The Glade 4.0

For those seeing the stories on the news, the Oroville Dam, the tallest dam in the United States, yes, even taller than Hoover Dam, is having some problems.

First, the wikipedia article on the dam. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oroville_Dam

Short version, about 50 feet taller than the Hoover Dam, this earthfilled embankment dam holds up to about 134 trillion pounds of water when full. It exceeded that today, going to the emergency spillway, basically a lower place in the dam wall, for the first time since the dam opened 49 years ago. Turns out the hillside below the the spillway didn't like that too much and has quickly eroded. About 188,000 people from smallish towns in the area were evacuated. From Oroville down to Marysville and out to Gridley and many small towns on both sides of the river. Most of them went north to Chico in gridlocked traffic. Hopefully they have friends out there because otherwise they will have to settle for refugee shelters. I've heard but haven't been able to source that there aren't any rooms left to rent for the night in Chico.

I live 70 miles downriver in a reasonable town across the river from the State Capitol. Its about three miles from my house to the Capitol building. My town is surrounded by rivers and canals, the water held back by some of the best levees in the area. We maintain our side, because, ya know, surrounded by them. Still, any levee can fail for a multitude of reasons. One of the local lore type stories is that Sacramento has a stash of explosives designated to blow the levees on our side of the river if theirs start to fail. That piece of local lore has been around since we built them,. 120 years ago.

I may or may not need to evacuate, almost a certainty if the dam fails. Not so much if its just heavy flow through normal dam releases. If you want to read an article on the flood, there are many available.

Sacramento Bee gives you the basics - http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/article132332499.html

Today we had as much water spilling over the dam top/emergency spillway as Niagara Falls does on an average day. If you've ever seen it, imagine that going into an already full river. All the weirs to the bypass are open. Those of us who pray are praying. The rest are going WTF OMG all over the internet.

Oh yeah, the main spillway has been damaged by a sinkhole, its been reported by various sources as 45 feet deep, 300 yards wide and 750 feet long, Here's an earlier picture when you could only fir about half a dozen football fields in it. Dammit, picture isn't working, here's the URL https://www.google.com/search?q=orovill ... KRsDl8XTrM:

I'll let you know if I have to evacuate, I've already had a couple of friends in a couple of areas of higher ground offer me couch space if I need to book out. Hopefully not.

Oh, and the latest unverified rumor from normally unreliable sources is that Trump has already denied declaring the area a disaster area because we have multiple sanctuary cities and voted overwhelmingly for Clinton. I doubt it is true, more likely #CalExit propaganda. I think he's waiting to see what our Governor, Jerry Brown is going to do if this turns from a $200 million patch job on the dam and environs to a multi billion dollar flood disaster. Brown has already declared it a Disaster zone.

This is meant to be informational. If you turn it into a political Hellfire thread I'll be very disappointed in you.

_________________
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Hopefully the bad will not dump all over your head, but instead gracefully flow onward.

_________________


Grenade 3 Sports Drink. It's fire in the hole.. Your hole!

Good luck mike x

Keep us informed on your status! I've been following the news of the dam...

_________________
When he's underwater does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead?

Thanks for the good thoughts everyone.

Today's update.

http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/califo ... 79669.html

Several videos both of the dams and the minor but real plights of the evacuees. While not a great time, its definitely first world problems. No reports of lives or homes lost so far, but they are still dumping water into the river as fast as they can safely do so. We have three more storms lined up waiting to come on in. Next storm is due Wednesday.

How big they will be and how hard they will hit is of course unknown. Doppler radar indicates we will get a fair amount from the southern third of the storms, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia are even more so in harm's way.

Going to the store later to refresh supplies and pick up some batteries. Just in case we get power outages. Reminds me to get some propane for the camp stove.

Stay safe and good luck everyone.

_________________
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Bush caused this by not caring about black people.

_________________
Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Lots of videos, both dam and other situations.

http://www.kcra.com/article/breaking-do ... le/8690041

Hotel rooms in Sacramento are filling up well beyond normal.

Wilton, a small relatively affluent ranch town in the Sacramento area, is also close to the Cosumnes River has sprung a levee breach, and is now flooded. They're used to it, happens every few years.

Tyler Island, one of the agricultural Sacramento Delta Islands, has a levee breach and is being evacuated. About 20 homes affected. Tyler Island is a little south of Walnut Grove, which might be easier to find on a map.

Evacuation orders are still in force and are being expanded.

_________________
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

You take your filthy language to Hellfire.

_________________
The Dude abides.

Any chance you get washed away should things fail?

