The rain has started to return in Northern California and will continue over the next few days, but officials aren’t as concerned about the upcoming weather so much as the damage already done to the Oroville Dam’s already compromised main spillway.
The risk of flooding has dropped substantially, but Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea warned residents Wednesday that they remain in “an emergency situation.”
- Engineers are racing to lower the water level at Lake Oroville.
- These graphics explain what is happening at the Oroville Dam.
- Could the crisis have been prevented?
- Here is Butte County’s emergency information website.
- PHOTOS: Crisis at the Oroville Dam
- VIDEOS: The Lake Oroville emergency explained | An evacuee waits to return home
150,000 cubic yards of debris stand in the way of Oroville Dam’s hydroelectric plant restart
Officials at Lake Oroville reduced the rate of water release once again Friday as workers continued make repairs to a damaged spillway and clear debris from a hydroelectric plant.
State Department of Water Resources engineers will decrease the flow of water in the Oroville Dam’s main spillway from 80,000 cubic feet per second to 60,000 by Saturday morning, giving crews space to dredge debris from a pool at the bottom of the spillway, said DWR acting director Bill Croyle.
Engineers had been pumping water out of the lake at 100,000 cfs for several days to make room for incoming storm runoff and to keep the lake from overflowing like it did over the weekend. That overflow badly eroded an emergency spillway and sent debris flowing into a pool at the bottom, forcing the closure of an underground hydroelectric plant.
“This reduction in flow will allow us to work on the debris pile in the spillway,” Croyle told reporters at a news conference. He estimated that 150,000 cubic yards of sediment and debris were in the pool.
The other focus by workers at the dam is the eroded emergency spillway, Croyle said. Rain began falling again in the area on Thursday and it’s not expected to stop until the middle of next week at the earliest.
The heaviest showers are expected Monday and could drop up to 10 inches of rain onto the mountains and foothills that drain into the reservoir, the National Weather Service said.
The storms aren’t likely to produce enough runoff to exceed the lake’s capacity, Croyle said.
Hundreds of thousands of tons of rocks and concrete slurry have been dropped into four fissures that threatened a retaining wall of the emergency spillway on Sunday. They were 50%, 75%, 90% and 100% full, respectively, Croyle said.
Rain falling onto the slurry and a small stream that had formed on the hillside Friday did not worry DWR engineers, he said.
The crisis at the Oroville Dam could become a catalyst for change
Jeffrey Mount, a leading expert on California water policy, remembers the last time a crisis at the Oroville Dam seemed likely to prompt reform. It was 1997 and the lake risked overflowing, while levees further downstream failed and several people died.
“If this doesn’t galvanize action, I don’t know what will,” Mount said he thought at the time. But spring came, the waters receded and no changes came to pass.
Now another threat looms in Oroville, where deteriorating spillways forced widespread evacuations, and more heavy rain is around the corner. State officials have remained focused on quick fixes at the dam needed to prevent catastrophic flooding, but some already are thinking about how the crisis could spur long-term shifts in policy.
It’s a conversation that’s gaining momentum in think tanks and government offices from Sacramento to Washington, and it touches on climate change, infrastructure spending and statewide water policy.
Wade Crowfoot, a former advisor to Gov. Jerry Brown who now leads the Water Foundation, a nonprofit research organization in Sacramento, compared the situation to the state’s years-long drought.
“This is a wake-up call,” he said. “The drought reminded us we need to use water more wisely. Oroville reminds us that we need to upgrade our infrastructure and our management to move water more wisely.”
Flood warning for Oroville Dam lifted
The National Weather Service has canceled the flash-flood warning issued Sunday, when officials worried the emergency spillway at Lake Oroville might collapse.
As storm moves in, engineers reduce outflow from Lake Oroville to clean up debris
Confident that a series of incoming storms won’t overwhelm the Oroville reservoir a second time, state officials said Thursday that they would slow drainage of the lake so they can do work on an adjacent power plant.
The reservoir exceeded its capacity over the weekend, which sent water overflowing into an unlined, emergency spillway. That overflow sent soil, rock and forest debris into the Feather River below.
With the reservoir’s water level down more than 30 feet since Sunday and getting lower, state Department of Water Resources acting director Bill Croyle said at a news conference Thursday that engineers will slow the flow down the Oroville Dam’s damaged main spillway from 100,000 cubic feet of water per second to 80,000 cfs over a period of several hours.
The reduction will allow crews to move into the concrete channel to clear out trees, branches and other debris that has clogged the spillway and forced the downstream hydroelectric plant to go offline, Croyle said.
There was no estimate on when the power plant would be back up and running, but it will probably not be before Monday, Croyle said.
Meanwhile, the Herculean effort to reinforce the emergency spillway before more rain arrived used a caravan of helicopters and trucks to fill three deep fissures in the dirt hillside with rocks and cement.
As of Thursday, repairs on one erosion site was completed, the second was 25% filled and the third was 69% filled, Croyle said.
As long as the lake doesn’t reach capacity the emergency spillway won’t be used, Croyle said.
The incoming storm system is weaker than the one that overwhelmed the lake last week after the dam’s main spillway eroded to the point of fracture, Croyle said.
More than 100,000 residents south of the dam remain under an evacuation advisory and should be prepared to flee to higher ground should the dam overflow and the spillways collapse, authorities said.
Storm headed to Oroville Dam area could bring 10 inches of rain, revised forecast warns
Spillway repairs at the troubled Oroville Dam will get their first major test this weekend after meteorologists revised their forecast and are now predicting a much wetter and warmer storm outlook for the region.
Light to moderate rain began falling across Northern California early Thursday and will probably continue for several days, according to the National Weather Service.
However, the situation will change substantially Sunday, when a larger storm arrives at Oroville and the Feather River basin.
“It looks like it’s going to be a pretty good rainmaker,” said NWS meteorologist Mike Smith. “You’re looking at 10 inches from Sunday night to Monday night.”
Oroville Dam flooding risks keep schools closed
Several schools remain closed in communities affected by the Oroville Dam emergency.
All school districts except for Chico and Paradise in Butte County will be closed through Friday. Wheatland High School, Yuba College and the Marysville Joint and Wheatland Elementary school districts in Yuba County also will be closed.
