Oroville dam experiencing overflow problems

[tyroneweaver]

my worry is some wacko will blow a dam up

 

[skookerasbil]

my worry is some wacko will blow a dam up

No need to in California!! Terror bad guys can just watch them fail on their own!!

 

[Luddly Neddite]

my worry is some wacko will blow a dam up

No need to in California!! Terror bad guys can just watch them fail on their own!!

@skooserasbil

Really?

Guess I missed that.



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[Old Rocks]

The snow storms have been about the wettest I've ever seen out here.
My SIL's mother can't get to here house cause flooding just washed everything out.

http://www.kcra.com/article/officials-release-water-from-oroville-dam-to-test-damaged-spillwa

That kind of looks like either a design flaw or construction flaw or possibly a spring under the spillway?

ya, there's no way that spillway shoulda gouged out like that.
Now it's just blowing out chunks.
I don't think any of this is as bad as 84 yet.

This is just plain bad engineering. Often, engineers, in order to save money, or make a lesser bid, underestimate natural hazards. Other times, the people that control the purse strings shut down engineers that are trying to do the right thing. An example is the Fort Peck dam in Montana. In 2011, same situation there. Spillway chunking out on an earthfill dam. Fortunately the rain and runoff did not get worse, and the dam did not fail, for that would have taken out all the earthfill dams downstream. However, the Corps of Engineers asked for the money to build a spillway that would handle four times as much water as the present one. Congress only approved enough money to repair the old spillway.

 

[Old Rocks]

The worst recent dam failure in the US were from engineers ignoring the local geology. The St. Francis dam, and the Teton dam. In both cases people paid with their lives for the engineers mistakes.

 

[tyroneweaver]

The snow storms have been about the wettest I've ever seen out here.
My SIL's mother can't get to here house cause flooding just washed everything out.

http://www.kcra.com/article/officials-release-water-from-oroville-dam-to-test-damaged-spillwa

That kind of looks like either a design flaw or construction flaw or possibly a spring under the spillway?

ya, there's no way that spillway shoulda gouged out like that.
Now it's just blowing out chunks.
I don't think any of this is as bad as 84 yet.

This is just plain bad engineering. Often, engineers, in order to save money, or make a lesser bid, underestimate natural hazards. Other times, the people that control the purse strings shut down engineers that are trying to do the right thing. An example is the Fort Peck dam in Montana. In 2011, same situation there. Spillway chunking out on an earthfill dam. Fortunately the rain and runoff did not get worse, and the dam did not fail, for that would have taken out all the earthfill dams downstream. However, the Corps of Engineers asked for the money to build a spillway that would handle four times as much water as the present one. Congress only approved enough money to repair the old spillway.

Tell me about it. My wifes uncle and cousins live in Rexburg Idaho when the Teton dam collapsed. their house went floating down the highway.

 

[tyroneweaver]

 

[Old Rocks]

One of my grandmothers brothers, and his family, were killed when the St. Francis dam collapsed.

We are going to see more and more extreme precipitation events in coming years. Dams without adequate spillways will be putting everyone downstream in danger. Time to have our big dams evaluated for the worst case scenario.

 

[Old Rocks]

The St. Francis dam disaster.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

my worry is some wacko will blow a dam up

Good luck with that. The amount of explosives needed would be enormous.

 

[RodISHI]

If every person stopped watering their dumb lawn, the difference, across the country, would be immense. Grow edibles. It could make all the difference. It could quite literally save us.

Southern California and other areas without sufficient water should have been limiting watering lawns all along. They could use grey water to water groves too.

 

[RodISHI]

Flood or drought, take your pick.

I thought in California it was water for farms or cities, take your pick.

Farmers have priority rights in the central and imperials valleys I know that.

Last year my aunt said a lot of the old groves around San Bernardino and Riverside counties were drying up and dying as they had cut off all of their water supplies. She put up pics and I had to agree with her very sad indeed. They did not limit lawns though or golf courses. There is a group that wants privates out.

Live cattle have gone down close to 50 pct in the last year.
2 years ago cattle was king. Now it sucks.

A friend sold all of his two years ago and we had not been keeping up on it, thanks.

 

[skookerasbil]

This could only happen in California..........where they cant do anything right!!

Californians are paying billions for power they don't need
We're using less electricity. Some power plants have even shut down. So why do state officials keep approving new ones?

By Ivan Penn and Ryan Menezes | Reporting from Yuba City, Calif.

Feb. 5, 2017



http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-electricity-capacity/

 

[Manonthestreet]

Get rdy to read about CA flood devastation on yrly basis after 4 dams on Klamath get torn down......and with it all that green energy........

 

[miketx]

The real threat to dams is age, poor planning and poor design. Heavy rains don't help.

 

[longknife]

Oroville Dam

http://www.livescience.com/images/i...27?interpolation=lanczos-none&downsize=*:1400

Luckily they're getting a break with a lull in rainfall. However, it won't be long until the massive snow pack in the Sierras begins to melt. Will engineers be able to make enough repairs to deal with that?

It's also possible that the roots from nearby trees weakened the concrete, or that five years of drought created small cracks in the spillway that were never patched. This season's inundation could have soaked and further weakened the spillway, creating the perfect storm of conditions, The Sacramento Bee reported.

For now, however, the main reservoir levels are low enough that the spillway likely won't have to be used again for the rest of the rainy season. Engineers must now find a way to repair the spillway before the next rainy season.

Read more @ Shocking Images Reveal Massive Damage to California Reservoir