Authorities in California have asked thousands of people living near Oroville Dam—the tallest dam in USA—to leave their homes as an emergency spillway in the dam is danger of failing and unleashing flood waters on nearby towns.
People who are living in the downstream areas are being requested to leave the area immediately. The California Department of Water Resources said that 100,000 cubic feet per second water is being released from the main, heavily damaged spillway in order to drain the lake. The official however said that the dam was structurally sound and there was no threat to the public.
The state government website revealed: “Based on information received from the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the incident command team managing Lake Oroville, counties and cities near Lake Oroville and the surrounding area issued evacuation orders for residents,”
“The concern is that erosion at the head of the auxiliary spillway threatens to undermine the concrete weir and allow large, uncontrolled releases of water from Lake Oroville. Those potential flows could exceed the capacity of downstream channels. To avert more erosion at the top of the auxiliary spillway, DWR doubled the flow down its main spillway from 55,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) to 100,000 cfs. The next several hours will be crucial in determining whether the concrete structure at the head of the auxiliary spillway remains intact and prevents larger, uncontrolled flows. Current flows are contained with downstream channels.”
“Flow over the auxiliary spillway weir began Saturday morning and has slowed considerably. DWR officials expect that flow to stop entirely soon, which will reduce the erosion on the downstream side of the structure. Oroville Dam itself is sound and is a separate structure from the auxiliary spillway.”
Oroville town has a population of about 16,000. The people have been advised to head north toward Chico.
The Butte County Sheriff’s office said that other cities need to follow orders from their local law enforcement agencies.
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