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Evacuees stranded with no end in sight to Lake Oroville crisis

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OROVILLE, Butte County — The crisis at Lake Oroville may grind 
on for weeks or longer — leaving the nearly 200,000 people 
ordered to evacuate on Sunday in nail-biting limbo as crews work 
to flush water out of the reservoir and shore up a badly eroded 
emergency spillway, officials said Monday.

State water officials have been purging nearly 100,000 cubic 
feet of water per second out of the reservoir’s damaged but 
functioning primary spillway, an effort that brought the level 
down below the lip of the emergency spillway Sunday night, 
averting catastrophe.
But they are just beginning to assess the scope of the weekend 
damage, a first step in developing a plan to secure the 
reservoir and allow residents to return to their homes.

More rain is forecast to soak Lake Oroville and the surrounding 
mountains beginning Wednesday night, increasing the urgency of 
the work being done at the reservoir.

“We’re working very hard to deal with the challenges we have,” 
said Bill Croyle, acting director of the California Department 
of Water Resources. “We’re focused on the whole facility. The 
dam itself is sound, but we have some pieces that are critical 
to the operation that have been impaired.”

Gov. Jerry Brown said Monday evening that there might be an 
indication Tuesday on when evacuees can return to their towns, 
but added that caution was the watchword. “Better safe than 
sorry,” he said.

“My message is that we’re doing everything we can to get this 
dam in shape so they can return and live safely,” said the 
governor, who declared a state of emergency Sunday to mobilize 
disaster resources.

Crews noticed Sunday that the hillside under the emergency 
spillway — also called the auxiliary spillway — had begun 
rapidly deteriorating, just one day after water started 
cascading over its ledge for the first time since the Oroville 
Dam was put into operation in 1968.

Evacuees stranded with no end in sight to Lake Oroville crisis
By Melody Gutierrez, Evan Sernoffsky and Kevin Fagan Updated 
8:34 pm, Monday, February 13, 2017

Approximately 200,000 people remain under evacuation orders on 
Monday, as authorities try to fix erosion of the emergency 
spillway at California's Lake Oroville Dam. Located 150 miles 
northeast of San Francisco, the country's tallest dam and one of 
California's largest man-made lakes, Lake Oroville experienced 
water levels so high that an emergency spillway was used on 
Saturday for the first time in almost 50 years.

OROVILLE, Butte County — The crisis at Lake Oroville may grind 
on for weeks or longer — leaving the nearly 200,000 people 
ordered to evacuate on Sunday in nail-biting limbo as crews work 
to flush water out of the reservoir and shore up a badly eroded 
emergency spillway, officials said Monday.

State water officials have been purging nearly 100,000 cubic 
feet of water per second out of the reservoir’s damaged but 
functioning primary spillway, an effort that brought the level 
down below the lip of the emergency spillway Sunday night, 
averting catastrophe.
But they are just beginning to assess the scope of the weekend 
damage, a first step in developing a plan to secure the 
reservoir and allow residents to return to their homes.

More rain is forecast to soak Lake Oroville and the surrounding 
mountains beginning Wednesday night, increasing the urgency of 
the work being done at the reservoir.

Carmen Corona of Greeley, left, stops to ask for supplies form 
Tina Kuhl of Sevean Trent, right, who was indepently 
distributing water and socks at the evacuation center at Silver 
Dollar Fairgrounds in Chico, Calif., on Monday, February 13, 
2017. Several hundred thousand area residents were evacuated 
down river from the Oroville Dam spillways after officials began 
to worry there might be an imminent collapse on Sunday. The 
California Department of Water Resources increased the release 
from the main spillway to 100,000 cubic feet per second to lower 
the level of the lake and prevent further damage to the 
auxiliary spillway. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle

Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
IMAGE 1 OF 116 Buy PhotoCarmen Corona of Greeley, left, stops to 
ask for supplies form Tina Kuhl of Sevean Trent, right, who was 
indepently distributing water and socks at the evacuation center 
at Silver Dollar Fairgrounds in Chico, ... more
ALSO
Oroville Dam crisis prompts sleepless night for evacuees
Series of storms to make trouble for Lake Oroville
Drone video shows the Oroville Dam crisis
The Oroville Dam crisis explained: What you need to know

“We’re working very hard to deal with the challenges we have,” 
said Bill Croyle, acting director of the California Department 
of Water Resources. “We’re focused on the whole facility. The 
dam itself is sound, but we have some pieces that are critical 
to the operation that have been impaired.”

Gov. Jerry Brown said Monday evening that there might be an 
indication Tuesday on when evacuees can return to their towns, 
but added that caution was the watchword. “Better safe than 
sorry,” he said.

