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   From: morons@sfchronicle.com   
      
   About 188,000 residents near Oroville, Calif., were ordered to   
   evacuate Sunday after a hole in an emergency spillway in the   
   Oroville Dam threatened to flood the surrounding area. Thousands   
   clogged highways leading out of the area headed south, north and   
   west, and arteries major and minor remained jammed as midnight   
   approached on the West Coast — though by early Monday, Lake   
   Oroville’s water level had dropped to a point at which water was   
   no longer spilling over, and the crisis appeared to be   
   stabilizing.   
      
   The level in the massive man-made lake reached its peak of   
   902.59 feet at about 3 a.m. Sunday and dropped to 898 feet by 4   
   a.m. Monday, according to the Sacramento Bee. Water flows over   
   the emergency spillway at 901 feet.   
      
   “The drop in the lake level was early evidence that the   
   Department of Water Resources’ desperate attempt to prevent a   
   catastrophic failure of the dam’s emergency spillway appeared to   
   be paying dividends,” the Bee reported Monday.   
      
   Officials doubled the flow of water out of the nearly mile-long   
   primary spillway to 100,000 cubic feet per second. The normal   
   flow is about half as much, but increased flows are common at   
   this time of year, during peak rain season, officials said.   
      
   But water officials warned that damaged infrastructure could   
   create further dangers as storms approach in the week ahead, and   
   it remained unclear when residents might be able to return to   
   their homes.   
      
   View image on Twitter   
      
   An early-morning inspection of the main spillway revealed no   
   additional erosion, the Bee reported, and the Department of   
   Water Resources said water would continue to flow at 100,000   
   cubic feet per second.   
      
   Officials also will have to determine whether the damaged   
   primary spillway will be able to handle high levels of water   
   through the rest of the rainy season, Jay Lund, a civil   
   engineering professor at the University of California at Davis,   
   told the Bee.   
      
   Lake Oroville is one of California’s largest man-made lakes,   
   with 3.5 million acre-feet of water and 167 miles of shoreline.   
   And the 770-foot-tall Oroville Dam is the nation’s tallest,   
   about 44 feet higher than the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River.   
   The lake is the linchpin of California’s government-run water   
   delivery system, sending water from the Sierra Nevada for   
   agriculture in the Central Valley and for residents and   
   businesses in Southern California.   
      
   After a record-setting drought, California has been battered by   
   potentially record-setting rain, with the Northern California   
   region getting 228 percent more than its normal rainfall for   
   this time of year. The average annual rainfall of about 50   
   inches had already been overtaken with 68 inches in 2017 alone.   
      
   There was never any danger of the dam collapsing. The problem   
   was with the spillways, which are safety valves designed to   
   release water in a controlled fashion, preventing water from   
   topping over the wall of the colossal dam that retains Lake   
   Oroville.   
      
   Earlier this month, unexpected erosion crumbled through the main   
   spillway, sending chunks of concrete flying and creating a large   
   hole. Then sheets of water began spilling over the dam’s   
   emergency spillway for the first time in its nearly 50-year   
   history.   
      
   Water from rain and snow rapidly flowed into the lake, causing   
   it to rise to perilous levels, and sending water down the wooded   
   hillside’s emergency spillway, carrying murky debris into the   
   Feather River below.   
      
   “Once we have damage to a structure like that, it’s   
   catastrophic,” Bill Croyle, acting director of the state’s   
   Department of Water Resources, said at a news conference late   
   Sunday, in reference to the erosion of the main spillway. “We   
   determined we could not fix the hole. You don’t just throw a   
   little bit of rock in it.”   
      
   Anticipating a possible catastrophe for the Lake Oroville area,   
   located about 75 miles north of Sacramento and about 25 miles   
   southeast of Chico, the Butte County Sheriff’s Office ordered   
   evacuations, adding in a news release that it was “NOT a drill.”   
      
   But as the reservoir’s water levels lowered, the flows over the   
   emergency spillway ceased late Sunday night.   
      
   California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) issued an emergency order to   
   boost the state’s response to the evacuation efforts and   
   spillway crisis, which Brown called “complex and rapidly   
   changing.” The Federal Emergency Management Agency sent an   
   incident management team to the governor’s Office of Emergency   
   Services.   
      
   Despite the minimized threats, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea   
   said that he would not be lifting the mandatory evacuation order   
   until water resources officials had a better grasp on the   
   anticipated risks.   
      
   The evacuation took residents by surprise.   
      
   April Torlone, 18, was at work at a Dollar General in Live Oak,   
   Calif., Sunday evening when she received a flood emergency alert   
   on her phone. She hurried home, she said, where she had about 10   
   minutes to gather some clothes and her late father’s ashes.   
      
   Torlone drove with her mother and sister to her grandmother’s   
   house in Sacramento, arriving well after midnight. The roughly   
   40-mile trip took six hours, she said. Gas stations were packed   
   and stores were running out of food. Along the way, they saw   
   more than 30 people camped out in their cars on the side of the   
   road, many with trunks full of belongings, Torlone said.   
      
   “I just hope everyone is safe and finds a place to stay, and   
   that no one’s homes are damaged,” she told The Washington Post.   
   “It’s honestly so sad.”   
      
   Shelters, churches, schools and seven Sikh temples opened their   
   doors, and people offered to open their homes to strangers via   
   Twitter messages. Hotels and motels out of harm’s way filled up   
   quickly, creating communities of the suddenly displaced. Beale   
   Air Force Base, east of Marysville, also opened its gates to   
   area residents and said early Monday that it had received   
   approximately 250 evacuees.   
      
   The dam itself remained structurally sound, the state Department   
   of Water Resources said, and officials said helicopters would be   
   deployed to drop bags of rocks into the crevice and prevent any   
   further erosion.   
      
   Croyle, the acting Department of Water Resources director, said   
   Lake Oroville would need to lower almost 50 feet to reach levels   
   at which the system would normally operate. Croyle said that   
   personnel were unable to access the eroded emergency spillway   
   Sunday to do repair work. Officials aimed to continue to   
   discharge as much water as possible ahead of upcoming storms,   
   without adding too much pressure to the already damaged   
   infrastructure.   
      
   “Our goal is to be able to use that infrastructure throughout   
   this wet season,” Croyle said. Forecasts indicate that dry   
   weather will dominate through Tuesday, but a series of Pacific   
   storms are expected to arrive across the region Wednesday into   
   Thursday, bringing up to four inches of rain to parts of the   
      
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