Eerie images of drowned buildings and ghost towns have emerged from the area below California's crumbling Oroville Dam after hundreds of thousands were ordered to evacuate.
And
it might have been averted had federal officials and water agencies not
ignored warnings 12 years ago that the 49-year-old structure was at
risk of collapsing.
It also appears
that repairs on the massive dam - which was left falling apart after a
surprise burst of heavy rainfall - were not earmarked in Governor Jerry
Brown's $100 billion list of key infrastructure projects this month.
The
rainfall that is expected Wednesday could pour into a gaping 250ft
chasm in the concrete spillway, causing a collapse and unleashing a 30ft
'tsunami' tidal wave that could leave towns along a 40-mile stretch of
the Feather River below the dam under 100ft of water.
The situation is now so critical that President Trump is
being urged to declare a disaster in Butte, Sutter and Yuba counties,
where 200,000 people, including Department of Water staff, were
frantically ordered to evacuate their homes and places of work on
Sunday.
Evacuation: Almost 200,000 people were
ordered to leave the towns downhill of the Oroville Dam on Sunday as
heavy rainfall left it at risk of bursting. On Monday it emerged that
authorities had ignored warnings about a possible collapse 12 years ago.
Floods: The spillways were not
reinforced, and on Monday Riverbend Park was left submerged by the flood
water. Officials said the threat had subsided for the moment. However,
things could get worse
Ghost town: The streets of Oroville,
which is directly below the dam, stand empty and still on Monday. That
same day it emerged that repairs on the dam were not earmarked in
California Gov. Jerry Brown's $100b list of key projects this month
Gone: Just two vehicles remain in this
shopping mall's parking lot in Oroville, after warnings that the dam
might burst. They have been told they may not be able to return until
repairs on the dam have been completed
No-one home: An Oroville street stands
empty just two days before expected heavy rain potentially puts the
whole down at risk of being drowned under 100ft of water
Marooned: A home in Oroville is seen
marooned on a tiny island after the dam's spillways released excess
water into the area. The dam's main spillway was damaged by the heavy
flow of water after recent storms
Swamped: This farm was flooded by the
overspill from the dam. Protesters demanded 12 years ago that the
spillways be reinforced with concrete that would properly funnel the
water and reduce risk of flooding such as this
Going nowhere: Vehicles and carts are
seen trapped in the swamp - for how long remains to be seen. Officials
responded to the 2005 request for spillway reinforcements by saying
there was no risk of this kind of flooding
Damaged: A damaged property is seen under flood waters in Oroville on Monday
Drowned: Riverbend Park, on the shore
of the Feather River, was especially badly hit: This cabin was only just
seen poking out of the water there Monday
Underwater: This playground at Riverbend Park was left submerged by the excess water
Underwater: This photograph shows just how badly submerged Riverbend Park is by the murky brown water
Swamp: An orchard is turned into swampland as flood waters rise near Oroville, California on Monday
Floods: A cemetery in Marysville is
inundated with water on Monday. The dam's largely earthen emergency
spillways eroded due to the heavy waterfall, causing a loss of control.
More rain is expected on Wednesday - which could lead to a 'tsunami'
Erosion:
The problems are caused by the dam's spillways, which carry off excess
water. The main spillway (left) has a 250ft hole that is being eroded
from underneath. The others are just earth, which was washed away by
torrents of water (right)
Fear: There are fears that the ground
beneath the dam's concrete wall will erode during Wednesday's rain,
causing the wall to collapse. If that happens, thousands of tons of
water will rush forward in a 30ft 'tsunami'.
The dam currently has two main
issues - both of them its spillways, which sluice off excess water.
Locals will not be allowed back until repairs on the spillways have been
completed.
The main concrete spillway
has a 250ft wide, 40ft deep hole in the middle, created by the powerful
floods over the past few days. That could collapse in Wednesday's heavy
rainfall.
It also has a large hole at
its lip, which would compromise its ability to hold back water on
Wednesday, when the next major rainfall is set to come.
Meanwhile the backup spillways, which were just carved into the hillside, have eroded and collapsed over the weekend.
Workers
are now filling the lip with bags of rocks dropped by at least two
helicopters. Dump trucks full of boulders are also being carried up to
fill the hole in the damaged spillway.
