Updates: New storms approach, but officials confident Oroville Dam and spillways will hold up

Although Butte County sheriff’s officials say there were no reports of looting during recent evacuations below Ororville Dam, there were a handful of burglaries and robberies that targeted fleeing residents, officials said.

The incidents began Sunday night, hours after authorities ordered more than 100,000 people to flee to high ground, according to the Butte County Sheriff’s Office.

About 6:30 p.m., deputies said, Cody Bowles, 27, and Lucia Ripley, 31, carjacked the vehicle of an Oroville resident who was packing it to flee. The resident left the car running and was moving in and out of the house with items when the couple jumped into the vehicle, officials say.

When the resident confronted the pair, they ran him over, seriously injuring him, officials say. Authorities are looking for the pair.

About half an hour later, authorities said, Teran Washington 25, and a 16-year-old boy used a shotgun to blast through the front door of a local market and tried to ransack the business before they were confronted by neighbors. Though the two got away, deputies later searched their home and say they found the shotgun and arrested Washington and his young accomplice.

The next morning, Michael Matlock, 31, was seen riding an ATV in Gridley and towing a gun safe, authorities say. Tailed by state Department of Water Resources employees who became suspicious, Matlock ran away when his vehicle got stuck on railroad tracks, investigators said. The ATV, the trailer and the gun safe had all been stolen, officials said.

Matlock was identified as the ATV driver and arrested on suspicion of burglary, vehicle theft and looting during an emergency, officials said.

Helicopters ferry sand and rocks from a staging area to the Oroville Dam’s emergency spillway repair project.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Officials at Lake Oroville reduced the rate of water release once again Friday as workers continued make repairs to a damaged spillway and clear debris from a hydroelectric plant.

State Department of Water Resources engineers will decrease the flow of water in the Oroville Dam’s main spillway from 80,000 cubic feet per second to 60,000 by Saturday morning, giving crews space to dredge debris from a pool at the bottom of the spillway, said DWR acting director Bill Croyle.

Engineers had been pumping water out of the lake at 100,000 cfs for several days to make room for incoming storm runoff and to keep the lake from overflowing like it did over the weekend. That overflow badly eroded an emergency spillway and sent debris flowing into a pool at the bottom, forcing the closure of an underground hydroelectric plant.

“This reduction in flow will allow us to work on the debris pile in the spillway,” Croyle told reporters at a news conference. He estimated that 150,000 cubic yards of sediment and debris were in the pool.

The other focus by workers at the dam is the eroded emergency spillway, Croyle said. Rain began falling again in the area on Thursday and it’s not expected to stop until the middle of next week at the earliest.

The heaviest showers are expected Monday and could drop up to 10 inches of rain onto the mountains and foothills that drain into the reservoir, the National Weather Service said.

The storms aren’t likely to produce enough runoff to exceed the lake’s capacity, Croyle said.

Hundreds of thousands of tons of rocks and concrete slurry have been dropped into four fissures that threatened a retaining wall of the emergency spillway on Sunday. They were 50%, 75%, 90% and 100% full, respectively, Croyle said.

Rain falling onto the slurry and a small stream that had formed on the hillside Friday did not worry DWR engineers, he said.

Reconstruction continued Wednesday in a race to shore up the emergency spillway, left, at the Oroville Dam.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Jeffrey Mount, a leading expert on California water policy, remembers the last time a crisis at the Oroville Dam seemed likely to prompt reform. It was 1997 and the lake risked overflowing, while levees further downstream failed and several people died.

“If this doesn’t galvanize action, I don’t know what will,” Mount said he thought at the time. But spring came, the waters receded and no changes came to pass.

Now another threat looms in Oroville, where deteriorating spillways forced widespread evacuations, and more heavy rain is around the corner. State officials have remained focused on quick fixes at the dam needed to prevent catastrophic flooding, but some already are thinking about how the crisis could spur long-term shifts in policy.

It’s a conversation that’s gaining momentum in think tanks and government offices from Sacramento to Washington, and it touches on climate change, infrastructure spending and statewide water policy.

