"10 Year" storm for California - Spillway Collapse Update

Geeez, more flooding concerns. I was just wondering how the levees were holding up.

[size=83]Event: Flash Flood Watch Alert: ...FLASH FLOOD WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT THROUGH SATURDAY MORNING... The Flash Flood Watch continues for
  • A portion of northern California…including the following area…Carquinez Strait and Delta.

  • Through Saturday morning

  • River levels in the delta continue to be elevated due to in
    coming flood flows and reservoir releases from upstream rivers.
    The flood flows from Don Pedro Reservior are expected to be
    arriving in the south Delta Wednesday evening.

  • Previously identified concern areas on local levees will see
    increased river levels over the next week. As a precaution,
    San Joaquin County officials and the National Weather Service
    are encouraging local residents to be prepared to take action
    in the event that levee conditions were to deteriorate.
    [/size]

[size=83]Event: Flash Flood Watch Alert: ...FLASH FLOOD WATCH IN EFFECT THROUGH SATURDAY MORNING FOR THE LEVEES ALONG THE LOWER SAN JOAQUIN RIVER AND IN THE DELTA OF NORTHWESTERN STANISLAUS AND SOUTHERN SAN JOAUQIN COUNTIES... The National Weather Service in Sacramento has expanded the
  • Flash Flood Watch to include a portion of northern
    California…including the following area…Northern San
    Joaquin Valley.

  • Through Saturday morning

  • Don Pedro and other local dams are making large reservoir
    releases that are raising river levels along the Lower San
    Joaquin River north of Grayson. These elevated levels are
    causing flooding in the low lying bottom areas along the river
    and increasing concerns on the levees of the area.

[/size]

From what I see on google earth, the spillway is about 1/2 mile from the closest house, not in someone’s backyard.

I thought 1/2 mile is classed as someones back yard in US terms :lol: :lol: over here its meters lol everything over there
is so much bigger…

Due to the price of land and demand for housing (silicon valley) that area has been invaded by large homes crammed on small lots.

AH, fair point… :roll:

Video of the Oroville dam spillway with the water flow shut down 8O (Official video from CA Water Resources.)

Found Part 2 here.

We can see now how it was put together, definitely no rebar, just a bunch slabs put together and they thought that would take care of it. I heard a price tag of $700 million just to rebuild it.

Yeah, pitiful, even driveways have rebar :roll: The amount of rubble in the river in the second video is impressive, it’s no wonder they can’t run the power plant with all that blocking the outflow.

WOW, that won’t get fixed in a week! 8O :?

I like this pic, gives some perspective on the sheer size involved…

That is a good one :smiley:

I like this one from the Sacramento Bee too, shows just how much crap they have to move to open up the power plant outflow again:

Nice pic Niko. Amazing how fast they can get assets to the site. I wonder who is paying for all this…

Agreed, they’ve must have emptied out every heavy equipment rental yard on the west coast. Good to see that can come up with a disaster response like that in earthquake country :slight_smile:

Oroville is asking for disaster $ to repair the roads leading to the dam that have been torn up by all the trucks.

it sure is bigger than it looks!

Buildquality, any? :lol:
Those slabs looks quite thin for that purpose.
Seems you have quite bad quality rock too if it gets like that just from some water…

Yeah, who stole the rebar :lol:

True! Back in 2005(?) when the Sierra club etc. were making a fuss about the emergency spillway the Water admin claimed it was on solid bedrock, but as you’ve observed it’s actually “schist” which fragments very easily. There’s speculation that the breakdown of the concrete was hastened by cavitation, apparently other spillways are designed to minimize that - but not this one.

Saw a report this morning that the rapid fall of the river level, from shutting down the output from the dam, is causing river banks to collapse down stream. The fun never ends…

http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Riverbanks-collapse-after-Oroville-Dam-spillway-10976144.php

Our wet winter explained.

[quote][size=10pt]
What led to California’s drought-busting rain this winter?

A quick update for those who followed the Oroville Dam spillway collapse in this thread earlier this year.

Our guesses about the failure have been confirmed in several expert analyses, concrete was too thin, no re-bar (there were short dowels of rebar between the slabs but that’s all). What we didn’t know is that the concrete was poured on a foundation of fragmented rock and worse so once water started passing under it, from the side or through cracks, the thin concrete lost support and failure was inevitable.

The repair work is underway now. All the old concrete is out, much of it blown up (boys will have their fun :slight_smile: ). They are cleaning up rock and debris, and pumping concrete in where necessary to form a solid new foundation. This Sacramento Bee page has several videos.

The repair contract with Kiewit is for $275 million over two years (expect the final cost to be higher with incentives and changes etc.), and the total including the emergency fixes will be well over $500 million. The state is hoping that the feds will pick up a large part of the cost :-"

8O

So proof once again that a government entity either got hosed by the original contractor, or they agreed to built it “just good enough” like so many government projects. Then it bites the tax payers on the azz years down the road.
Heaven forbid do it right the first time.

Wow.