Repairs: A helicopter prepares to drop
a load of rocks to fill a hole in the lip of the dam. Other boulders
were being trucked up to the dam to fill the hole in the concrete run of
the main spillway
However, state officials say they will not be able to inspect the erosion scar until early Tuesday morning.
In the meantime, workers are continuing to drain the dam, hoping to remove at least 50ft of water before Wednesday's rains come.
The issues that are now plaguing the dam were identified 12 years ago and reported to authorities - who ignored the warnings, The Mercury News reported.
On
October 17, 2006, three environmental groups - the Friends of the
River, the Sierra Club and the South Yuba Citizens League - filed a
motion with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) urging the
government to fully reinforce the dam's emergency spillways with
concrete.
In the face of heavy
rainfall, the groups said, the earthen spillways might begin to collapse
and erode, leading to the river downhill being inundated with water -
as happened over the weekend.
Worse,
they said, there was a serious risk of 'loss of crest control' - that
is, the lip of the dam might fail, resulting in a massive and dangerous
surge that would 'cause damages and threaten lives in the protected
floodplain downstream'.
But the
Department of Water Resources, and the agencies in the line to foot the
bill - told the FERC that the spillways could handle 350,000 cubic feet
of water per second and there was no danger.
'The
emergency spillway meets FERC's engineering guidelines for an emergency
spillway,' wrote John Onderdonk, a senior civil engineer with FERC, in
2006. 'The guidelines specify that during a rare flood event, it is
acceptable for the emergency spillway to sustain significant damage.'
Despite
that, the weekend saw the earthen spillways being eroded with flows of
just 6,000-12,000 cubic feet per second - less than five percent of
FERC's supposed safe rate.
State
officials said in 2008 no 'significant concerns' about the spillway's
integrity had been raised in any government or independent review.
This is the potential worst case
scenario for what could happen if the waters are not controlled and the
dam breaks. It would take about 12 hours for the water to reach Yuba
City more than 40 miles away, following the path of the Feather River
Destruction: An aerial photograph
shows the damage done to the area surrounding the emergency spillway -
including a torn-up road - at Oroville Dam after it nearly collapsed on
Sunday
Repairs: Emergency repairs are now
being performed on the primary and auxiliary spillways, in the hope that
they can be made functional before Wednesday's projected heavy storms
Spilling over: The spillways were not
reinforced with concrete, leading to heavy damage this month after a
sudden burst of heavy rainfall caused torrents of water to flow out of
the dam.
Construction: Heavy rocks are piled up
in an effort to repair the damaged spillway below the dam on Monday.
Concerns remain high about the possibility of a dam-busting rainfall.
Supplies: Trucks stacked high with rocks are running up to the dam, where workers are loading them into the spillway.
Repairs: Bags stuffed with rocks are being lifted by a helicopter to be dropped into a hole in the lip of the dam.
Choppers: Helicopters were hauling rocks up to the damaged dam into the evening on Monday
Loading up: A backhoe collects
boulders to load into a dump truck as bags of rocks await pickup by
helicopters at Oroville Lake on Monday night
Delivery: A large truck full of rocks
crosses the primary spillway on the way to deliver its cargo to the
damaged emergency spillway at the dam on Monday
Dropped off: The truck empties its load of rocks onto the damaged spillway so that it can be fixed up
Also
on Monday, it emerged that California Governor Jerry Brown had
overlooked the Oroville Dam in the $100 billion list of 'key'
infrastructure projects filed this month.
The
list, generated at the request of the National Governor's Association
after Donald Trump called for $1 trillion of infrastructure investment,
is a 'wish list' of projects for Brown, CNBC reported.
But
while the list mentions the Folsom Dam, some 60 miles south of
Oroville, as well as flood control in Sacramento, 66 miles away, there
is no mention of Oroville Dam itself.
Instead,
most of the suggested upgrades in the three-page document are related
to transportation, such as highways, bridges and railroads.
Projects
to reduce flooding risk in Marysville, 30 miles south of Orosville -
and which is in danger of flooding if the dam breaks - are mentioned, as
are other levee and dam plans.
All are
placed below a proposed high-speed rail track between Los Angeles and
San Francisco on the list - although the governor's office says that the
order of the list does not represent how important the projects are.