Wade Crowfoot, a former advisor to Gov. Jerry Brown who now leads the Water Foundation, a nonprofit research organization in Sacramento, compared the situation to the state’s years-long drought.

“This is a wake-up call,” he said. “The drought reminded us we need to use water more wisely. Oroville reminds us that we need to upgrade our infrastructure and our management to move water more wisely.”

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The National Weather Service has canceled the flash-flood warning issued Sunday, when officials worried the emergency spillway at Lake Oroville might collapse.

Spillway repairs continue at Oroville Dam on Wednesday.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Confident that a series of incoming storms won’t overwhelm the Oroville reservoir a second time, state officials said Thursday that they would slow drainage of the lake so they can do work on an adjacent power plant.

The reservoir exceeded its capacity over the weekend, which sent water overflowing into an unlined, emergency spillway. That overflow sent soil, rock and forest debris into the Feather River below.

With the reservoir’s water level down more than 30 feet since Sunday and getting lower, state Department of Water Resources acting director Bill Croyle said at a news conference Thursday that engineers will slow the flow down the Oroville Dam’s damaged main spillway from 100,000 cubic feet of water per second to 80,000 cfs over a period of several hours.

The reduction will allow crews to move into the concrete channel to clear out trees, branches and other debris that has clogged the spillway and forced the downstream hydroelectric plant to go offline, Croyle said.

There was no estimate on when the power plant would be back up and running, but it will probably not be before Monday, Croyle said.

Meanwhile, the Herculean effort to reinforce the emergency spillway before more rain arrived used a caravan of helicopters and trucks to fill three deep fissures in the dirt hillside with rocks and cement.

As of Thursday, repairs on one erosion site was completed, the second was 25% filled and the third was 69% filled, Croyle said.

As long as the lake doesn’t reach capacity the emergency spillway won’t be used, Croyle said.

The incoming storm system is weaker than the one that overwhelmed the lake last week after the dam’s main spillway eroded to the point of fracture, Croyle said.

More than 100,000 residents south of the dam remain under an evacuation advisory and should be prepared to flee to higher ground should the dam overflow and the spillways collapse, authorities said.

Friends Johnny Eroh, from left, Cody Balmer, Kristien Bravo and Jerel Bruhn hang out by the swollen Feather River in Oroville.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Spillway repairs at the troubled Oroville Dam will get their first major test this weekend after meteorologists revised their forecast and are now predicting a much wetter and warmer storm outlook for the region.

Light to moderate rain began falling across Northern California early Thursday and will probably continue for several days, according to the National Weather Service.

However, the situation will change substantially Sunday, when a larger storm arrives at Oroville and the Feather River basin.

“It looks like it’s going to be a pretty good rainmaker,” said NWS meteorologist Mike Smith. “You’re looking at 10 inches from Sunday night to Monday night.”

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Several schools remain closed in communities affected by the Oroville Dam emergency.

All school districts except for Chico and Paradise in Butte County will be closed through Friday. Wheatland High School, Yuba College and the Marysville Joint and Wheatland Elementary school districts in Yuba County also will be closed.

“We believe this gives our families and staff sufficient time to make ‘longer-term’ plans,” said Supt. Craig M. Guensler of the Wheatland Elementary School District.

Most school districts in Butte County will resume classes Tuesday. Monday is a holiday.

Guensler said the district could reassess school closures next week.

“The safety of our staff and students is our largest priority, and we will continue to make sure we keep our schools safe,” he said.

It’s raining in the Oroville Dam area, though officials have said they are confident their efforts will prevent any problem.

But now another storm is set to hit Monday.

Here’s a look at what’s to come:

In the hours since a series of storms in Northern California began dropping rain on the damaged Oroville reservoir, data shows that state water officials continue to drain the lake faster than the storms are filling it.

Less than a tenth of an inch of rain has fallen in Oroville since the first of the storms arrived early Thursday, the National Weather Service reported. The area and surrounding foothills are expected to receive several inches of rain through the weekend.