“We believe this gives our families and staff sufficient time to make ‘longer-term’ plans,” said Supt. Craig M. Guensler of the Wheatland Elementary School District.
Most school districts in Butte County will resume classes Tuesday. Monday is a holiday.
Guensler said the district could reassess school closures next week.
“The safety of our staff and students is our largest priority, and we will continue to make sure we keep our schools safe,” he said.
New worry for Oroville Dam: a storm next week that could dump a lot of rain
It’s raining in the Oroville Dam area, though officials have said they are confident their efforts will prevent any problem.
But now another storm is set to hit Monday.
Here’s a look at what’s to come:
Oroville reservoir level continues to drop amid new rain storms
In the hours since a series of storms in Northern California began dropping rain on the damaged Oroville reservoir, data shows that state water officials continue to drain the lake faster than the storms are filling it.
Less than a tenth of an inch of rain has fallen in Oroville since the first of the storms arrived early Thursday, the National Weather Service reported. The area and surrounding foothills are expected to receive several inches of rain through the weekend.
But that shouldn’t be enough to fill Lake Oroville back up to capacity, when the lake reaches 900 feet, the Department of Water Resources said.
The lake is draining water at 100,000 cubic feet per second, enough to drop the lake a foot every three hours. Meanwhile, runoff from the current and previous storms is sending water into the lake at only a fraction of that pace.
The lake has dropped more than 30 feet since it overflowed during the weekend and damaged an emergency spillway that had never been used. If it drops another 30 feet by Sunday, officials hope, the reservoir should have enough space to catch water from rain and melting snow without overflowing the rest of the year.
No looting but some burglaries during Oroville evacuation, sheriff says
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea repeated his insistence Wednesday that there had been no looting while Oroville was under mandatory evacuation orders, but he conceded that the town had seen “burglaries.”
“Certainly we’ve had burglaries,” he said, adding that there are burglaries every day.
Honea drew a firm distinction between the two forms of theft. Looting, he said, is a massive and organized stealing of everything within a structure, and “is very rare.”
Honea urged residents returning to the area to be prepared to leave again if necessary. “This is an ongoing situation.”
He said the state has agreed to post National Guard units in the region, part of what he called “staging of resources” should another emergency arise.
Community puts on Valentine’s Day wedding for couple evacuated in Oroville emergency
Leotta Litke and Henry Rueda had planned a romantic Valentine’s Day wedding at their community church in Olivehurst.
But on Sunday, the couple was forced to evacuate their home after a hole developed in an emergency spillway at the Oroville Dam. The couple went to an evacuation center at the Placer County fairgrounds in Roseville and had been staying there through Tuesday.
It appeared their dream of a Valentine’s Day wedding was crushed.
That was until shelter workers found out about their wedding plans and decided to help them get hitched.
So Placer County workers spread the word on Facebook, asking for help:
“We have one last, very special donation request for our Oroville emergency evacuees,” workers wrote. “This young couple, Leotta and Henry, planned to be getting married today at their home church in Olivehurst. Instead, they’ll be honoring us today at our evacuation shelter. To help Leotta and Henry. To make this day as special as it should be, we need a wedding dress and suit ASAP! Message us if you can help, and please join us in wishing them congratulations!”
Soon after the call went out, donations from residents and area businesses began pouring into the fairground, according to workers.
By the end of the day, the bride was given a beautiful white gown and the groom a black tux and a large tree was converted into a wedding altar.
Surrounded by a large group of evacuees who remained at the shelter for the night, Litke walked down the grassy aisle to an acoustic version of the Elvis Presley hit “Can’t Help Falling In Love.”
The couple had been together 10-years before deciding to tie the knot, they said.
“I want to thank everybody,” Litke told CBS Sacramento. “I am happy to be Mrs. Rueda.”
To cap off the night, a limo and hotel room were also donated, KTXL-TV reported.
“It’s hard to imagine a better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than the surprise wedding we were honored to witness tonight at the Placer County shelter for Oroville spillway emergency evacuees,” county workers wrote on Facebook.
As new storms approach Lake Oroville, authorities warn residents to ‘remain vigilant’
Even after Lake Oroville’s water level is reduced by a targeted 50 feet, water managers intend to further drain the reservoir so that it can absorb major rain storms and spring snowmelt, according to state planning documents.
Although officials say the risk of flooding below Oroville Dam has dropped substantially since the weekend, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea warned area residents Wednesday that they remained in “an emergency situation.”
During an afternoon news conference, Honea urged residents to “maintain vigilance” as dam operators continued to drain Lake Oroville before a string of storms began soaking the region again Wednesday evening.
“They need to pay attention,” Honea said of residents. “It’s important for people to be prepared. This is an opportunity for them to get things together, so that if the risk level increases and there is a need for us to issue an evacuation order, they’ll have the things they need and they’ll be able to do that quickly and efficiently.”
The sheriff also asked residents to start making travel plans should they need to evacuate.
On Sunday, when erosion of the lake’s emergency spillway triggered a sudden evacuation order, area roads quickly suffered gridlock.
“That was an incredibly chaotic situation, and I was aware of it,” Honea said.
Sunday’s emergency order was lifted Tuesday afternoon, allowing more than 100,000 residents and business owners to return to their communities.
Honea said that during the evacuation order, Oroville had seen some thefts, but he insisted there was no widespread looting of properties.
“Certainly we’ve had burglaries,” he said.
Looting, the large-scale and organized theft of property from a structure, “is very rare,” the sheriff said.
Honea also said that the state has agreed to post National Guard units in the region, part of what he called “staging of resources” should another emergency arise.
Officials confident Oroville Dam will withstand new rainstorm: ‘It’s holding up really well’
Even as rain began to fall in Northern California on Wednesday, state officials said the storms forecast over the next few days will not be enough to test the integrity of the Oroville Dam or its two damaged spillways.
Bill Croyle, acting director of the state Department of Water Resources, called the storms “fairly small” and said the public “won’t see a blip in the reservoir” levels, now dropping about eight inches an hour.
