood roared down Rapid Creek, which runs through the middle of town. Two hundred thirty-nine people lost their lives that night.
The stench of the mud and death remained in Rapid City until winter came.
tonyo6302's Link
See the linky for details.
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/12/oroville-dam-feds-and-state-officials-ignored-warnings-12-years-ago/
That was my point in my earlier post here. CA is pizzing away Billions upon Billions of $$$$$ on a fast train to nowhere that few will ever ride while ignoring the problems with the Oroville dam. Why? Because lefty politicians LOVE mass transit. Not for themselves, of course. Once the ribbon cutting is over, they'll never ride the train. It's us hicks and rubes who are going to ride the train (they hope).
As a result, tens of thousands of people are facing the possible destruction of their property and even the loss of their lives.
Certainly not the people who will be harmed if the dam gives way. The large % of the people in the area of concern are conservatives.
Unfortunately, it's the Liberal a-holes in the SF and LA areas who control the CA Assembly and the CA Senate.
True that. But it's also true that it was the liberals in the SF and LA areas who were responsible for getting that fast train to nowhere initiative approved. And it's the Governor and the Legislature that keep pushing it, even though the cost estimate has doubled already.
A series of rain storms are due in starting Thursday and lasting a week or more, so they've got two more days to jerry-rig the problem, the pray it works.
Can you even begin to imagine the power of that much water if the dam were to fail?
"The Teton Dam was an earthen dam on the Teton River in Idaho, United States. It was built by the Bureau of Reclamation, one of eight federal agencies authorized to construct dams. Located in the eastern part of the state, between Fremont and Madison counties, it suffered a catastrophic failure on June 5, 1976, as it was filling for the first time.
The collapse of the dam resulted in the deaths of 11 people and 13,000 cattle. The dam cost about $100 million to build, and the federal government paid over $300 million in claims related to its failure. Total damage estimates have ranged up to $2 billion. The dam has not been rebuilt."
The rain and the flooding started a bit before midnight on June 9. These photos were taken the following day after Rapid Creek had mostly returned to it's banks.
I lived just off base about six miles from town. About 7:00 the next morning the Air Police drove by with loudspeakers telling all military personnel to report to their squadrons, which I did immediately.
When I got there, everyone was milling around and nothing was happening. So I asked the CO if I could go into town to help rather than standing around doing nothing.
He gave me permission to do that, so I drove into town and went to City Hall, which was where the radio stations were asking volunteers to go. Until I got to town and saw the carnage, I had no idea how bad it was.
When I got to City Hall, after standing around some more, I finally went up and told some official, " Put me to work." He said I could go to some intersection and direct traffic. I said, "Screw that. What else can I do?" So he suggested I head to a neighborhood that had been hit hard and find a homeowner who needed help. Which I did.
I found Sam and Marion Tuttle and their kids, who had had literally spent much of the night on the roof of their home, trying to stay alive and listening to neighbors screaming for help. The water was up to the eaves!
We spent the next few days shoveling mud out of their home, moving furniture and ripping off baseboards.
That sort of thing is not something you ever forget.
Amazingly, I was able to get a phone number for them, called them and spent :30 on the phone with Marion, then Sam.
Life is short, folks. Connect with the people in your lives with whom you shared really important moments while you and they still can!
This is pretty true of all states. The idiots are for sure concentrated in the cities.
And Yes! There really are people out there who don't know bighorn sheep from antelope. On my WY sheep hunt last year, on the second day of backpacking in, we met a guy hiking out who was obviously a serious and well-seasoned backpacker. When we asked him if he'd been seeing any sheep, he said, "No, but I've seen lots of antelope!"
We were at 11,000' in country that was 15 or more miles from the nearest road and it was all straight up and down mountains. It was so nasty that there weren't even any Mule Deer there. The 'antelope' he'd been seeing were Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep!
What did you do at Ellsworth? I was a Stand/Eval navigator for the 4th ACCS.
Or, maybe fill the gaps with them...?
Yeah, or worse, the poor kids who were guarding our alert birds.
They had a telephone-booth size 'shelter' they could sit in some of the time. But no matter the weather, they were required to walk the perimeter of the aircraft they were guarding every :15.
The BUFF's and the KC's had a perimeter that included two ships. Our perimeters included only one EC ship.
Those poor kids who had to walk the perimeter of our red line were required to shoot-to-kill anyone who crossed that perimeter unless there were TWO officers who would yell out the 'passcode of the day' before they crossed that line.
I remember on more than one occasion when we had an alert, they'd wave us inside the perimeter after we'd given them the password and then they'd withdraw to their 'telephone booths,' only to have their booths blown over, with them still in it, when the jet blasts hit!
LOL!
Those were the days, my friend!
Remember: at the core of every bit of humor, there is a kernel of truth.
Anony Mouse's Link
Anony Mouse's Link
Perfect! lol!