“My message is that we’re doing everything we can to get this 
dam in shape so they can return and live safely,” said the 
governor, who declared a state of emergency Sunday to mobilize 
disaster resources.

Crews noticed Sunday that the hillside under the emergency 
spillway — also called the auxiliary spillway — had begun 
rapidly deteriorating, just one day after water started 
cascading over its ledge for the first time since the Oroville 
Dam was put into operation in 1968.

That deep erosion scar carved its way back to the foot of the 
spillway’s apron, a concrete lip perched at the top of the hill, 
threatening the integrity of the barrier.

Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea ordered an estimated 188,000 
residents downstream along the Feather River to evacuate around 
4:30 p.m. Sunday, when the possible breach in the spillway was 
detected. There was no plan for that evacuation order to be 
lifted, but Honea said officials were working on a “repopulation 
plan” for the residents.

“When it’s safe, based upon the evaluation by the Department of 
Water Resources and the state and federal partners, then we’ll 
be in a better position to decide when to lift that evacuation,” 
he said.

The Department of Water Resources began dropping large bags of 
rocks Monday afternoon via helicopters onto the eroded emergency 
spillway to divert water coming down the earthen hillside during 
future heavy rains and snowmelt. State officials did not give a 
timeline on how long it would take to shore up the scarred 
hillside.

Evacuees, meanwhile, anxiously cooled their heels in evacuation 
centers scattered throughout the area, without any sense of when 
they could return home.

Jaswinder Phagura, admitted she was “scared” as she stayed at 
the Sikh Temple emergency shelter in West Sacramento with family.

“How long will we be here?” said the 48-year-old Live Oak 
resident, who fled to the shelter with her 4-year-old daughter, 
sister-in-law and brother-in-law. “I hope when we go back that 
everything is OK there — pictures, our kids’ stuff.

“We just grabbed some stuff. It’s scary,” she said.

At the Cal Expo fairground in Sacramento, where families poured 
in throughout the evening, Treena Manion pointed out that many, 
like her, were losing income for every day they weren’t able to 
go to work back home — and that could quickly become a hardship. 
Still, she could understand the caution.

“Our lives are more important, and everything else can be 
replaced,” said the 43-year-old Marysville woman, who fled with 
her husband, daughter and five other relatives.

Among the others getting a hasty change of scenery: 579 inmates 
from Butte County Jail, who were evacuated in guarded buses 150 
miles south to Alameda County’s Santa Rita Jail in Dublin.

Officials tried to assure evacuees that it was better to endure 
the inconvenience than to risk death beneath a roiling wall of 
water. .
“We don’t want people coming back into the community, then 
having another incident and having to evacuate again,” said 
Chris Orrock, spokesman for the water resources department. “Our 
No. 1 priority is the safety of the community and our staff.”

Complicating matters is a series of storms set to hit the area 
around Lake Oroville starting late Wednesday that will 
accelerate inflow into the reservoir.

“The area around Lake Oroville and mountains around Lake 
Oroville will see 1 to 2 inches with that storm,” said Tom Dang, 
a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in 
Sacramento.

That system will be followed by several more soaking storms 
through the weekend. Weekly rain totals could be as much as 8 
inches in the mountains around Lake Oroville, Dang said.

Water continued to pour into Lake Oroville at 37,000 cubic feet 
per second on Monday while the lake level fell from 901 feet on 
Sunday to about 895 feet around noon Monday. Based on the 
current inflow and outflow, the Department of Water Resources 
said the reservoir is dropping at a rate of 8 feet per day.

It wasn’t clear if the next series of storms — or any rains or 
snowmelt that may follow — could push the water back up and over 
the emergency spillway.

“It all depends on the runoff, the weather systems and the air 
temperature,” Croyle said. “We’re going to deal with it as it 
comes in.

When or how long this take depends on the day and the watershed.”

Water officials could be dealing with the spillway challenges 
for 10 to 15 days or longer, he said.

Chronicle staff writers Sarah Ravani and Michael Bodley 
contributed to this report.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Evacuees-stranded-with-no-end-
in-sight-to-Lake-10929579.php

--
More than a decade ago, federal and state officials and some of 
California’s largest water agencies rejected concerns that the 
massive earthen spillway at Oroville Dam — at risk of collapse 
Sunday night and prompting the evacuation of 185,000 people — 
could erode during heavy winter rains and cause a catastrophe.

Those agencies included the Metropolitan Water District of 
Southern California, which provides water to 19 million people 
in Los Angeles, San Diego and other areas, along with the State 
Water Contractors, an association of 27 agencies that buy water 
from the state of California through the State Water Project. 
The association includes the Metropolitan Water District, Kern 
County Water Agency, the Santa Clara Valley Water District and 
the Alameda County Water District.
 

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