Croyle said it was not the weather he was concerned about so much as the damage done to the dam’s already compromised main spillway during days of sustained heavy releases of water.
“It’s holding up really well,” Croyle said, but continued mass water releases could be causing hidden damage to the rocky subsurface adjacent to the concrete chute.
A swarm of trucks and helicopters dumped 1,200 tons of material per hour onto the eroded hillside that formed the dam’s emergency spillway. One quarry worked around the clock to mine boulders as heavy as 6 tons. An army of workers mixed concrete slurry to help seal the rocks in place.
At the main spillway, a different and riskier operation was underway: Despite a large hole in the concrete chute, officials have been sending a massive amount of the swollen reservoir’s water down the spillway to the Feather River in a desperate attempt to reduce the lake’s level.
The objective is to lower the level enough so that the lake can accept runoff from the upcoming storms without reaching capacity. If the reservoir filled up again, water would overflow into the emergency spillway, which on Sunday appeared to be nearing collapse, forcing the evacuation of more than 100,000 people downstream.
Croyle said there were plans to begin to taper off the water discharges at the end of the week.
Data from the Department of Water Resources shows Shasta Dam discharges began to be sharply increased on Feb. 10 and have increased substantially every day since that.
Federal emergency officials and the Trump administration approved Gov. Jerry Brown‘s requests for presidential disaster declarations for the Oroville Dam and for the 34 counties struck in January by major winter storms that caused mudslides and power outages.
“I want to thank FEMA for moving quickly to approve our requests,” Brown said in a statement from his office.
At a news briefing Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said President Trump has been “keeping a close eye” on the situation at Oroville.
“The situation is a textbook example of why we need to pursue a major infrastructure package in Congress,” Spicer said. “Dams, bridges, roads and all ports around the country have fallen into disrepair.”
Sikhs opened their temple doors to Oroville Dam evacuees — and strangers came pouring in
Each morning before the break of dawn, Nirmal Singh makes his way to a small stage at the Shri Guru Ravidass Temple, adorned with roses and silk. There, the priest sits and reads prayers from a centuries-old Indian text to open the day.
It’s usually a quiet affair, with words spoken in Punjabi to an empty hall the size of a large backyard — a solemn start at the small Sikh temple that sees few people outside of weekend services.
But this week, Singh had company. Bodies shuffled under blankets in front of him. On Tuesday a Mexican couple and their kids woke up to his right, revealing the head scarves they wore in respect of Sikh traditions. In a nearby room, an African American man was also was getting up to the sounds of prayer.
As tens of thousands fled low-lying regions on the Feather River this week amid warnings of flooding from the rapidly filling Lake Oroville, Sikh temples across in the Sacramento area opened their doors to evacuees.
Graphic: Lake Oroville water levels dropped dramatically
After exceeding capacity this week, Lake Oroville has seen water levels drop significantly in the last three days.
The charge above shows the story, as officials bumped massive amounts of water through the damaged main spillway.
L.A. County dams to be inspected in wake of Oroville crisis
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has ordered inspections of all county dams, spillways and other flood control infrastructure.
The move was sparked by the emergency at Lake Oroville in Northern California over the last week, when failures of two spillways used to lower the lake’s water level prompted mandatory evacuations.
Supervisor Kathryn Barger called for the inspections on Tuesday, and her motion was unanimously approved by the board.
The supervisors have asked the county’s Department of Public Works to provide a report on the condition of the dams within 30 days and to develop a list of priority flood-control infrastructure projects that need to be completed.
“The Oroville situation reminds us of the need to proactively evaluate our county’s risk with regard to dams and other facilities which may be prone to failure from storms, earthquakes or other foreseeable events,” Barger said in a statement.
Rep. Doug LaMalfa says Oroville Dam ‘looks stable for now’
Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) said Wednesday that officials will investigate what went wrong at the Oroville Dam once the emergency situation is over.
In a Facebook post, LaMalfa wrote that Oroville Dam “looks stable for now.”
LaMalfa said officials are focused on providing support to residents who were evacuated Sunday night. Residents were allowed to return home Tuesday afternoon after officials said the risk of flooding had diminished.
Speaking on the House floor Tuesday, LaMalfa said the soil in front of the emergency spillway must be stabilized with rock and concrete.
“It looks good,” he said. “I think things are stable for now. We also need prayer for no more rain for a while.”
After meeting privately with emergency officials on Tuesday, state Sen. Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber) said he was told the repairs were “temporary.”
“This cannot be a case of put rocks in the spillway and it is taken care of,” he said.
Kangaroos, zebra and deer, oh my! Woman sheltered wild animals during evacuation
Before evacuees returned home Tuesday afternoon, a woman cared for kangaroos, zebras and other animals left behind by residents.
California Highway Patrol officers were checking on abandoned properties in the affected areas on Tuesday morning, when they came across the exotic animals at Tamara Archer Houston’s family farm in Sutter County, said Officer Chad Hertzell, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol in North Sacramento.
“It was like ‘Wow, a zebra,’ ” he said.
Archer Houston and her family had been collecting animals left during the rush to evacuate, according to the CHP.
“We had fun,” she said in a video on Facebook. “It was good.”
Among the rescued animals were two kangaroos named Kenzie and Dottie, Archer Houston said in the video, filmed by CHP officers.
“Kenzie actually sleeps inside with her owner every night in her bed in her diaper, so this has to be a whole new deal for her,” she said.
The sight was a rare treat for officers.
“We are thankful for the random acts of kindness we find out in the community,” the CHP wrote on Facebook. “Everyone seems to be coming together to take care of each other. This is what makes California so special.”
More than 100,000 people were ordered to evacuate from communities downstream of Lake Oroville on Sunday night after the emergency spillway at the dam developed a hole, prompting fears it could collapse.
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea lifted the mandatory evacuation order Tuesday and changed it to a warning.
Although residents and business owners were allowed to return to their communities, he urged them to be prepared to evacuate again at a moment’s notice should new problems arise.
Dam operators now hope to lower Lake Oroville by 60 feet in preparation for rain and snowmelt
Even after Lake Oroville’s water level is reduced by a targeted 50 feet, water managers intend to further drain the reservoir so that it can absorb major rain storms and spring snowmelt, according to state planning documents.