"Northern California Snowmelt Crisis as Temps Rise into 70s
by CHRISS W. STREET, 26 Feb 2017
Northern California will face a new flood crisis for Oroville Dam and Shasta Dam, as 10 days of up to 75 degree weather will spark an early spring snowmelt.
With the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) rating over 90 percent of California as experiencing an “Extreme Water Year,” the media are welcoming sunny skies that are expected to spike Northern California valley temperatures to 75 degrees or higher.
Because hundreds of smaller dams in Northern California have been allowed to fill, water runoff for the Sacramento Valley from Sierra Nevada-fed rivers is running at 130 percent of average for this time of year; versus rivers flowing into the San Joaquin Valley, which are running at 190 percent of average runoff.
But as temperatures rise to 65 degrees in mid-mountain elevations at the 6–8,000 foot levels that received 3 feet of snow in the last set of storms, 13-degree-above-average temperatures are about to trigger an early spring snowmelt, according to Paul Preston of Agenda 21 Radio News, who has been broadcasting continuously from Oroville Dam during the last month.
The Feather River below Oroville Dam that is holding back up to 3.5 million acre feet of water is currently running at 196 percent of average for this time of year. The Sacramento River, below the much bigger Shasta Dam, which holds back up to 4.5 million acre feet of water, is running at 156 percent of average.
Almost completely ignored during the crisis mass evacuations in reaction to the potential failure of Oroville Dam, the water levels rose to within 11 feet of Shasta Dam’s 602-foot-high emergency spillway, despite running Shasta’s lower water release gates at full-blast since January 16. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation engineers were forced to open the upper flood gates for 15 minutes on February 23 for the first time in two decades. With the sun coming out on Saturday afternoon, the water level at Shasta’s Dam had fallen by 3.99 feet.
Breitbart News reported that to prevent Oroville Dam from massively pouring over its emergency spillway and flooding over 1 million people in the Sacramento Valley, the 9 smaller supporting dams on the Feather River were allowed to fill up. During the same period, engineers allowed the 5 smaller dams that support Shasta Dam to fill up as well.
But Shasta Dam was originally designed to be 804 feet high and hold back 13.9 million acre feet of water, because it blocked the water flows from the Pit, McCloud, and Sacramento rivers. Built during by the federal government during World War II for the duel purpose of providing flood control and electrical generation to California aviation factories, wartime material shortages prevented adding the dam’s top 200 feet.
Fully aware that Shasta Dam is not tall enough to handle the type of 100-year flood that California may currently be facing, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has proposed $1.1 billion to raise the height of Shasta Dam by 18.5 feet to increase water storage by 14 percent. But the Obama administration killed the project in 2014 by filing a 349-page report claiming expansion was a threat to salmon under the U. S. Endangered Species Act. (emphasis mine)
Breitbart News reported that despite Gov. Jerry Brown campaigning for the $7.5 billion Proposition 1 Water Bond to provide new dams and flood control in 2014, he moved in April 2016 to redirect $250 million to re-wild the Klamath River by tearing down 4 hydro-electric dams.
But facing political blow-back from having ordered the evacuation of 188,000 people during the near-collapse of Oroville Dam, and fearing an early spring snowmelt, Gov. Brown on February 24 asked the Democrat-controlled California Legislature to spend $50 million in existing general fund money, plus $387 million from the Proposition 1 fund, on emergency flood control efforts, according to the Sacramento Bee."
Earlier this month, we all heard the news that the Oroville Dam was damaged, and that thousands of residents living in its shadow would have to be evacuated. Fortunately the dam held, and the residents of Oroville were able to return to their homes. For the most part the story has since faded from the news. However, the damage remains.
When the crisis was at its peak, you may have heard about what specifically went wrong with the dam. The main spillway was damaged when the dam operators attempted to release some water to control the depth of Lake Oroville. Essentially, a crater unexpectedly emerged in the middle of the spillway, and when the water flowed through that hole, it eroded the soil beneath. So the dam operators decided to let the water flow over an emergency spillway instead. But as the emergency spillway began to erode as well, an evacuation order was issued.
But hearing that doesn’t really do it any justice. To really appreciate the magnitude of what occurred that day, you have to see it with your own eyes. And now you can.
On Monday the California Department of Water Resources stopped the flow of water down the spillway so that they could assess the damage. Here’s what they found:
When state water officials scaled back their mass dumping of water from the damaged Oroville Dam this week, they knew the riverbed below would dry up enough to allow the removal of vast piles of debris from the fractured main spillway.
But they apparently did not anticipate a side effect of their decision to stop feeding the gushing Feather River — a rapid drop in river level that, according to downstream landowners, caused miles of embankment to come crashing down.
With high water no longer propping up the shores, the still-wet soil crashed under its own weight, sometimes dragging in trees, rural roads and farmland, they said.
“The damage is catastrophic,” said Brad Foster, who has waterfront property in Marysville (Yuba County), about 25 miles south of Lake Oroville.
Learn More: http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/ar...
