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   From: morons@sfchronicle.com   
      
   Oroville, California (CNN)A massive crevasse that formed in a   
   spillway at Northern California's Oroville Dam has spurred mass   
   evacuations, with nearby residents fleeing the worst-case   
   specter of a three-story wall of water rushing downstream.   
      
   In all, about 188,000 people, mostly in Butte, Sutter and Yuba   
   counties, evacuated from the area, some being given only minutes   
   to gather their things.   
      
   "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."   
      
   The area had long been in drought until this year when heavy   
   rain and snow bombarded the state. In Oroville, the average   
   annual rainfall is about 31 inches, but since October, the   
   Feather River, which begins at Lake Oroville, had already seen   
   25 inches of rain as of Saturday, according to the California   
   Department of Water Resources.   
      
   The lake also gets water from the northern Sierra Nevada   
   mountain range, which is experiencing one of its wettest seasons.   
      
   This week's weather report supplied a sliver of good news, as no   
   rain is predicted until Wednesday.   
      
   As of early Monday, water was not flowing over the spillway, and   
   while officials were cautiously optimistic, those hopes could   
   "be dashed at first light when engineers get a better look at   
   the backup spillway. We know (the floodwater pressure) is   
   tearing up the bottom of the spillway," DWR spokesman Doug   
   Carlson told CNN.   
      
   2 spillways, 2 problems   
      
   Oroville Dam is the country's tallest, and the emergency   
   spillway that's eroding had never been used in the 48 years that   
   the dam has existed, the DWR says. The closest Lake Oroville   
   came to topping the emergency spillway was in January 1997, when   
   the lake level rose to within a foot of flowing over it.   
      
   The Oroville Dam provides flood control for the region. The dam   
   has two spillways to release water out of the lake to prevent   
   overflow. Both have problems.   
      
   In the main spillway, which is lined, or paved, erosion has   
   caused a hole almost the side of a football field and at least   
   40-feet deep to form in the lower part of the channel. It can't   
   be fixed immediately.   
      
   "You don't throw a little bit of rock in it," said DWR acting   
   director Bill Croyle.   
      
   The emergency spillway, which is an embankment covered with   
   trees, is a last resort and was used for the first time in   
   history on Saturday when the lake topped 901 feet, its capacity,   
   and a light flow of water washed into the spillway.   
      
   Around 3 p.m. (6 p.m. ET) Sunday, authorities learned that the   
   emergency spillway was also eroding, Butte County Sheriff Kony   
   Honea said.   
      
   DWR and CAL FIRE crews quickly began clearing the brush, trees   
   and rocks to limit the amount of debris washing into the lake's   
   diversion pool and the Feather River. The California Department   
   of Fish and Wildlife began evacuating young salmon and steelhead   
   from the Feather River Hatchery downstream.   
      
   The erosion of the emergency spillway is dangerous because "when   
   you start to erode the ground, the dirt and everything else   
   starts to roll off the hill," said Kevin Lawson, a CAL FIRE   
   incident commander. "It starts to undermine itself. If that is   
   not addressed, if that's not mitigated properly, essentially   
   what we're looking at is approximately a 30-foot wall of water."   
      
   Chaotic escape   
   California Gov. Jerry Brown issued a state emergency order to   
   help local authorities.   
      
   On Sunday afternoon, Honea's office issued a dire warning,   
   employing the most urgent of language -- "This is NOT a drill" --   
    in imploring residents to evacuate. At the time, officials said   
   the spillway was in danger of failing any minute.   
      
   The evacuation order included "all Yuba County on the valley   
   floor" and the city of Marysville, authorities said.   
      
   About 35,000 people from Butte County, 65,000 from Yuba County,   
   76,000 from Yuba City and 12,000 from Marysville City evacuated,   
   according to CAL FIRE.   
      
   The DWR instructed Oroville residents to head north, toward   
   Chico.   
      
   Conversely, the Yuba County Office of Emergency Services warned   
   its residents, "Take only routes to the east, south, or west. DO   
   NOT TRAVEL NORTH TOWARD OROVILLE!!!!!"   
      
   The Sacramento Fire Department echoed the urgency and warned   
   residents that the spillway failure could have effects,   
   including flash flooding, 75 miles downstream in Sacramento.   
      
   Stores closed. Shelters opened. Police manned roadblocks.   
   Evacuees waited in traffic trying to escape low-lying areas.   
   Residents mobbed gas stations on their way out of town. By early   
   Monday, many of the pumps at those gas stations had yellow tape   
   across them, indicating they were out of gas.   
      
   Sean Dennis, who lives 30 miles south of Oroville, spoke to CNN   
   from his car after spending 4½ hours in heavy traffic.   
      
   "It was pretty scary, just because of how fast everything was   
   developing," he said. "Me and my wife managed to throw as much   
   stuff as we could into garbage bags, whatever we could find. We   
   got both of our cars loaded down pretty well. We're not taking   
   any chances."   
      
   The urgency later subsided, with authorities reporting that the   
   situation was not as desperate as previously thought. Still,   
   Honea said he wasn't taking any chances.   
      
   "I'm not going to lift the evacuation order until I have a   
   better idea of what that means and what risk that poses," he   
   said late Sunday night.   
      
   The sheriff said the DWR had a contingency plan in place to use   
   helicopters to drop bags of rocks into the gouged portion of the   
   emergency spillway, in an effort to plug the hole. About a half-   
   mile from the dam, crews were seen breaking up and bagging rocks   
   before dawn Monday.   
      
   After issuing the evacuation orders, authorities noted   
   significant decreases in the water coming over the emergency   
   spillway.   
      
   The flow of water on the emergency spillway eventually stopped   
   Sunday night as the DWR withdrew more water from the other   
   spillway.   
      
   The main spillway was releasing water at 100,000 cubic feet per   
   second in an effort to reduce the amount of water traveling down   
   the emergency spillway, authorities said.   
      
   Normal flows down the main spillway are about 55,000 cubic feet   
   per second. An Olympic swimming pool typically holds about   
   88,000 cubic feet of water.   
      
   "We want to drop that water level before the next storm hits   
   Wednesday," the DWR's Carlson told CNN. "It's supposed to be a   
   colder storm, which is good. Last week the rain storm was   
   warmer. So we had both the rain runoff and the warmer rain   
   melting the snow and that snow melt also flowed into the lake."   
      
   http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/13/us/california-oroville-dam-   
   spillway-failure/   
      
   --   
   More than a decade ago, federal and state officials and some of   
      
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