It added that the list was 'an initial list of projects. By no means does it represent all of the state's priorities.'
Brown later said that he was not aware of the 2006 report or the concerns raised about the dam.
Sheltered: One-year-old Jace Lawson
sleeps in a shelter for people evacuated from Oroville and other towns
that could be submerged if the dam breaks
Evacuees: Evacuees rest on campbeds in
the shelter, located in Chico, around 22 miles northwest of the
Oroville Dam. They were told that they would not be allowed to return
until the dams' spillways were repaired
Neighbors: Merna Thompson (left) and
Delores Dearte, neighbors from the town of Gridley, California (16 miles
southwest of the dam), rest up in the shelter
Dinnertime: Jace Duran, four, of Oroville, collects his meal at the shelter in Chico
Waiting: Evacuees wait in another
shelter that has been set up in a high school gym in Sutter, California,
around 30 miles southwest of Oroville, out of the reach of the
projected flood zone
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As waters that had been ejected from
the dam into the Feather River over the weekend drowned riverside parks
and inundated Marysville cemetery, some as 30 miles away, schools in
the area closed and people fled the potential disaster zone.
And
President Trump was left deciding whether to declare a disaster in the
state, opening up access to federal funding after Brown sent him a
letter on Monday asking for financial aid.
Senators
Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris asked the President on Monday to
provide the $162.3 million in disaster assistance that California has
requested.
No confirmation has yet arrived, and California's defiant attitude towards the President might not count in its favor, CBS San Francisco reported. Trump has yet to publicly speak on the possible catastrophe.
Meanwhile,
state superintendent of public instruction Tom Torlakson told
administrators in the district that they could apply for aid for the
periods that they were shut down.
He said schools should not suffer 'for putting the safety of our students first based on these unprecedented flood dangers.'
In
Butte County, where the Oroville Dam is located, 13 of 15 school
districts were closed. The county has about 31,000 total public school
students.
Power: A water utility worker stares
at the staggering amount of water being released down the main spillway
at the Oroville Dam after its spillway almost collapsed on Sunday -
sparking the evacuation of 200,000 people
California
appears to have been particularly caught off guard by the recent
rainfall, which has seen flooding in the north of the state, near where
Oroville is located, and heavy storms in the south.
That's
because it has been in a state of so-called 'permanent drought' for
five years - a drought that only ended with rain and snowfall in
December.
That rainfall continues to hit the state in waves - and so concerns remain high about the short-term prospects for the dam.
Despite
the wet weather, however, the state has extended its water bands until
May, although those bans continue to vary from area to area.
In
other news, residents were evacuated from Tyler Island - around 40
miles south of Oroville Dam - on Monday after authorities said a levee
was in danger of breaking. The incident was unrelated to the Oroville
problem, The Mercury News reported.
Drought: The
storms that have hit California over the last few months have taken the
state by surprise as until the start of this year it had been caught up
in a five-year-long drought. These are the drought readings from January
26, 2016.
Parched: The
drought conditions continued to be dreadful in May 2016. Although the
north, where Oroville is located, was less drastically affected than the
south, it was still suffering.
Getting wetter:
By January 10 of this year, however, things looked a lot better thanks
to prolonged periods of heavy rainfall. The north in particular had lost
its drought conditions - although some areas were flooded
Relief: By last
Tuesday even more of the state had shaken off its drought conditions -
although that left areas of the north suffering - such as Oroville,
which was on its way to the recent troubles
Residents are not the only ones who have fled the region.
Billy Croyle, acting chief of the Department of Water Resources, ordered his staff to leave the dam area on Sunday.
They
joined tens of thousands of panicked residents who took to the freeways
at the weekend, causing total gridlock on the roads and sending anxiety
levels soaring as they wondered if the dam would burst while they were
sat in their cars.
'Everyone was running around; it was pure chaos,' Oroville resident Maggie Cabral told CNN affiliate KFSN on Sunday.
'All
of the streets were immediately packed with cars, people in my
neighborhood grabbing what they could and running out the door and
leaving. I mean, even here in Chico, there's just traffic everywhere.'
