Oroville Dam

[Ed Kennell 39,123]

I know a few members are following the breach in the spillway and resulting evacuation.

 

 

I have a personal interest having worked for the hydro power industry for 50 years.

In fact, in 1967, I was involved in the R & D of the Pump / Turbine runners that were installed in this new power Plant.

Ironically, exactly 50 years later, my son Mark (Manager of Field Service for  Voith Hydro)  is currently responsible for the installation of new replacement runners.

Mark did evacuate his team, last week, but depending on the rainfall forecast for this weekend,  they may return to the site next week

 

[W9JAB 156]

Oroville Dam

The breach in the spillway and resulting evacuation,

is just "MOTHER NATURE"S" way of reclaiming the land,

from the fruits,nuts and flakes that is California.

The California officials had years of prior warning but

much like the crooked politicians in Louisianian,

used the money for other, more politically sexy projects.   

[ztnoo 2,298]

From what I have read from many articles that have come out of this event, is that dam oversight is sadly lacking in the vast majority of these engineering projects throughout the country.

Most have no evacuation or alternative plans in case of dam failure, and there's no review or inspection process in place to insure public safety below these dams.

[AMC RULES 37,141]

 The other day on "the News", the wife & I listened to "officials" from the California Sheriff's dept say...

"we can't release any evacuation plans to the public...

because, doing so would be considered a threat to homeland security". 

[rmaynard 15,716]

50 minutes ago, AMC RULES said:

 The other day on "the News", the wife & I listened to "officials" from the California Sheriff's dept say...

"we can't release any evacuation plans to the public...

because, doing so would be considered a threat to homeland security". 

Whaaaat?

[Ed Kennell 39,123]

Sorry Mods, there was no intent to start a political thread....just relating my personal interest in this event.

Please feel free to close and/or delete this topic if needed.

[953 nut 56,140]

Sadly, whenever we hear of catastrophic events where evacuations are required it is primarily because of a lack of routine maintenance. Also, were it not for the dam or levee or bridge or whatever "failure" has occurred, the population being evacuated wouldn't have ever built there in the first place.    

[ACman 7,624]

My  ...  Many of these dams , bridges , power lines , roads were built during the "New Deal" era . For you young people that's  Franklin Delano Roosevelt (F.D.R) starting in 1933 I believe . Unfortunately many of these projects have been neglected for years and need updating badly . Sometime in the near future these things need fixing or there's going to be more catastrophic events like this .

[c-series don 9,027]

I'm not trying to get political here but this is why we need to spend American taxpayer money HERE IN AMERICA not in countries most of us couldn't even find on a map. Thank you,I'll stop at that before I have to double up on my blood pressure medication!! 

[shallowwatersailor 3,213]

3 hours ago, ACman said:

My  ...  Many of these dams , bridges , power lines , roads were built during the "New Deal" era . For you young people that's  Franklin Delano Roosevelt (F.D.R) starting in 1933 I believe . Unfortunately many of these projects have been neglected for years and need updating badly . Sometime in the near future these things need fixing or there's going to be more catastrophic events like this .

 

I'm trying to be non-partisan here. Budget sequestration (agreed to in Congress by both sides) has been one of the causes for the deteriorating condition of our infrastructure and military. It is not neglect, there just isn't funding provided for repair.

Edited February 17, 2017 by shallowwatersailor

[Terry M-(Moderator) 2,177]

I think this is a rather interesting  topic to many.....so for now,  lets keep the political side of it in check.

 

Thanks,

 

Terry

[roadapples 6,983]

Wouldn`t it be common sence, cents, since, not to build a house below a dam, damn, darn ???  

[AMC RULES 37,141]

 Nope, wouldn't provide the common cents for neither the politicians, or the land developers.

[oliver2-44 9,922]

Wow @roadapples you said a mouthful. Like @Ed Kennell I've been working in the Dam and Hydro business for many years. The development around and below the dams is $$ amazing.

 

I really feel for all the people working to keep that dam safe. They need our prayers as they deal with passing those historic  flows and working on emergency repairs. It sure is easy for the blame finger to be pointed even when your dealing with unpredictable Mother Nature at historic levels. 

 

We always say the public owns the lakes 364 days a year and we own them the 1 day it floods

 

These are pic,s of 3 out of 10 gates open (roughly 90,000 CFS) at one of the dams I work at last Spring.  They call this the most flash flood area of the US.  Back in 97 I spent a night working with all 10 gates wide open wondering what happens next. ...and the good Lord sent us sunshine!