The most recent 10-day forecast calls for water levels to be dropped 60 feet below the lake’s maximum of 901 feet, which would give it the ability to hold nearly 1 million acre-feet of water before overtopping a damaged emergency spillway that is still undergoing temporary repairs.
A joint plan created by the Department of Water Resources, Cal Fire and the Butte County Sheriff’s Office calls for the reduction of water releases down the reservoir’s main spillway later in the week. Water has been coursing down the damaged spillway at a rate of 100,000 cubic feet per second but will taper off to a third of that by late Friday, according to the plan.
A new series of storms forecast to arrive late Wednesday is expected to last through the weekend. Likewise, a cooling trend will drop more snowfall in the Sierra.
Officials hope to reduce the lake level to below 840 feet by next Wednesday. That level falls below what engineering documents show is normally required for flood control in wet weather. The biggest surge in water reaching the lake from the Feather Basin is forecast to arrive Tuesday, according to the planning documents.
With the mandatory evacuation order for the Feather River lifted, life in Oroville is returning to normal. As a result, the Gold Country Casino and Hotel — which has served as housing for emergency work crews — is now asking contract workers to leave by Friday so the hotel can honor prior reservations.
The workers can return Monday. The state also is operating a less luxurious emergency base camp nearby with meals provided by inmates on state firefighting crews.
Oroville Dam repair work by the numbers
Capt. Dan Olson, a spokesman from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said crews have been working around the clock to reinforce two damaged spillways at Oroville Dam before storms expected to begin as soon as Wednesday night. Officials are using drones to monitor the repairs and damage.
Meanwhile, the California Department of Water Resources is increasing water releases to meet its goal of dropping levels at Lake Oroville below 840 feet, he said.
The department has been releasing 4 inches of water an hour, which is about 8 feet a day, he said.
Here’s a snapshot of the resources involved in the repair effort:
- More than 125 construction crews
- 40 truckloads of aggregate rock
- 1,200 tons of rock deposited in eroded/damaged areas per hour
- Two helicopter drops of rocks, concrete and/or other materials every minute and a half
- A California National Guard Black Hawk helicopter is assisting with drops
Storm expected to hit Oroville Dam as early as tonight
The storm that officials at Lake Oroville have been bracing for is on the way.
Although the storms are expected to be far weaker than the ones that inundated Northern California last week, any additional rainfall could exacerbate the problems in the region, where more than 100,000 people were evacuated Sunday amid concern that a damaged spillway at Oroville Dam could fail.
The storm system is expected to arrive late Wednesday or early Thursday morning and could bring 2 to 4 inches of rainfall over Lake Oroville, said Tom Dang, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sacramento. Another storm Friday could drop an additional 1 to 3 inches on the region and is expected to have a much greater impact on Southern California.
The Northern California rain is also expected to be much cooler than last week’s. That’s good news when it comes to flood concerns. Warmer storms cause mountain snowpack to melt more quickly, sending runoff coursing into rivers, canals and reservoirs.
Last week’s storm was “very warm,” with snow levels as high as 8,000 feet and higher, Dang said. This week, snow levels are forecast at 5,000 to 6,000 feet, which is much more typical for a storm this time of year, he said.
Oroville residents talk about community coming together to help one another during evacuation
‘It’s just another problem they don’t need to have’: Incoming storms bring powerful wind and rain
The Oroville Reservoir continued to drain Wednesday morning as state water officials raced to reduce the lake’s level ahead of storms expected to arrive after midnight.
As of 5:30 a.m. the reservoir was down 20 feet since it reached capacity on Sunday when it overflowed and sparked sweeping evacuations south of the dam. The lake is draining at 100,000 cubic feet per second, a furious pace that is reducing the state’s second largest reservoir about one foot every three hours.
The Department of Water Resources wants to drop the reservoir’s level 50 feet overall by Sunday, which would provide a half a million acre-feet of space for future storms and, according to officials, ensure the dam doesn’t have to rely a second time on an emergency spillway that rapidly eroded over the weekend.
Engineers have been reinforcing the emergency spillway – an unlined hillside – with heavy boulders carried in by helicopter, as well as sand and concrete slurry. The incoming storms could bring 30 mph winds Thursday and Friday, which could hinder the effort, said National Weather Service Jason Clapp.
“It’s just another problem they don’t need to have,” he said.
Up to 3 inches of rain could fall on the lake and 8 inches in the surrounding mountains and foothills through the weekend, Clapp said. Another storm is due Monday.
“That one looks a little juicier,” and could drop 2 inches of rain on Oroville and 5 inches in the mountains in 24 hours, Clapp said.
An ‘aggressive, proactive attack’ to prevent disaster at the Oroville Dam
With both spillways badly damaged and a new storm approaching, America’s tallest dam on Tuesday became the site of a desperate operation to fortify the massive structures before they face another major test.
A swarm of trucks and helicopters dumped 1,200 tons of material per hour onto the eroded hillside that formed the dam’s emergency spillway. One quarry worked around the clock to mine boulders as heavy as 6 tons. An army of workers mixed concrete slurry to help seal the rocks in place.
“This is an aggressive, proactive attack to address the erosion,” said Bill Croyle, acting director of the state Department of Water Resources. “There’s a lot of people, a lot of equipment, a lot of materials moving around, from the ground and from the air.”
At the main spillway, a different and riskier operation was underway: Despite a large hole in the concrete chute, officials have been sending a massive amount of the swollen reservoir’s water down the chute to the Feather River in a desperate attempt to reduce the lake’s level.
The structure continued to hold Tuesday without sustaining more significant damage, officials said.
Swaths of Northern California on track to have wettest winter ever recorded
A large swath of Northern California is on track to record its wettest winter on record with a new storm moving in late Wednesday.
These areas, many of them in the Sierra Nevada, are running at 200% of normal rainfall, if not more. The records cover October to February.
This story has brought special anxiety because of the situation at the Oroville Dam, where high water levels and two crippled spillways have sparked concerns about major flooding.
The storm system is expected to arrive late Wednesday or early Thursday morning and could bring 2 to 4 inches of rainfall over Lake Oroville, said Tom Dang, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sacramento. Another storm Friday could drop an additional 1 to 3 inches on the region and is expected to have a much greater impact on Southern California.
Oroville residents: ‘We can go home!’
Interview with Erica Stenholm and Ronnie Vaughan (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
Erica Stenholm and Ronnie Vaughan talk about having to evacuate their home earlier this week because of the Oroville emergency. They were given the go-ahead from officials to return to their house on Tuesday.
1,200 tons of rock an hour dumped in frantic bid to protect Oroville Dam as storm approaches
A swarm of trucks and helicopters dumped 1,200 tons of rock per hour onto the eroded hillside that formed the Oroville dam’s emergency spillway. One quarry worked around the clock to mine boulders as heavy as 6 tons. An army of workers mixed concrete slurry to help seal the rocks in place.
“This is an aggressive proactive attack to address the erosion,” said Bill Croyle, acting director of the state Department of Water Resources. “There’s a lot of people, a lot of equipment, a lot of materials moving around, from the ground and from the air.”
At the main spillway, a different and riskier operation was underway: Despite a large hole in the concrete chute, officials have been sending a massive amount of the swollen reservoir’s water down the chute to the Feather River in a desperate attempt to reduce the lake’s level.
This effort has lowered the amount of water the spillway could handle, the structure continued to hold Tuesday without sustaining more significant damage, officials said.
The idea is to get the reservoir water level low enough that it can take in rain from an upcoming series of storms without reaching capacity. If the reservoir filled up again, water would automatically flow down the emergency spillway, which on Sunday appeared to be nearing collapse, forcing the evacuation of more than 100,000 people downstream.
Crews releasing 100,000 cubic feet of water per second through the main spillway have lowered the lake’s levels by about one foot every three hours without causing more damage to the main spillway, according to engineers. Meanwhile, hundreds of construction workers used thousands of tons of concrete and rock to shore up the erosion that had carved fissures into the unpaved slope behind the dam.
The reservoir’s water line is expected to fall 50 feet by late Saturday or early Sunday, providing a buffer capacity of half a million acre feet, officials said. That would avert the risk of using the eroded hillside as an emergency spillway again, officials believe.
Feb. 15, 7:40 a.m.: An original version of this post said that water releases had reduced the lake level by one foot every hour.
Residents stream back into Oroville and other towns amid dam crisis
Evacuees from the Oroville spillway crisis hear the evacuation order being lifted in Bangor. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Christina Widener, 51, evacuated with her husband and her 94-year-old grandmother, who suffers from dementia. They drove to Red Bluff, about 60 miles away, before finding a motel room.
“I think it made sense at the time,” she said of the hasty evacuation order Sunday evening. “But I wish she hadn’t left.”
The mother of four has lived in her bungalow near the river’s edge for 32 years, and in 1997 defied an evacuation order despite threat of arrest.
“We didn’t leave then and nothing happened,” she said, grabbing boots and a kitty container out of the back of her Ford SUV.
Widener had nothing but praise for the hospitality of Red Bluff -- waitresses offered to pay for their meals, strangers invited them to stay in their homes. Someone even offered to do their laundry.
“They were awesome,” she said.
While some evacuees drove far from Oroville, others made arrangements to stay with family or friends who reside in the foothills behind the lake -- safe ground should the dam fail.
“As long as you are up above, you should be good, right?” said Jerry Smith, a 26-year-old solar installer. He finished loading up frozen pizzas and bottled waters at a newly reopened grocery store, and was anxious to move on with his wife.
“I’m sorry, but we’ve got to go. We haven’t been home yet.”
Was he anxious?
“No, we should be OK.”
Oroville residents return home
Trump Administration approves assistance for Oroville Dam crisis, January storms
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has approved Gov. Jerry Brown’s request for assistance in dealing both with the Oroville Dam crisis and damage from record storms that hit the state in January.
Brown issued a state of emergency on Sunday to make it easier for state officials to quickly respond to the situation at the dam, where two damaged spillways have forced the evacuation of more than 100,000 people.
Many residents returned to their homes Tuesday, but officials said they could be evacuated again if storms coming later this week cause water levels at the reservoir to rise too much.
“I want to thank FEMA for moving quickly to approve our requests. This federal aid will get money and resources where it’s needed most,” Brown said in a statement.
Cold storm and snow could help avert disaster at Oroville Dam
The game plan is to get water behind the Oroville Dam below what its engineering designs call “flood control storage,” and keep it there. At that depth, the dam would have a buffer capacity of half a million acre-feet of water.
At the current release rate, a pounding 100,000 cubic feet per second, the dam will reach that point by late Saturday or early Sunday, even with another rain system arriving Wednesday, said Bill Croyle, acting director of the state Department of Water Resources.
Croyle said he is certain of the integrity of the main spillway and the steep hillside used for emergency overflow, now quickly being armored with layers of rock and concrete. Even so, he said, “our goal is to remove as much water from the reservoir [as needed] so we don’t have to use it.”
Currently, crews are dropping 40 truckloads of rock an hour on the eroded slope, a process that Croyle said would continue despite his belief that the slope as it is now is safe enough to use if needed.
Falling temperatures associated with this week’s approaching weather system will also help by lowering the elevation at which some of that precipitation falls as snow and is locked up until spring. But Croyle said that merely delays when the dam will be required to handle the melt from what has been a spectacular snow year.
He said state engineers are using cameras to monitor the damaged section of the spillway, and are watching it from above with overhead flights. The current release of water creates a curtain that obscures most of the gaping hole that appeared earlier, but what is visible from the side suggests there has been no increase in the damaged area.
“It’s performing very well,” Croyle said.
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said he would leave it to residents to decide for themselves whether to leave if rising water levels again force use of the emergency spillway. He said he would order another evacuation only if something were to suggest the repaired slope was deteriorating.
Butte County sheriff tells residents that evacuation order is lifted
Current pace of Oroville Dam water release is ‘reasonable and sustainable,’ officials say
The flow of water being released from Oroville Dam to make room before a series of upcoming storms is “sustainable” and has reduced the possibility of lake overflow, authorities announced Tuesday.
