Department of Water Resources officials, engineers, and contractors spent the day testing and assessing the gaping hole that stretches across the Oroville Dam spillway.
The damage is over 1/4 mine away from the dam on solid bed rock. What happened is there was a crack in the spillway that water was able to force it's way into. Once the water pressure got under the slab of the spillway it hydrologically lifted the slab. Lets say you have 50 PSI of pressure being applied to a 1 inch hole. The water goes under an area of the slab that is sealed and it can not escape from. Lets say that area is 20 foot by 20 foot. That makes 57,600 square inches of surface area the water can push on. That makes that 50 PSI pressure capable of lifting 2,880,000 pounds. Since the slab was 12 inches thick the concrete used was only 1,600,000 pounds for that 20 X 20 area. That leaves a difference of 1,280,000 pounds of uplifting force. That force must go somewhere. This is how the spillway was damaged. Any crack can allow water in. This is why they build them with drainage so the water has a place to escape and it can not build up pressure. See my channel for what the news is not telling you.
Start evacuating The areas witch gonna be hit if the dam breaks immediatly to the higher grounds. Potential waterflows could occur and undermine the ground structure of the dam . Danger increase when rain continues . Better safe the sorry . Good luck , From The Netherlands .
That's too logical, the government won't do such things. Without the government telling people what to do, most won't do it on their own. It would be an interesting documentary someday though.
You'd have to evacuate Sacramento, too, 70 miles away. There is a huge amount of water in Lake Oroville, but the dam's not going to break. Having said that, the Sacramento River is higher than our neighborhood right now, it's higher than I've ever seen it.
They could leave Sacramento if they have a good alarm system, 70 miles is plenty of time to let people know to leave (as long as they knew the meaning of the sound). Our place was about 30 miles downstream from the Gilboa Dam in NY when they were afraid it was going to burst, with an estimated time of well over an hour and that was very conservative. When a tropical storm came through and they had to open full blast it took over 2 hours to get to our place.
I wonder how this might effect the lowering end of the hatchery and Kern river Connections especially since theres all ready impending problems . Were wondering if we too should have a plan. one thing for sure plan A is out of here for those of us who were lucky enough to have long history in Oroville and Palermo and the feather river areas. Now what?
We all know there's (a) Geologist(s) behind the scenes shitting their pants, and the officials aren't heeding his/her/their warnings. Seen this 20 times in the Movies
"Hello... We're sorry. The Army Corp of Engineers cannot be reached at this time. Your call is important to us. Please leave us a detailed message and we will return your call in the order it was received."
Seem to remember another time and place where I lived...and "officials" also said, not to worry. Think it was called, Mount Saint Helens. Lived in Seattle back then. They had this "Red Zone" where they said it was safe to take photos as the volcano threw ashes miles in the air. Of course, most know the rest of the story. Many of those in the "safe" zone were killed by hot volcanic ash as the side of the mountain unexpectedly blew up. Best to use some common sense and if there's any way to prepare to leave, if only until the water levels, decrease in the lake and they might be able to start repairing that spillway that broke up...caution can be a friend in situations such as this one. Live!
Yet another great example of mankind finding out the hard way not to fuck with Mother Nature. No matter what we build, nature can destroy in seconds. They have such contempt for nature, and now they're paying the price, I just pray they can fix it.
If the Oroville Dam is not a federal installation, blame California for the lack of adequate maintenance on infrastructure. It would seem California has been spending too many tax dollars purchasing votes from illegals.