Still pouring: Water continued to run
down the main spillway at Lake Oroville on Monday. The water level
dropped overnight behind the nation's tallest dam
Inspection: State officials waited for
the light of dawn to inspect an erosion scar on the main spillway at
northern California's Oroville Dam
Flowing: As the day began, officials
from the California Department of Water Resources prepared to inspect an
erosion scar (pictured) on the main spillway at the dam on Lake
Oroville, about 150 miles northeast of San Francisco.
On Monday, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said the evacuation below the nation's tallest dam will not end right away.
He
added that they are working on a plan to allow residents to return home
when it's safe - but offered no timetable for when they would be
allowed to go home. It was later said residents would have to wait until
spillway repairs were completed.
He added that so far there have been zero reports of looting in any of the evacuated towns.
Honea also said more than 500 Butte County jail inmates were safely transferred to Alameda County Jail farther south.
And
as officials rushed to release water from the dam and fix the spillway,
the empty abandoned cities resembled ghost towns after the forced
evacuations.
Looming danger: A California
Department of Fish and Wildlife employee observes the rushing water as
it drains down the spillway at the Oroville Dam after it nearly
partially collapsed on Sunday.
Pouring:
The department said authorities were releasing water to lower the lake's
level after weeks of heavy rains in drought-plagued California.
Raging: The water level dropped Monday
behind the dam, reducing the risk of a catastrophic spillway collapse
and easing fears that prompted the evacuation of nearly 200,000 people
downstream.
Hope: Water officials say storms
expected later this week near communities evacuated over the threat of a
spillway collapse at the nation's tallest dam will be smaller than last
week
Makeshift: Water rushes down a spillway as an emergency measure at the Oroville Dam in Oroville, California.
Landing: A
helicopter kicks up dust as it lands at a staging area near the Oroville
Dam on Monday where rocks were being readied to be dropped into the
250-foot hole in the spillway.
However,
while the situation seemed less dire by Monday morning, it is still
critical and the evacuees were told they could not return to their homes
because the coming storm might still destroy part of the dam.
Meteorologists
are predicting the rain to begin on Wednesday night, dumping up to four
inches by Thursday morning with more to drain from the mountains during
the day.
On Monday, emergency crews
prepared loads of rock to be dropped by helicopters to seal the
crumbling spillway that threatens to inundate communities along the
Feather River in Northern California.
Local
crews were seen in dump trucks dropping off piles of rock, which were
then loaded into the bags with backhoes. The operation to close the gap
would begin as soon as it was feasible, authorities said.
The
crisis suddenly and dramatically began on Sunday afternoon when the
Department of Water Resource said the spillway next to the dam was
'predicted to fail within the next hour'.
However, it has remained intact.
Complex: Water from the Oroville Dam
Auxiliary Spillway at Lake Oroville continues to flow and has eroded the
roadway just below the spillway that leads to the boat ramp.
Brutal fix: Rock is prepped to be used on the Lake Oroville Dam to plug the hole in the spillway that almost imploded.
Effort: Officials said the situation
seemed less dire overnight but Sacramento television station KCRA
reported that helicopters from around the state were sent to drop
chest-high bags of rocks to close the hole in the spillway.
Staging area: The water level dropped
Monday behind the nation's tallest dam, reducing the risk of a
catastrophic spillway collapse and easing fears
Respite: Officials have been
inspecting the nation's tallest dam since first night this morning in a
desperate effort to stop a devastating 100-foot tsunami from being
unleashed. Pictured is the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam on Monday
morning after the water level dropped
And
residents and local officials have described a panicked and chaotic
scene on roads and freeways during the moments after the evacuation
order.
Jodye Manley of Olivehurst says
she and her husband were having dinner Sunday at her daughter's house in
Sacramento when she got word from a city councilman friend that her
area would probably be evacuated.
She
says the couple got gas and made a mad dash to get their four dogs and
three cats. Manley says she and her neighbors were completely panicked
and that the scene 'was almost like a movie.'
She says the traffic-filled return to Sacramento was terrifying, with people thinking the spillway would go at any moment.
Chico
Councilman Andrew Coolidge says the seven shelters he visited are
packed with residents who describe similar terror on jam-packed roads to
safety.
Errie: The city of Oroville is empty after an evacuation was ordered for communities downstream from the Lake Oroville Dam.