Engineers with the Department of Water Resources have been letting water rush out of the reservoir at a rate of 100,000 cubic feet per second ever since erosion severely damaged the facility’s emergency spillway.
The erosion sparked a sweeping evacuation order that was just lifted Tuesday afternoon. Officials said the decision to lift the mandatory evacuation order was based in part on the rate of water release from the lake’s main spillway, which has itself suffered major erosion damage.
The pace of the water’s release is “reasonable and sustainable,” said Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea.
Weather forecasts suggest the round of storms due later this week won’t be powerful enough to fill the lake faster than the water agency can drain it. If that did occur, the lake could overflow and cause further damage to the emergency spillway, possibly destroying portions of a concrete retaining wall.
To guard against that worst case scenario, engineers are scrambling to reinforce the hillside with rocks, boulders and cement, officials said.
Honea said use of the emergency spillway, while brief, allowed enough time for engineers to inspect the main spillway. Engineers were able to confirm that there was no additional erosion, or “piping,” that threatened the integrity of the main spillway.
Evacuations lifted for communities below Oroville Dam
Authorities lifted mandatory evacuation orders Tuesday for communities below the Oroville Dam.
At a news conference Tuesday afternoon, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea announced the order had been changed to an evacuation warning after he said the risk of flooding had been reduced.
“We have concluded it is safe to reduce the emergency evacuation order to an evacuation warning,” said Honea, who had made the initial call Sunday to evacuate a large swath of three counties below the imperiled dam.
At the time, residents were told the spillway to the dam could collapse within an hour.
Roadblocks on the two main highways leading to Oroville were dismantled without announcement by midday Tuesday.
“Thousands of lives were protected” and the loss of the spillway was averted, Honea said.
He said use of the emergency spillway, while brief, bought time for an inspection. That review confirmed that no erosion or “piping” was threatening the integrity of the main spillway.
Honea said residents and business owners were now allowed to return to their communities, but that they needed to be prepared to evacuate again at a moment’s notice should new problems arise.
The decision comes amid growing frustration among residents, who were forced to flee their homes Sunday night and given little time to prepare.
More than 100,000 people were ordered to evacuate from communities downstream of Lake Oroville Sunday night after the emergency spillway at dam developed a hole, prompting fears it could collapse.
“It was pandemonium,” said Officer Chad Hertzell, a spokesman for California Highway Patrol in North Sacramento. “It was pretty crazy.”
Highways, streets and gas stations were jam-packed with fleeing motorists.
Carrying portable fuel tanks, CHP officers and workers from the California Department of Transportation helped stranded evacuees to fill up their gas tanks.
As residents raced to flee their communities, many left their belongings and pets behind, the officer said.
CHP officers have been checking on properties in Oroville this week and looking for any signs of looting, he said. Oroville was abandoned, except for a few stragglers, Hertzell said.
At a news conference Monday, Honea had defended his decision to call for evacuations on Sunday.
Honea said the sheriff’s office was working on a “repopulation” plan for evacuees.
Residents along the Feather River have felt threatened by the Oroville Dam before
When residents below Oroville Dam were told to evacuate this past weekend, it wasn’t the first time that area communities felt anxiety about their towering concrete neighbor.
Back in the mid-1970s, residents eyed the dam warily when a series of strong earthquakes rocked Northern California, according to Los Angeles Times reports.
The first temblor, magnitude 5.7, struck on Friday, Aug. 1, 1975. Less than a day later, residents from Oroville to Berkeley were rattled by 5.4, 5.2 and 4.8 temblors.
“Some geologists said the enormous weight of the man-made 15,500-acre lake behind Oroville Dam, with its 3.5 million acre-feet of water, might have shifted rock deep beneath the earth, acting as a trigger for the quake and aftershocks,” The Times reported.
Indeed, a seismologist told a Times reporter, “there is some very well-documented earthquake activity occurring after the building of dams.”
One person even filed a class-action lawsuit against the federal government later that year, claiming that ground slippage beneath the dam was the cause of the quakes.
Today, some scientists speculate that “reservoir loading” may have been a factor, according to U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist Art McGarr.
The 1975 quakes forced authorities to take a second look at the design of a dam planned north of Sacramento on the American River. The Auburn Dam was ultimately scrapped after a seismic study of the area launched in 1977 discovered a previously unknown fault.
As for Lake Oroville’s current problems, earthquakes were not responsible, McGarr said.
Videos show massive effort to repair Oroville Dam’s crippled emergency spillway
In advance of new rains, workers frantically tried Tuesday to repair the crippled emergency spillway at Oroville Dam.
Helicopters are dropping sacks of rocks into a hole created by erosion. Dump trucks are also bringing in more rocks to patch other spots and create slurry.
Here are some videos of the effort:
Officials ban drones and other aircraft from Oroville Dam airspace
The Federal Aviation Administration has issued a temporary ban on flights around the Oroville Dam to allow emergency aircraft to operate safely.
“We implemented temporary flight restrictions that prohibit aircraft operations from the ground up to 4,500 feet altitude within a trapezoidal area around the dam,” said Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the FAA in Los Angeles.
The flight restriction includes recreational drones, according to the California Department of Water Resources. The restriction is scheduled to end May 17.
The ban comes as crews continue to conduct aerial surveys of the erosion on the emergency spillway.
Sheriff ‘actively working’ to get Oroville evacuees back in homes, but no timetable
Amid growing frustration among residents forced to evacuate from their homes, Butte County Sheriff’s officials said Tuesday “we are actively working on a plan to get in their homes” but did not offer a timetable.
More than 100,000 people were ordered to flee to higher ground Sunday afternoon after the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam developed a hole, prompting fears it could collapse.
Sheriff’s officials posted a message on Facebook on Wednesday thanking evacuees for their patience. The message also urged residents to stay vigilant during the crisis.
At a Monday afternoon news conference, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said authorities were working on a “repopulation” plan for evacuees, but there was no timeline for lifting the evacuation orders. He defended his decision to call for evacuations over the weekend.
“I recognize and absolutely appreciate the frustration people who were evacuated must feel,” Honea said. “It wasn’t a decision I made lightly.”