_________________
Raell Kromwell

Raell - Yes, there is a chance. Low percentage at this point, but it remains a possibility. I have a go bag packed. The dam would have to fail, then the levees along the way would have to stand and those near me fail. Right now I have the feeling that the three counties along the way will be in much greater danger should the dam fail. Yuba, Butte, and Sutter Counties, a lot of small towns would be flooded. Marysville and Yuba City are right next to each other and on the river. They would most likely feel the brunt of the flood from a failure. Lots of agricultural land along the way, much of which would probably be sacrificed with deliberate levee failures should the failure happen. I don't know the exact river mileage, but driving time in light traffic is a little over an hour to the dam, about 70 miles with some of it going through Marysville city streets, so slowed down.

Sacramento is the first major City hit, and West Sacramento is on the other side of the river from Sacramento. Close to downtown Sacramento, the largest percentage break point is the confluence of the Sacramento River, the one that would be carrying the flood waters, and the American River, the one that comes in from the other side of town, supplies most of Sacramento's drinking water, and whose big dam is the Folsom Dam.

I live a couple miles from the confluence point.

I'm still praying that everything holds, that we are just scared badly, and that we'll be telling scary stories about the Oroville Dam in February 2017 to scare little kids and politicians for years to come.

_________________
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Oh, and for those who understand trucking problems, US 50 between Placerville and Tahoe is now closed indefinitely due to multiple large landslides along the route. This is on the American River side of things.

So all the Trucks going East to Tahoe now have to go up I-80. This will cause more traffic on I-80 of course, since the skiers and other vacation takers are going to have to use I-80 as well.

We've already had the rail line up to Reno closed for a couple days due to mudslides in January.

We have achieved that old Chinese curse. We live in interesting times and have come to the attention of powerful people.

_________________
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Just received this from NextDoor

Update: NO evacuations in West Sacramento
Communications Assistant Priscila Alcala from City of West Sacramento · 14h ago
Photo from Communications Assistant Priscila Alcala

Water is no longer flowing over the spillway at Oroville Dam and levels have dropped by about 30 feet as state water officials work to make room in Lake Oroville before the next storm Wednesday night.

There are NO evacuations for the City of West Sacramento and there is no current threat to the community.

The Sacramento River is well within its banks in our region. Reclamation District 900 crews have been inspecting West Sacramento levees 24/7 and report no issues.

West Sacramento Fire and Emergency services personnel continue to monitor the situation, and will update the public if anything changes.

We encourage residents to sign up for emergency alerts through Yolo Alert at https://member.everbridge.net/index/4530...

Shared with City of West Sacramento in Crime & Safety

_________________
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Gotta feel for the displaced folks. Glad to hear that it sounds like you should be spared that, Micheal. The pictures and footage of the spillway situation(s) are amazing in a terrifying way.

Stay safe Micheal. /hugs

_________________
"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

So in looking at the pictures of the sinkhole in the normal spillway, I just now noticed (having missed it yesterday) that the hole goes under the wall of the spillway.

Now things make much more sense.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Oroville is my hometown. Most of my relatives...grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins...lived there or in Gridley, Biggs, Palermo, Paradise, Feather Falls. Most of them are buried in the cemetary between Oroville and Palermo, including my mother. I would hate to see flood waters destroy any/all of this.

_________________
"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

Sure casts drought in a more favorable light now, doesn't it?

_________________

Evacuation Notice has been lifted for now. However there is a new storm due in tonight and they aren't draining the reservoir anywhere as fast as they hoped. So far they have less than 20 feet and they wanted 50 feet of space at least.

Right now they are figuring around three million cubic yards of material has been washed away from the spillway ramp. This doesn't include the hillside that isn't there anymore below the emergency spillway.

Now its coming out that the needed repairs have been known about since 2008, but funds to do it have always been voted down every time by the state politicians. Of course now its going to cost probably about 100 times more to fix it.

Warning, Political Statement,

_________________
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Democrats are always great about spending other people's money on what gives the Democrats deciding the spending nice warm fuzzies.

But hey, I'm an anarchist.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Also, glad you are not damp.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I'm imagining that if there are floods and homes are washed away, there will be plenty of fuel for bonfires next time there is an occasion. Made me think of your annual bonfire party Elm.

_________________
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Infrastructure is never fixed early, no matter who is in charge. I don't understand waiting until the problem gets worse, or a catastrophe happens, as it's far more expensive down the road.

We have a major bridge closed because a truss cracked all the way through. And another closed a few years back because a support column was tilting. It's not like they are not heavily used and on our major highways or anything...Grr...

If any of the politicians are still in office who voted that down... show them the door.

_________________
When he's underwater does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead?

Today's storm was much lighter than expected. Great news as they continue to keep lowering the level of the reservoir. Folks are being optimistic that Sunday's incoming storm won't take us back into the danger zone.

Here's an article on the latest happenings.

http://www.latimes.com/local/california ... story.html

_________________
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Another article, human side as people around Oroville are talking about the evacuation.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Lake ... o-12370887

_________________
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Film of the spillway now, relatively dry. We still have more winter storms coming, but this is a break week.

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/D ... 966777.php

_________________
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones