[Roosh]

Live stream shows water is going over the emergency spillway, even though the main spillway is open:

Significant rain is expected to come starting on Wednesday. Even if both spillways hold up, the river it's feeding into can flood downstream.

[DamienCasanova]

(02-13-2017 12:24 PM)Roosh Wrote:  

Is this an act of God to punish Californians?

Since they want to leave the USA so badly, I think God is just waiting for another earthquake at the San Andreas fault to give them the Hard Exit they are wishing for.

[Buck Wild]

Haven't much about 'Calexit' from these guys lately...wonder why?

[Adonis]

I'm not a civil engineer but here is my take on this: The emergency spillway will fail, and the DWR knew/knows it. Current Sierra Nevada snowpack is 173% of average and many of the northern California reservoirs are at almost 100% capacity due to heavy rainfalls. Based on some numbers I have seen and ran, the expected 4" of rainfall from this weeks storms alone presents a grave risk to the dam complex (although not the dam itself) with about a 4 foot surplus over what the weir can handle. Inflows have been well under 50 Kcfs for the past 48 hours, there exists peak inflows on record of well over 250 Kcfs. It looks like CA DWR has either not been posting the inflow rates or keeping them FOUO after the evacuation order. One thing to keep in mind is the downstream flow rates. If the dam can outflow 250 Kcfs but downstream can only handle 100 Kcfs, you have a large problem. There is also significant debris backing up the turbines so they can not be relied upon to provide power.

Dam structure - Low risk. Top of dam is 20ft above the emergency spillway. Although looking at this topo map, there looks to be a depression going downhill away from the #841. If the main spillway were to erode that high up, water could conceivably head downhill right on the dam itself.



Main spillway - Substantial risk of further erosion creeping up the hill towards the release gates. Based on what I have seen the main spillway can not handle flow rates above 65 Kcfs without furthering the erosion already present which presents a problem because they need to run outflow to its full 100 Kcfs to make any appreciable dent in water levels. In this picture you can see the bluish bedrock and the brown dirt. Anywhere there is danger of water flow should be straight bedrock or else you end up with our current erosion condition. It is much worse now than in the picture.



Emergency spillway - High danger of failing by the time full reservoir inflows arrive with full rain/snowmelt. We will very likely see a compromise of the weir and/or surrounding area leading to a total collapse and erosion of the emergency spillway and surrounding topography. Looking at these pictures I can see why at first the DWR thought the situation was stable but after they began to see the erosion channels creep toward the weir they freaked out and recommended the evacuation. Without looking at the engineering drawings there is no way to tell how deep the bedrock is underneath all the glacial shit rock. From looking at the second picture it is more than 30-40 feet. There exists a significant danger that the main spillway will not be able to be used to its full outflow rate which will cause water to flow over the emergency spillway which will then rapidly cause further erosion up to and even underneath the weir. It's only a matter of time before the whole thing collapses and with it 30 feet of reservoir. If it goes like that then the main spillway gate structure could be damaged as well causing a compounding lack of flow control.

Before



After



Thats what 30 feet and no bedrock? This is from the top of the frame between the trucks and where the road is washed away.



Worst case scenario: Further erosion causes weir to fail and damages the main spillway gates causing uncontrolled outflow which erodes the depression by hill #841 and causes the dam to go.

[weambulance]

And to make matters worse, if there are a couple false alarms in the next few weeks--or even just this one--people aren't going to be quick to evacuate when the real emergency comes. From that point of view, it would probably be best if there was some minor, impressive looking, but not particularly dangerous or damaging failure right now.

[Truth Teller]

I'm not an engineer either (maybe someone here is?), but my understanding is that these earthen dams are usually not as solid as the concrete-reinforced ones at places like Shasta and Hoover Dams.

Wish some of this rain would come out for the Colorado...

[Roosh]

In a worst case scenario of total dam failure, how many homes would be flooded? Would the major urban areas be affected?

[Adonis]

At the earliest stages it was thought a full dam collapse was a likely possibility, here are some inundation and progression time estimates.

[/url]

[url=https://twitter.com/TroyJBarnhart/status/830969574199668736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

[The Lizard of Oz]

While we're on this subject, here is a superb documentary about the flooding of the Teton Dam in Idaho in 1976 and the rebuilding effort that followed. It is a beautiful short film that is well worth your while if you have 20 minutes to spare. It was made by the Utah Power and Light utility company.

[Dusty]

Here's a video on the construction of the dam in the 60s.

I visited the dam/lake last 4th of July. Beautiful dam and beautiful area. They have a real meth problem there though, and it's evident when you go into a convenient store.

[Tokyo Joe]

[Dusty]

People probably don't understand the climate of California. It essentially doesn't rain in the summer. June - September average precipitation probably rounds to zero in the San Francisco Bay Area for example. You have to manipulate nature a bit to have enough water for millions and millions of people. Normally it rains like a son of a bitch in the winter (and snows in the mountains).

The Sierra Nevada mountains (think Lake Tahoe) get a shit ton of snow. When it melts starting in spring, it flows down the rivers and streams. Before these dams were built, the water would make its way to the ocean and become useless. Also the rivers would flood.

With this dam (and others) they block the water from making its way to the ocean. They store the "melted snow" in these man made lakes to provide water for people for the summer when it doesn't rain.

[Adonis]

Zero Hedge has a really thorough article about the situation thus far with some swell graphics, flood zones, inflows/outfows, everything.

ZH: Oroville Dam a "never happened before event"

Also this one with some interesting research:

ZH: Oroville Dam Disaster Is Latest In Series Of CA Government Corruption, Environmental Failures

Quote:

On February 13th, 2017 residents in Oroville, CA, were given a last second, panicked directive to evacuate their homes and flee the area due to concerns that the Oroville dam was about to imminently fail. At the time of this article, the dam has still not yet failed. Should it fail though, California's government may face tough questions about their failure to adequately prepare for a disaster they had been warned about for over a decade.

California negligently failed to make preparations for the inevitable end to a major drought which had occurring since 2011. For 12 years, environmental groups had warned federal and state officials that the dam was likely to experience structural issues in the event of heavy rains and flooding. Governor Jerry Brown had years to direct the Democrat controlled state government to authorize funding and enact plans for repairs to the dam while water levels remained low. The Water Quality, Supply, and Infrastructure Improvement Act of 2014 set aside $395,000,000 for flood management, but to date has not allocated any of it to actual repairs or projects, raising questions about where the money currently sits and what it has been used for since 2014.

President Trump needs to mandate that the Army Corps of Engineers take over ownership/operation of the dam in exchange for any federal aid.

[HermeticAlly]

This is a really surprising occurrence considering that I've been hearing for ages about California's drought, but I guess Dusty's post above explained it pretty good.

California clearly has major infrastructure problems outside of the obvious stuff. Really glad I don't live in this mess of a state...

[komatiite]

(02-13-2017 09:34 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:  

While we're on this subject, here is a superb documentary about the flooding of the Teton Dam in Idaho in 1976 and the rebuilding effort that followed. It is a beautiful short film that is well worth your while if you have 20 minutes to spare. It was made by the Utah Power and Light utility company.

Haha, I saw that exact clip in school when I took a geotechnical engineering class. My prof grew up in Idaho so knew all about it. We had spent a couple classes learning about Flow Nets and I was getting really sick of them, still remember how pumped I was we got to watch a movie in class instead of doing more problems!

[Adonis]

Im seeing rainfall estimates anywhere from 4-6" through the weekend. If the water is 895' this afternoon and they think they're going to be at 850' with 110 Kcfs outflow by Wednesday I want some of what they are smoking. If they let it overflow out of the emergency spillway again the hillside will erode and it will collapse, most likely the edge of the weir closest to the parking lot. Watch where they are keeping the equipment at the end of the week, if they move it further away they know something is going to break.

Some more pics from this thorough DailyMail article.

Main spillway now completely compromised, with erosion accelerating on the left side.







Park on the Feather River



Oroville



Some new pics from CA DWR

You can make out a large crack below the 2 guys in the foreground, that is not a good sign for the integrity of the hillside below the weir.



It looks like the quick concrete and rock bomb job they did prevented the erosion from reaching the spillway gates.

[John Michael Kane]

If that picture doesn't give you a magnitude of how scary the situation actually is, I don't know what will convince you to get the hell out of dodge and evacuate.

Some side notes:

Our state government here in California has been ignoring the problem for over a decade. We have money to send illegals to college at in-state tuition costs, but we can't keep Trump voters (this is a Red County) from getting their homes and businesses destroyed. With all that incoming rain and snow melt, I'd be utterly shocked if it didn't fail. I'm in a social circle with lots of civil and structural engineers. Their consensus is very grim about the Orville situation. Every hour is critical. There isn't a moment to lose to shore up whatever they can, and you can bet they will try to work round the clock to prevent disaster, but they are playing from behind, seeing Sacramento never fixed it when they should have.

Speaking of working like crazy, can you imagine if the 99% of personnel on site that are men decided today would be a good day for a "men's march" or a men's day off work"? Yea, the difference between society getting utterly destroyed and just having a fighting chance is if the brave engineers, construction workers, power plant managers and every other critical personnel shows up and works despite overwhelming odds of quite likely will be critical failure baring a miracle and their own ingenuity.

This is why men matter.

[Leonard D Neubache]

Great pics, Adonis.

You really have to see men and machines in the picture to understand the sheer scale of the thing. The post further above has mining variety articulated dump trucks in the shot and even they look ridiculously small.

[The Beast1]

Am I right to assume that the issue here isn't the concrete section of the dam but the earthern wall near the spillways?