But that shouldn’t be enough to fill Lake Oroville back up to capacity, when the lake reaches 900 feet, the Department of Water Resources said.

The lake is draining water at 100,000 cubic feet per second, enough to drop the lake a foot every three hours. Meanwhile, runoff from the current and previous storms is sending water into the lake at only a fraction of that pace.

The lake has dropped more than 30 feet since it overflowed during the weekend and damaged an emergency spillway that had never been used. If it drops another 30 feet by Sunday, officials hope, the reservoir should have enough space to catch water from rain and melting snow without overflowing the rest of the year.

Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea repeated his insistence Wednesday that there had been no looting while Oroville was under mandatory evacuation orders, but he conceded that the town had seen “burglaries.”

“Certainly we’ve had burglaries,” he said, adding that there are burglaries every day.

Honea drew a firm distinction between the two forms of theft. Looting, he said, is a massive and organized stealing of everything within a structure, and “is very rare.”

Honea urged residents returning to the area to be prepared to leave again if necessary. “This is an ongoing situation.”

He said the state has agreed to post National Guard units in the region, part of what he called “staging of resources” should another emergency arise.

Leotta Litke and Henry Rueda had planned a romantic Valentine’s Day wedding at their community church in Olivehurst.

But on Sunday, the couple was forced to evacuate their home after a hole developed in an emergency spillway at the Oroville Dam. The couple went to an evacuation center at the Placer County fairgrounds in Roseville and had been staying there through Tuesday.

It appeared their dream of a Valentine’s Day wedding was crushed.

That was until shelter workers found out about their wedding plans and decided to help them get hitched.

So Placer County workers spread the word on Facebook, asking for help:

“We have one last, very special donation request for our Oroville emergency evacuees,” workers wrote. “This young couple, Leotta and Henry, planned to be getting married today at their home church in Olivehurst. Instead, they’ll be honoring us today at our evacuation shelter. To help Leotta and Henry. To make this day as special as it should be, we need a wedding dress and suit ASAP! Message us if you can help, and please join us in wishing them congratulations!”

Soon after the call went out, donations from residents and area businesses began pouring into the fairground, according to workers.

By the end of the day, the bride was given a beautiful white gown and the groom a black tux and a large tree was converted into a wedding altar.

Surrounded by a large group of evacuees who remained at the shelter for the night, Litke walked down the grassy aisle to an acoustic version of the Elvis Presley hit “Can’t Help Falling In Love.”

The couple had been together 10-years before deciding to tie the knot, they said.

“I want to thank everybody,” Litke told CBS Sacramento. “I am happy to be Mrs. Rueda.”

To cap off the night, a limo and hotel room were also donated, KTXL-TV reported.

“It’s hard to imagine a better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than the surprise wedding we were honored to witness tonight at the Placer County shelter for Oroville spillway emergency evacuees,” county workers wrote on Facebook.

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Even after Lake Oroville’s water level is reduced by a targeted 50 feet, water managers intend to further drain the reservoir so that it can absorb major rain storms and spring snowmelt, according to state planning documents.

Although officials say the risk of flooding below Oroville Dam has dropped substantially since the weekend, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea warned area residents Wednesday that they remained in “an emergency situation.”

During an afternoon news conference, Honea urged residents to “maintain vigilance” as dam operators continued to drain Lake Oroville before a string of storms began soaking the region again Wednesday evening.

“They need to pay attention,” Honea said of residents. “It’s important for people to be prepared. This is an opportunity for them to get things together, so that if the risk level increases and there is a need for us to issue an evacuation order, they’ll have the things they need and they’ll be able to do that quickly and efficiently.”

The sheriff also asked residents to start making travel plans should they need to evacuate.

On Sunday, when erosion of the lake’s emergency spillway triggered a sudden evacuation order, area roads quickly suffered gridlock.

“That was an incredibly chaotic situation, and I was aware of it,” Honea said.

Sunday’s emergency order was lifted Tuesday afternoon, allowing more than 100,000 residents and business owners to return to their communities.