At the Chico evacuation center at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds, volunteers worked doggedly to lighten the mood. There were arts and crafts tables, a rolling book cart, Valentine cookies.
“All these people are displaced, and it’s really sad when you just go around and look and see … the elderly people and the people that need medication and medical attention,” said Vince Haynie, a volunteer with the Rhema Word of Faith ministry who was delivering blankets and baby supplies. “They displaced people at the drop of a dime.”
Isaac Loseth, 18, said the atmosphere Sunday night at the fairgrounds was “hectic” and “uptight.” He slept in his grandparents’ RV in the parking lot and worried about his home. Loseth lives near the Thermalito Afterbay, a reservoir about 13 miles southwest of Oroville Dam. If the levees around Thermalito were to breach, he said, “our house would be flooded.”
California National Guard sends soldiers and high-water vehicles to Oroville Dam emergency
The California National Guard has sent 25 soldiers and 13 high-water vehicles to help authorities in Oroville.
They will be assisting the Butte County Sheriff’s Office and California Office of Emergency Services with the Oroville Dam situation.
The soldiers and vehicles were deployed from the 235th Engineer Company in Petaluma and the Santa Rosa-based 579th Engineer Battalion.
According to the U.S. Department of Defense, the vehicles allow first-responders to navigate through flood waters, bring supplies to residents and rescue those who are trapped.
Soldiers from the 2632nd Transportation Company on Monday dropped off blankets, cots and other essential items to shelters throughout the affected area.
The deployment comes after Adjutant General David Baldwin announced on Sunday that all 23,000 soldiers and airmen were put on alert.
The last time officials sent out such a notification was during the 1992 riots in Los Angeles.
White House says Oroville Dam emergency is ‘textbook example’ of need for infrastructure repairs
At a news briefing Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said President Trump has been “keeping a close eye” on the Oroville Dam emergency and is working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to assist state officials.
“The situation is a textbook example of why we need to pursue a major infrastructure package in Congress,” Spicer said. “Dams, bridges, roads and all ports around the country have fallen into disrepair. In order to prevent the next disaster, we will pursue the president’s vision for overhaul of our nation’s crumbling infrastructure.”
The White House is working closely with Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale), whose district includes Oroville and surrounding communities, to help communities affected by the emergency, he said.
“We hope everyone remains safe as the evacuations continue,” Spicer said.
Oroville dam crisis: Could it have been prevented?
As work continue to prevent disastrous flooding at Oroville Dam, one big question keeps occurring: How did we get here?
The operators at North America’s tallest dam found themselves in a precarious position, with both spillways used to release water compromised and the reservoir still filled almost to capacity after a winter of record rain and snow. It’s a drama that began a week ago and got worse day by day.
Here’s how it happened:
Hole in the main spillway
The first situation officials faced was damage in the main concrete spillway last Tuesday. Officials stopped water draining out of the lake to inspect the damage. They then studied the problem to see if they could fix it.
But “we determined we could not fix the hole,” Bill Croyle, the acting director of the state Department of Water Resources, said at a news conference Sunday. It was 250 feet long, 170 feet wide and 40 to 50 feet deep. There wasn’t enough time to halt the flow down the spillway chute dry and then repair the damage. Officials thought they had no choice other than to use the main spillway, even in its crippled state, though it would be further damaged.
A delicate balancing act
The result is a balancing act — drain as much water as possible as quickly as possible while trying to minimize further damage to the spillway. The main spillway was returned to action, but at reduced capacity compared to what it could normally do under the current conditions. After all, the spillway needs to last for the remainder of the rainy season.
More rain than expected
Officials had held out hope that they wouldn’t need to use the dam’s emergency spillway, but then it rained Friday night.
“It came in a little wetter. The storm system parked over this region of California was parked a little longer,” Croyle said.
Crisis at emergency spillway
So on Saturday, water started flowing down the emergency spillway for the first time since the dam was completed in 1968. Initially, it seemed the operation was going fine. But on Sunday afternoon, officials detected a hole — earth was eroding away in a path that could dig a canyon or tunnel underneath a concrete retaining wall holding in a 30-foot wall of water in Lake Oroville. If the hole grew, there could suddenly be a path for that water to escape the reservoir uncontrolled, causing the failure of the concrete wall and resulting in a massive flood. More than 100,000 people were evacuated downstream.
Frantic to lower the reservoir level and stop water flowing down the emergency spillway, officials approximately doubled the amount of water flowing out of the main spillway.
Luck when they needed it most
By that point, luckily, the deterioration of the main spillway had largely stabilized, although there is still cause for concern.
‘Never-happened-before event’
Croyle was asked this question at Sunday night’s news conference: Why didn’t officials increase the flow down the damaged main spillway earlier?
Croyle’s answer, essentially, was that officials were reacting to the best information they had at the time.
On Monday, he described the situation at Oroville as unprecedented.
“I’m not sure anything went wrong,” he said. “This was a new, never-happened-before event.”
More than a decade ago, several environmental groups argued that substantial erosion would occur on the hillside during a significant emergency spill. They asked a federal commission to order the state “to armor or otherwise reconstruct the ungated spillway.”
Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday welcomed calls for more scrutiny about Oroville’s spillway system.
Help pours in for thousands of evacuees in Oroville Dam emergency. Here’s a list of shelters
More than 2,000 evacuees from the Oroville Dam emergency sought assistance at a community shelters and the Red Cross, according to organizers.
The evacuees got meals and had a place to shower at the Silver Dollar fairgrounds in Chico, according to the American Red Cross of Northeastern California. They received toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo and other essential items.
More than 100,000 people were evacuated from communities downstream of Lake Oroville on Sunday night after concerns arose that an emergency spillway could fail.
At a Monday afternoon news conference, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said authorities were working on a “repopulation” plan for evacuees, but there was no timeline for lifting the evacuation orders.
Meanwhile, the North Valley Animal Disaster Group was swamped with calls from evacuees needing a place to house their pets and farm animals. On Monday, the group of volunteers accepted at least 275 animals and placed them at the Silver Dollar fairgrounds in Chico.
If you need shelter for animals, call the North Valley Animal Disaster Group’s hotline at (530) 895-0000.