Waiting: Katherine
March, 63, and her daughter Penny Conn, 48, (left) wait in line for a
hot meal at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds while Patrick Cumings,
(right), holds his daughter, Elizabeth, and he stands with his wife,
Elizabeth Cumings at the Red Cross evacuation center in Chico
While most fled, some had no choice but to remain behind.
The
chief executive of the Oroville Hospital says it is operating normally
but that 100 patients have been moved to the hospital's second floor.
Hospital CEO Robert Wentz says the hospital took the step Monday morning 'out of an abundance of caution.'
The hospital is outside the flood zone below the dam on Oroville Lake and sits on a hill.
Wentz says evacuating acutely ill people is difficult so it is usually better for them to stay where they are.
He says patients will not go back to the hospital's first floor until authorities tell the hospital it is safe to do so.
Overnight,
state and local officials said the immediate danger had passed with
water no longer flowing over the eroded spillway but they cautioned that
the situation remained unpredictable.
'Once
you have damage to a structure like that it's catastrophic,' acting
Water Resources director Bill Croyle told reporters. But he stressed
'the integrity of the dam is not impacted' by the damaged spillway.
The
state Department of Water Resources wants to drain 1.2 million acre
feet of water from Lake Oroville at the dam before Wednesday's storm.
They said that the capacity of the reservoir, which is the second largest in California, is about 35 million feet.
Currently,
the water level of Lake Oroville is dropping at a rate of roughly
three- to four-inches per hour, according to the agency. Which would put it on course to fail to reach its target of 50 feet by Wednesday.
Fight: This long exposure photograph
shows the Oroville Dam discharging water at a rate of 100,000 cubic feet
per second over a spillway as an emergency measure.
Overflow: Officials said on Sunday night
water falling over the Oroville Dam's spillway has stopped as Oroville
lake levels dropped low enough.
Spillway: A
massive hole is causing major erosion around the Oroville Dam in
California. The hole formed in the main spillway (pictured) on Tuesday
and has continued to grow since then.
Precarious situation: An aerial of the
Oroville Dam reveals the dangerous flooding at the emergency spillway
that has left the area in imminent danger of a catastrophic flood .
Aerial: Lake water flows over the
emergency spillway, bottom left, at Lake Oroville for the first time in
the nearly 50-year history of the dam on Saturday.
The
department said authorities were releasing water to lower the lake's
level after weeks of heavy rains in drought-plagued California.
The
water level in Lake Oroville rose significantly in recent weeks after a
series of storms that dumped rain and snow across California,
particularly in northern parts of the state.
The
high water forced the use of the dam's emergency spillway, or overflow,
for the first time in the dam's nearly 50-year history on Saturday.
Officials
said they feared the damaged spillway would unleash a 30-foot wall of
water on Oroville. They said evacuation orders remained in place for
some 188,000 people in the area and are still in place.
The
Yuba County Office of Emergency Services urged evacuees to travel east,
south or west. 'DO NOT TRAVEL NORTH TOWARD OROVILLE,' the department
warned on Twitter.
Evacuation centers
were set up at a fairgrounds in Chico, California, about 20 miles
northwest of Oroville, but major highways leading south out of the area
were jammed as residents fled the flood zone.
Javier
Santiago, 42, fled with his wife, two children and several friends to
the Oroville Dam Visitors Center in a public park above the dam and the
danger zone.
With blankets, pillows and a little food, Santiago said: 'We're going to sleep in the car.'
The water falling over the Oroville Dam's emergency spillway stopped as the lake level dropped on Sunday
THE ANATOMY OF CATASTROPHE: WHAT HAS LED TO THE POTENTIAL DISASTER AT THE OROVILLE DAM
One
of the key factors in the threat is the rapid rate at which water
levels have risen. After years of severe drought in the region, heavy
rain and snow have sent levels skyrocketing.
It
is the first time that Lake Oroville, which lies 65 miles (105km) north
of Sacramento, has been faced with such a potentially devastating
emergency in the dam's nearly half-century history.
The
order for nearby residents to flee was issued after water levels
climbed in the last week. The rise was compounded by the fact the dam's main spillway, also known as an overflow channel, was found to be damaged.
As a result, the dam's
emergency spillway was called upon and activated for the first time
since it was built in 1968, as flood waters rose ever higher.
But shockingly, the secondary spillway was also found to be damaged.
