News Oroville Dam Evacuation: 180,000+ Forced to Leave

[OmCheeto]

Starting a thread
1) Provide a clear statement of purpose​

Just a "Wow. Look at this!" factor: 180,000+ people evacuated from below the tallest dam in the USA.

2) Link to a reputable news agency reporting the event​

Just about everyone is now talking about this. Even Al Jazeera!

3a) The event must be current...​

I first heard about this situation two days ago, so, I'm calling it "current".

3a) The event must be ... reasonably news worthy for a general population​

There are 7 billion people on the planet, so the plight of ≈200,000 people being stuck in traffic might not be news worthy of the general planetary population.

4) No opinion, op ed, humor or editorial stories

General
1) Politeness and respect for others is essential
2) Show reasonable effort to provide sources for any factual claims
3) Clearly state an opinion as such and not asserted as fact​

Freakin' Kobyashy Maru, dude!

 

[berkeman]

Yeah, it was a dicey situation there for a few hours. Failure looked like it could happen at any time, so the authorities made the call to evacuate. It was the right call, IMO, but it was sure tough on the folks trying to get out. It looks like things are settling down a bit now, and they may have a better handle soon about whether they can let folks back to their homes.

A friend of mine is a Red Cross volunteer here in the Bay Area, and he got put on 4-hour standby status last night at 9PM to be ready to deploy for shelter work if necessary.

 

[jedishrfu]

Kowabunga!

 

[nsaspook]

Update:

 

[nsaspook]

Re-Opening of Main Spillway to reduce the water level before rains and snow melt.

They don't want to see this again.

 

[OmCheeto]

Not sure about anyone else, but I've been eating up the videos from the California DWR:

Latest:

​

Last spill was, from my best guess, on May 19th:

​

 

[OmCheeto]

Watching the magnitude of this project makes me just, um, wow..., how much is this costing??



Answer: ≈1/4 billion dollars [ref]
Annual value of Sacramento Valley crops grown that would probably not exist without the dam: ≈17 billion dollars [ref]

Seems like a reasonable investment.

 

[BillTre]

Pretty nice drone shots. Drone shots are great modern innovation!
I figure they have at least two since I saw one (lower left side) at the end of the second video in post #6.

Answer: ≈1/4 billion dollars [ref]
Annual value of Sacramento Valley crops grown that would probably not exist without the dam: ≈17 billion dollars [ref]

That would be a 68 X payback (to society generally speaking) in a year, or a payback time of 5.367 days.
I don't know that anyone uses such statistics (a balance sheet for society), but it seems an interesting approach to me.

 

[OmCheeto]

Pretty nice drone shots. Drone shots are great modern innovation!
I figure they have at least two since I saw one (lower left side) at the end of the second video in post #6.

That would be a 68 X payback (to society generally speaking) in a year, or a payback time of 5.367 days.
I don't know that anyone uses such statistics (a balance sheet for society), but it seems an interesting approach to me.

Just imagine if the dam had actually failed.
Based on the civil lawsuit regarding the Flint Michigan water fiasco[3/4 billion dollars by 1700 residents {ref} ], and if California hadn't made 180,000 people evacuate, who might have all died, I come up with a back of napkin figure of 75 billion dollars.

It can get expensive, when you don't do things right the first time, quibbling about pennies, when dollars are at stake, in the long run.

 

[OmCheeto]

I've watched every single video.
I was worried that they'd not get done in time.

I should probably not worry so much.

 

[nsaspook]

 

[nsaspook]

A few years later.