[John Michael Kane]

Quote:

California negligently failed to make preparations for the inevitable end to a major drought which had occurring since 2011. For 12 years, environmental groups had warned federal and state officials that the dam was likely to experience structural issues in the event of heavy rains and flooding. Governor Jerry Brown had years to direct the Democrat controlled state government to authorize funding and enact plans for repairs to the dam while water levels remained low. The Water Quality, Supply, and Infrastructure Improvement Act of 2014 set aside $395,000,000 for flood management, but to date has not allocated any of it to actual repairs or projects, raising questions about where the money currently sits and what it has been used for since 2014.

President Trump needs to mandate that the Army Corps of Engineers take over ownership/operation of the dam in exchange for any federal aid.

Only in government can you "lose track" of $395 mother fucking million dollars and not know where it is at, if it has been spent, or even allocated, if not outright diverted for graft, waste or fraud. If it weren't for so many innocent people in those counties that voted Trump, I'd be praying that the dam suffers a massive critical failure and washes out the God-forsaken city of Sacramento and all the do-nothing political crooks and fools that inhabit the place. A curse of biblical portions on all of them!

[John Michael Kane]

(02-14-2017 03:40 AM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

Am I right to assume that the issue here isn't the concrete section of the dam but the earthern wall near the spillways?

I've talked to several friends who are civil and structural engineers. The earthen wall is of concern, because if enough of it erodes, it can eventually or very rapidly start wiping out the underlying substrate near the concrete. You can have concrete for days, but if water washes out the sub-layer beneath or adjacent to the concrete, the massive blocks of concrete can be washed away intact.

Think of concrete as a foundation. If you build a house on top of granite rock with concrete, it won't go anywhere baring a massive earthquake. If you pour tons of concrete on soft sand that washes away easily, your whole wall of mortar and rebar can literally be washed down river if enough water gets under that bottom layer of soil.

The scary part is that they aren't able to really address that bottom layer of soil with so much water being poured out at such a fast rate. The soil isn't able to absorb so much saturation. When you have severe droughts, the soil is even less able to handle it, as much of the dirt is hard-packed. They are trying to fight this thing as best as possible from the top on down, but the real potential killer is the underlying layer possibly giving way.

That is their biggest concern, along with the rain that expected on Wednesday. The next 48 hours will be critical. If any of my engineering friends have more to say, I'll make sure to relay it.

[Thersites]

(02-14-2017 03:10 AM)John Michael Kane Wrote:  

We have money to send illegals to college at in-state tuition costs, but we can't keep Trump voters (this is a Red County) from getting their homes and businesses destroyed.

The cynic in me that believes in the worst that humanity has to offer, see the lack of proper maintenance as end goal by someone in state government. Best way to punish those Trump voters is causing a massive man made disaster.

[debeguiled]

We should check out feminist websites if we want a solution to this.

I am sure all the answers are there, in the child's play for women that men call STEM fields.

The problem is that we men aren't willing to lean in and be educated.

We are too busy measuring our dicks, or whatever it is we do while women hold the world together.

[debeguiled]

Quote:

To make sense of the fast-developing situation at California's Oroville Dam, Chris spoke today with Scott Cahill, an expert with 40 years of experience on large construction and development projects on hundreds of dams, many of them earthen embankment ones like the dam at Oroville. Scott has authored numerous white papers on dam management, he's a FEMA trainer for dam safety, and is the current owner of Watershed Services of Ohio which specializes in dam projects across the eastern US. Suffice it to say, he knows his "dam" stuff.

Scott and Chris talk about the physics behind the failing spillways at Oroville, as well as the probability of a wider-scale failure from here as days of rain return to California.

Sadly, Scott explains how this crisis was easily avoidable. The points of failure in Oroville's infrastructure were identified many years ago, and the cost of making the needed repairs was quite small -- around $6 million. But for short-sighted reasons, the repairs were not funded; and now the bill to fix the resultant damage will likely be on the order of magnitude of over $200 million. Which does not factor in the environmental carnage being caused by flooding downstream ecosystems with high-sediment water or the costs involved with relocating the 200,000 residents living nearby the dam.

Oh, and of course, these projected costs will skyrocket higher should a catastrophic failure occur; which can't be lightly dismissed at this point.

Scott explains to Chris how this crisis is indicative of the neglect of the entire US national dam system. Oroville is one of the best-managed and maintained dams in the country. If it still suffered from too much deferred maintenance, imagine how vulnerable the country's thousands and thousands of smaller dams are. Trillions of dollars are needed to bring our national dams up to satisfactory status. How much else is needed for the country's roads, railsystems, waterworks, power grids, etc?

Both Chris and Scott agree that individuals need to shoulder more personal responsibility for their safety than the government advises, as -- let's face it -- the government rarely admits there's a problem until it's an emergency. Katrina, Fukushima, Oroville -- we need to critically parse the information being given to us when the government and media say 'it's all under control', as well as have emergency preparations already in place should swift action be necessary.

[Silver_Tube]

I have family in Oroville, not even kidding.

They were forced to evacuate on sunday, only given 30 minutes notice. They are worried that all their valuables will be looted by the time they return, or worse, under water.