In
a statement posted on social media on Sunday afternoon, Mr Honea
ordered residents to evacuate, repeating three times that it was 'NOT a
drill'.
The California Department of Water Resources warned that the emergency spillway next to the dam was 'predicted to fail'.
With
more rain expected Wednesday and Thursday, officials were rushing to
try to fix the damage and hoping to reduce the dam's water level by 50
feet ahead of the storms.
The sudden
evacuation panicked residents, who scrambled to get their belongings
into cars and then grew angry as they sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic
hours after the evacuation order was given.
Raj
Gill, managing a Shell station where anxious motorists got gas and
snacks, said his boss told him to close the station and flee himself.
But he stayed open to feed a steady line of customers.
'You
can't even move,' he said. 'I'm trying to get out of here too. I'm
worried about the flooding. I've seen the pictures - that's a lot of
water.'
A Red Cross spokeswoman said more than 500 people showed up at an evacuation center in Chico, California.
The
shelter ran out of blankets and cots, and a tractor-trailer with 1,000
more cots was stuck in the gridlock of traffic fleeing the potential
flooding Sunday night, Red Cross shelter manager Pam Deditch said.
A
California Highway Patrol spokesman said two planes would fly on Monday
to help with traffic control and possible search-and-rescue missions.
At
least 250 California law enforcement officers were posted near the dam
and along evacuation routes to manage the exodus and ensure evacuated
towns don't become targets for looting or other criminal activity.
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said a lot was still unknown.
'We
need to continue to lower the lake levels, and we need to give the
Department of Water Resources time to fully evaluate the situation so we
can make the decision to whether or not it is safe to repopulate the
area,' Honea said.
About 188,000 residents of Yuba, Sutter and Butte counties were ordered to evacuate.
Acting
Director Department of Water Resources Bill Croyle said officials will
be able to assess the damage to the emergency spillway now that the lake
level has come down.
It comes after it
emerged amid the frantic evacuations that federal and state officials
and some of California's largest water agencies rejected concerns 12
years ago about the precarious state the dam - which was built between
1962 and 1968.
The
dangerous situation sparked the California National Guard to put out a
notification to all 23,000 soldiers and airmen to be ready to deploy if
needed.
The last time an alert for the entire California National Guard was issued was the 1992 riots.
'I'm just shocked,' said Greg Levias, who was evacuating with his wife, Kaysi, two boys and a dog.
What
they couldn't fit in their trunk they piled as high as they could in
their downstairs Yuba City apartment and joined the line of traffic
attempting to leave the city where they had moved just three weeks ago.
The area under threat: About 150 miles
northeast of San Francisco, Lake Oroville - one of California's largest
man-made lakes - had water levels so high that an emergency spillway
was used Saturday for the first time in almost 50 years
State
Fire and Rescue Chief Kim Zagaris said at least 250 law enforcement
officers from throughout the state are in the area or on their way to
help with the evacuation.
Local Sikh
leaders announced early on Monday morning they have thrown open temple
doors across the area, and are offering food and shelter to all people
who have been forced from their home.
Bumper-to-bumper: If the dam
collapses, water would get into Oroville within an hour. Shortly
thereafter, the nearby towns of Briggs, Gridley and Live Oak would be
affected. It would take eight to 12 hours for water to reach the cities
of Marysville and Yuba City.
Safe: Evacuees Jason and his wife
Elizabeth Bourquin of Live Oak, settle in for the night with their son
Dallas, 5, at the Neighborhood Church of Chico in Chico, California.
The Oroville Dam wqas expected to fail
on Sunday night. It didn't, but if it did it could send an
'uncontrolled release of flood waters from Lake Oroville' to nearby
cities.
Comfort: Chris Arden (left) keep evacuee George Moody company in the main sanctuary of the Neighborhood Church of Chico in Chico.
Breaking news: Colette Roberts and her daughter Lesilee watch video updating the of the Oroville dam evacuations
Escape: Angie
Varrera walks across an empty parking lot (center) after finding the
grocery store she stopped at closed due to an evacuation order on Sunday
Checking the surrounding area: A Butte County Sheriff's vehicle patrols a shopping center that had been evacuated
Officials remained on edge late into Sunday night despite the fact water had stopped spilling into the eroded area.
'There is still a lot of unknowns,' Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said at a news conference.