Here’s a list of shelters from the California Office of Emergency Services.
Oroville
Church of the Nazarene, 2238 Monte Vista Ave.
For bus transportation out of evacuation zone call (530) 342-0221 or (800) 822-8145
Chico
Silver Dollar fairgrounds, 2357 Fair St. They are accepting small and large animals.
Elks Lodge, 1705 Manzanita Ave. They are allowing RVs in parking lot.
Neighborhood Church of Chico, 2801 Notre Dame Blvd. No animals are accepted inside the church.
East Avenue Church, 1184 East Ave. No animals are accepted.
St. Johns Episcopal Church, 2341 Floral Ave. Small animals are accepted if they are leashed and crated.
Azads Martial Arts, 313 Walnut St. No animals are accepted.
Grace Community Church, 2346 Floral Ave. The church allows RVs in parking lot. Small animals are accepted if they are leashed and crated.
Glenn County
Glenn County Fairgrounds, 221 E. Yolo St. Orland. The fairground is accepting livestock, but no small animals. It has sites for 40 RVs.
Nevada County
Nevada County Fairgrounds, 11228 McCourtney Road, Grass Valley. The fairgrounds are accepting small and large animals. It has also more than 80 RV sites.
Yuba County
Beale Air Force Base. They are accepting dogs.
Watch flurry of work underway to repair eroded Oroville Dam emergency spillway
A flight crew from the California Highway Patrol captured the bustling scene Monday at Oroville Dam as crews race to repair the eroded spillway.
A CHP flight crew also flew over the dam at night. Using night goggles and a spotlight, the flight crew filmed the mist and rushing water at the dam.
Downstream from the dam, water keeps rising
Engineers race to lower water level of Oroville reservoir before new storms
State water officials continued to lower the level of Lake Oroville on Tuesday in anticipation of a series of storms that were forecast to begin arriving with new rain late Wednesday.
By 7 a.m. Tuesday, Department of Water Resources crews had lowered the reservoir level by at least 11 feet from the point at which it threatened potential disaster this weekend.
The water level at Oroville peaked on Saturday at about 902 feet, which sent water cascading over a concrete weir and into an unlined emergency spillway that had never been used.
On Sunday however, the earthen emergency spillway began to show signs of heavy erosion. Fearing that the damage could undermine the concrete weir that formed the lake’s shore and cause it to fail, and send a wall of water coursing into the Feather River below, officials ordered sweeping evacuations for more than 100,000 people.
Road closures near Oroville Dam
Here are a series of closures affecting highways and roads near the Oroville Dam.
At least one road is flooded and impassable, according to the California Department of Transportation.
Timeline: $100 million in damage, more than 100,000 ordered to evacuate and more rain on the way
California and local officials are rushing to repair the spillways at Lake Oroville and lower the water level by as much as 50 feet ahead of rain forecast for later this week. Damage to the spillway was first noticed Feb. 7. That set off a series of actions by officials concerned that damage to an emergency spillway could cause large amounts of water to be dumped into the Feather River, which runs through downtown Oroville.
How do you fix crippled Oroville spillway? Tons of rocks and sandbags
With new storms approach, work will continue Tuesday at Oroville Dam to shore up a damaged emergency spillway that prompted the evacuation of more than 100,000 residents.
What are workers doing?
Drops: Helicopters are dropping sacks of rocks into a hole created by erosion. Dump trucks are also bringing in more rocks to patch other spots and create slurry.
Road: They’re also building a gravel road out to where the helicopters are dropping the rocks. Then the trucks can drive out and create a slurry to deposit.
“You’re putting rocks in a hole. Then you’re putting slurry in to solidify it,” said Chris Orrock, spokesman for the Department of Water Resources. “When water comes down, it will hit that patch and roll off.”
Crippled Oroville spillway failed carrying just a fraction of the water it was designed to handle
Teresa Seim of Oroville evacuated to the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds in Chico. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) Live updates >>
Scrutiny continued to grow over the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam after it eroded Sunday, forcing the evacuations of more than 100,000 people.
The damage occurred even though the spillway was designed to handle much more water than the amount that overflowed. Some questioned why officials didn’t heed suggestions more than a decade ago to fortify the emergency spillway.
Earth and weak rock near the top of the spillway started to erode when peak flows were 12,600 cubic feet per second, compared with the designed capacity of 450,000 cubic feet per second, according to the Department of Water Resources. The erosion happened so quickly that officials feared the concrete wall would be undermined, and ordered sweeping evacuations in Butte, Yuba and Sutter counties that remained in effect Monday night.
With more storms expected to slam Northern California later this week, officials worked frantically Monday to drain water from brimming Lake Oroville in hopes of heading off a potentially catastrophic flood.
Bill Croyle, the acting director of the Department of Water Resources, said Monday that he was “not sure anything went wrong. This was a new, never-happened-before event.”
But during 2005 relicensing proceedings for Oroville Dam, several environmental groups argued that substantial erosion would occur on the hillside in the event of a significant emergency spill. In a filing, they asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to order the state to “to armor or otherwise reconstruct the ungated spillway.”
State Water Project contractors, including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, were involved in the relicensing. MWD General Manager Jeffrey Kightlinger said Monday his agency deferred to the state and federal agencies on the matter.
“They did look at that issue and they determined that [the existing emergency spillway] did meet the appropriate FERC guidelines,” Kightlinger said. “In the FERC guidelines, they talk about how you don’t put a lot of funding and concrete, etc. into emergency spillways because presumably they will rarely if ever be used.”
“We did not say it was a cost issue,” he added.
Brown, after meeting with advisors at the state’s emergency operations center near Sacramento, was asked by reporters about the concerns raised in 2005 about Oroville’s spillway system.
He said he welcomed calls for more scrutiny. “We’re in a very complex society where things can go wrong,” he said. “When they do, they ripple out and affect hundreds of thousands and in some cases millions of people.”
Latest photos from the Oroville reservoir crisis
‘It has been difficult’
Teresa Seim of Oroville evacuated to the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds in Chico. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) Live updates >>
Teresa Seim of Oroville on being evacuated to the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds in Chico. (Video by Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)