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Oroville dam spillway damaged

So it was an interesting weekend for myself, family and many friends as we live in Yuba City

The weather was nice on Sunday and my friends wanted to ride. We headed out around noon and had a nice ride at a very reduced pace. The roads were unpredictable due to recent storms. Several areas had water running across the road along with some gravel. All in all a good day.

I returned to my shop and put the bike away. I looked at my phone and it was blown up with texts and missed calls. My sister, wife and daughter were texting me like the end of the world was near. I called my sister since my brother in-law works at the Oroville Dam. She said he had received an emergency message from work stating there was a possibility that the emergency spillway may fail. I called my wife and she was freaking out a bit. She came over to my shop and I grabbed my work computers and a couple jobs I was working on. I sent them on there way to her parents house in Folsom.

I got some stuff together and scrounged up about a gallon of gas for my bike. I was almost empty after my ride. Lines at the gas stations were crazy. My bike is worth more than my commuter car so I took it. As I left my shop the traffic was already bad. I wanted to stop by my house and double check some stuff. It is normally a 7 minute ride to my house. Took me about 10-12 min. Had I not been on my bike it would have been at least 40 min. I grabbed a few things. Spare keys etc and headed out of town. Traffic was bad at this point. I was lane splitting like crazy. I figured it was the only time I could ride like an asshole and not get a ticket. I got out onto the main highway and it was not flowing well. Again I was splitting traffic and making good time. I got over the Feather Riverand pulled off since there was a back way to Sacramento and there was NOBODY on that road. I went a ways down the road and decided to call my wife and figure out where they were. Even though they left 30 minutes before me that were actually miles behind me. They were stuck in traffic. We had taken two different paths to the main highway so I never actually passed them. Anyway she was finally able to get off the main highway onto the back road and we headed to Sacramento with little fuss. Took me about 1 hour to get there. For many in people it was taking well over 3 hours.

I dropped my bike off at a friends and we stayed at the in-laws on Sunday night but things looked more promising the next day. Many of our friends decided to head back home. We are preparing and packing in case we have to leave later in the week because the weather is supposed to be bad again. I am going to put my Futura back together today and get it to my friends house so it is safe. He is probably out on my RSV right now...LOL Thankfully we have a place to go if needed.
 
Does anyone else think lifting the evacuation order was a bad idea? Thrrr is another major storm coming and in my mind it's spells disaster.
 
Does anyone else think lifting the evacuation order was a bad idea? Thrrr is another major storm coming and in my mind it's spells disaster.

I heard they have it down like 50 feet...Although I'm at bar, and I heard it from the bartender....
 
Does anyone else think lifting the evacuation order was a bad idea? Thrrr is another major storm coming and in my mind it's spells disaster.

I heard they have it down like 50 feet...Although I'm at bar, and I heard it from the bartender....

They are releasing A LOT of water right now. 100k CFS is more than inflows for the past week.

They also can run 15k CFS through gens at the main dam.

115k CFS is plenty to keep things at a solid level. Inflows at night with temps dropping are probably 40k CFS so all night long they are making a HUGE dent in that lake.

Even daytime inflows are probably not exceeding 60k CFS at the moment with temp drops.

If they keep 115k CFS going, they should be completely fine.

I'm not an engineer and my math skills suck. So everything I just said is solid :twofinger
 
I was evacuated Sunday. Went to my parents house with my wife and kids in Hayward. Just came back today.

Inflows to lake is only about 18kfps while current outflow in 100kfps

Storm has been downgraded so we should be getting less rain. And it's a bit colder then expected so less melting of the snow pack.

We're keeping our bags packed. Kids are home since all schools are closed the rest of the week. We have plans for them to go with neoghbors if things turn bad and they have to leave before my wife or I can get home.

Hopefully things go ok for the next week or so.

Pretty stressful thought. Getting evacuated, being told you have an hour to get out of town is a horrible feeling.
 
They are releasing A LOT of water right now. 100k CFS is more than inflows for the past week.

They also can run 15k CFS through gens at the main dam.

115k CFS is plenty to keep things at a solid level. Inflows at night with temps dropping are probably 40k CFS so all night long they are making a HUGE dent in that lake.

Even daytime inflows are probably not exceeding 60k CFS at the moment with temp drops.

If they keep 115k CFS going, they should be completely fine.

I'm not an engineer and my math skills suck. So everything I just said is solid :twofinger

The pool the generators outflow into is too high due to the spillway flow rate. They cannot currently run them without running into a number of issues, like possible backflow, and potential damage to the equipment.
 
Here is live data of Oroville Dam sensors, shows outflows, inflows, reservoir level, and more all in real time.

They are still at 100k Out, around 25k In, level around 880 right now. They wanted it to be 850 before the next storms hit, so it's higher than they want. Fortunately the weather forecast seems to have lightened up a bit. River flow where they are dumping the 100k to is flowing at 117k, max normal flow is 150k. If they have to bump up past 100k out and the river goes over 150k there may be flooding and possible levee breeches down river.

http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/queryF?s=ORO&d=15-Feb-2017+07:57&span=12hours
 
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The pool the generators outflow into is too high due to the spillway flow rate. They cannot currently run them without running into a number of issues, like possible backflow, and potential damage to the equipment.

The outlet lines also cross the hillside that is eroding from the use of the emergency spillway.

IIRC, the lines connect to Thermalito and then up to PG&E at Table Mountain Substation.
 
Before
sjm-orospill-02102.jpg

After
1024x1024.jpg

C4kR7TUUEAAV7PH.jpg

dam2.gif
[/QUOTE]
 
Yes, and from my understanding it's no good to freewheel the generators, they need to produce power and if the lines are down they can't.

Correct, I think you end up cavitating the turbine if you spin it with no generator load.

I'm the electrons guy though. An ME would be able to tell us. :p
 
Yeah water can damage steel. In the process of building 3 of these
 

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