[clueless 3,012]

12 hours ago, roadapples said:

Wouldn`t it be common sence, cents, since, not to build a house below a dam, damn, darn ???  

Nothing is 100% safe. Beavers are the best damn dam builders on this planet, and they've been doing for millions of years, and their still not perfect.   

[W9JAB 156]

The news has been suppressed on this as well, the last evacuation had traffic jams, stalled cars, fist fights, home robberies. and general chaos that  was not reported,what will the next one bring?

[W9JAB 156]

It's not only the Oroville dam, but the string of dams above and below it, also I did see two reported earth quakes on either side of Ovoville ( a one on the Recker scale) but all that water seeping into the ground and turning it to mush, could accelerate an earth quake, Now we would be taking some big problems.

 

[ohiofarmer 3,277]

  Dayton, Ohio had the famous flood of 1913. They built a series of  dry dams with no moving parts that were so overbuilt that heavy rains do not get very high at all on the face. They maintain them well, keeping the faces groomed so the trees do not grow into them and [when the trees die and the roots rot] cause voids for the water to enter.

 The damage and loss of life from that flood will never be forgotten, and that provides a strong incentive to keep things humming along. No federal money was used and the bonds that financed the dam were retired in 1949. Maintenance is funded by tax assessments that assign what you pay for flood protection based on the extent of flooding your property experienced the flood in 1913.

 This is how you do it right. http://www.journal-news.com/news/miami-conservancy-created-unique-flood-control-plan/CVSjpRqb35txXFBW7kUdoN/

What Dayton did benefits everyone downstream all the way to the Mississippi Delta.

 

 Contrast that with how California will probably want taxpayer money from the rest of us to repair their dam. Maybe they will surprise us and do it the way Dayton did. One can only hope.

[Ken B 3,164]

I can remember a show that was on TV about 5 yrs. ago called Inspector America. The guy went all over the country pointing out serious problems with our infrastructure including dams and bridges. The problems he showed were serious and in a way embarrassing. One of the bridges with serious flaws he brought up was the Tappan Zee bridge. Thankfully a new one is being completed as I type. I wonder why that show got cancelled? When we go to see my son in Philly we go over the Delaware River bridge. Well, as of about a month ago it was closed indefinitely due to a large crack. Oh how very nice... Makes ya wonder how many other bridges out there have serious problems with them that we continue to drive over. Keeping our infrastructure up to date and SAFE should be a top priority, but sadly it hasn't been...

[953 nut 56,140]

The State of New York launched an inspection program after ten people died as a result of a bridge collapse.

At 10:50 a.m. on a Sunday morning, April 5, 1987 a bridge on the New York State Thruway near Fort Hunter collapsed, 10 died.

The bridge came down during a spring flood caused by snow melt and torrential rains.

George King, who was then assistant fire chief of Fort Hunter Engine and Hose Co., remembers monitoring water levels on Schoharie Street in Fort Hunter that day.

"I had my binoculars looking up the creek," he said. "I could see a tractor-trailer coming off the bridge into the creek. I thought he was rubbernecking and drove off the bridge. When the water subsided, there was a gap. The bridge was gone."

The 540-foot-long bridge plunged 84 feet, sending four cars and one truck into the raging waters of a flooded Schoharie Creek in Montgomery County. The cause was determined to be a failure to properly design, build and maintain the bridge. Built in the 1950s, the bridge's supports had concrete footings dug 6 feet into the riverbed, instead of piles driven into the bedrock needed because the riverbed soil was vulnerable to washing away.

Though the design called for footings to be buried in a deep layer of stone held in place by metal sheeting, neither was installed, and a thinner layer of riprap around the footings was improperly maintained.

When the inspectors got to a creek bridge near my mother's house three years later they barricaded it on the spot. The bridge had been a wood plank bridge built in the early 1900s with stacked stone foundations at both ends. No one was sure when it had been covered with reinforced concrete, but they apparently had used the old plank bridge as a form and poured over it (most folks think that had been done in the 1930s. There were no beams under it other than the nearly century old timbers that were in remarkably good condition. For sixty some odd years dump trucks, semis etc. had used the bridge unaware of the potential danger.

 

It is a shame that ten people died before the state realized the importance of inspections and maintenance!

[c-series don 9,027]

Please refer back to post number 9 thank you!!! 

[Ed Kennell 39,123]

                                                                                Guess we shoulda patched that crack last year.

[Terry M-(Moderator) 2,177]

Wow!...That does not look like a fun one to fix.