'We
need to continue to lower the lake levels and we need to give the
Department of Water Resources time to fully evaluate the situation so we
can make the decision to whether or not it is safe to repopulate the
area.'
About 188,000 residents of Yuba, Sutter and Butte counties were ordered to evacuate.
Water from the nearby Feather River floods the Marysville Cemetery on Saturday in Marysville, California.
Bill
Croyle, acting Director of the California Department of Water Resources,
speaks as Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea listens at a news conference
about the situation at the Oroville Dam on Sunday
FROM DROUGHT TO DELUGE: THE DRASTIC CHANGES TO LAKE OROVILLE
Dramatic pictures taken or Lake Oroville stand in stark contrast to the chaotic scenes witnessed over the weekend.
Rather
than seeing the rush of water bursting through overflow spillways,
boats sat idle as most of the dam's sandy floor could be seen - due to
it being just 25 per cent full in May 2015.
Houseboats
on the lake were forced to moor just meters apart as the aquatic real
estate available for them to occupy continued to shrink.
During the drought: A section of Lake Oroville is seen nearly dry on August 19, 2014
The impact of the drought was seen in 2014 and 2015, with the dam almost entirely dry during the lengthy spell.
Photographs
taken from atop the rolling water made it almost impossible to see the
water below. So much of it was gone, and it was unsure whether it would
ever come back.
At
the time, statewide water restrictions were been ordered for the first
time in history to combat the region's devastating drought.
In April of 2015, California's Governor Jerry Brown ordered a 25 per cent cutback in water use by cities and towns.
Dozens of houseboats had been forced
to move closer together at the dam because there was simply not as much
space for them to anchor as the drought continued.
Low water levels are visible in the Bidwell Marina at Lake Oroville on August 19, 2014
The crackdown came as the state moves toward a fourth summer of drought with no relief in sight.
Brown's
crackdown came after he asked residents in January 2014 to cut their
water consumption by 20 per cent. Unfortunately, on half of all
Californians managed to achieve that.
But
those dry days couldn't be further from the minds of locals now, as
fears grow suburbs downstream could be covered in floodwaters if the dam
breaks after heavy rainfall and snow in recent months.
About 39,000 were from Butte, along with 65,000 from Yuba, 76,000 from Yuba City, and 12,000 from Marysville.
After years of drought Northern
California has endured several months of exceptionally wet weather.
Oroville and other lakes are brimming and have begun releasing water to
make room for more runoff.
An aerial photo released by the California
Department of Water Resources shows the damaged spillway with eroded
hillside in Oroville on Saturday
Department
engineer and spokesman Kevin Dossey told the Sacramento Bee the
emergency spillway was rated to handle 250,000 cubic feet per second,
but it began to show weakness Sunday after flows peaked at 12,600 cubic
feet per second.
Adjutant General David
S. Baldwin of the California National Guard said at a news conference
late on Sunday that eight helicopters will be available Monday to assist
with emergency spillway reconstruction.
The auxiliary spillway at the Oroville
Dam was expected to fail by 5:45pm local time on Sunday, which could
have sent an 'uncontrolled release of flood waters from Lake Oroville'.
Water continues to gush down the dam's main spillway on Saturday.
It
was estimated over the weekend that the damage bill has already hit
about $200million, but that figure it expected to rise as inspectors
find further faults this week, according to USA Today.
Even if the worst case scenario is avoided this week, the impact of the scare could be felt for months.
The dam is one of the key ones for California, and lengthy repairs could impact the state's supply.
'If
repairs take longer than just this summer, which seems likely,' Roger
Bales, an engineering professor and director of the Sierra Nevada
Research Institute at the University of California, Merced, told USA
Today, 'the reservoir may need to be operated at a lower capacity until
those repairs are done.'
An image from video provided by the office of Assemblyman Brian Dahle shows water flowing over the emergency spillway
Water trickles down as workers inspect
part of the Lake Oroville spillway failure on Wednesday, February 8,
2017 in Oroville, California
Officials said the critical
flood-control structure is at 90 per cent of its capacity. But the dam
is still safe and so are Oroville's 16,000 residents
Located about 150 miles northeast of
San Francisco, Oroville Lake is one of the largest man-made lakes in
California and 770-foot-tall Oroville Dam is the nation's tallest
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