Honea said that during the evacuation order, Oroville had seen some thefts, but he insisted there was no widespread looting of properties.

“Certainly we’ve had burglaries,” he said.

Looting, the large-scale and organized theft of property from a structure, “is very rare,” the sheriff said.

Honea also said that the state has agreed to post National Guard units in the region, part of what he called “staging of resources” should another emergency arise.

Reconstruction continues in a race to shore up the emergency spillway, left, at Oroville Dam on Wednesday.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Even as rain began to fall in Northern California on Wednesday, state officials said the storms forecast over the next few days will not be enough to test the integrity of the Oroville Dam or its two damaged spillways.

Bill Croyle, acting director of the state Department of Water Resources, called the storms “fairly small” and said the public “won’t see a blip in the reservoir” levels, now dropping about eight inches an hour.

Croyle said it was not the weather he was concerned about so much as the damage done to the dam’s already compromised main spillway during days of sustained heavy releases of water.

“It’s holding up really well,” Croyle said, but continued mass water releases could be causing hidden damage to the rocky subsurface adjacent to the concrete chute.

A swarm of trucks and helicopters dumped 1,200 tons of material per hour onto the eroded hillside that formed the dam’s emergency spillway. One quarry worked around the clock to mine boulders as heavy as 6 tons. An army of workers mixed concrete slurry to help seal the rocks in place.

At the main spillway, a different and riskier operation was underway: Despite a large hole in the concrete chute, officials have been sending a massive amount of the swollen reservoir’s water down the spillway to the Feather River in a desperate attempt to reduce the lake’s level.

The objective is to lower the level enough so that the lake can accept runoff from the upcoming storms without reaching capacity. If the reservoir filled up again, water would overflow into the emergency spillway, which on Sunday appeared to be nearing collapse, forcing the evacuation of more than 100,000 people downstream.

Croyle said there were plans to begin to taper off the water discharges at the end of the week.

Data from the Department of Water Resources shows Shasta Dam discharges began to be sharply increased on Feb. 10 and have increased substantially every day since that.

Federal emergency officials and the Trump administration approved Gov. Jerry Brown‘s requests for presidential disaster declarations for the Oroville Dam and for the 34 counties struck in January by major winter storms that caused mudslides and power outages.

“I want to thank FEMA for moving quickly to approve our requests,” Brown said in a statement from his office.

At a news briefing Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said President Trump has been “keeping a close eye” on the situation at Oroville.

“The situation is a textbook example of why we need to pursue a major infrastructure package in Congress,” Spicer said. “Dams, bridges, roads and all ports around the country have fallen into disrepair.”

Evacuees and Sikhs chat at Shri Guru Ravidass temple in Rio Linda, Calif., north of Sacramento.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Each morning before the break of dawn, Nirmal Singh makes his way to a small stage at the Shri Guru Ravidass Temple, adorned with roses and silk. There, the priest sits and reads prayers from a centuries-old Indian text to open the day.

It’s usually a quiet affair, with words spoken in Punjabi to an empty hall the size of a large backyard — a solemn start at the small Sikh temple that sees few people outside of weekend services.

But this week, Singh had company. Bodies shuffled under blankets in front of him. On Tuesday a Mexican couple and their kids woke up to his right, revealing the head scarves they wore in respect of Sikh traditions. In a nearby room, an African American man was also was getting up to the sounds of prayer.

As tens of thousands fled low-lying regions on the Feather River this week amid warnings of flooding from the rapidly filling Lake Oroville, Sikh temples across in the Sacramento area opened their doors to evacuees.

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After exceeding capacity this week, Lake Oroville has seen water levels drop significantly in the last three days.

The charge above shows the story, as officials bumped massive amounts of water through the damaged main spillway.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has ordered inspections of all county dams, spillways and other flood control infrastructure.

The move was sparked by the emergency at Lake Oroville in Northern California over the last week, when failures of two spillways used to lower the lake’s water level prompted mandatory evacuations.

Supervisor Kathryn Barger called for the inspections on Tuesday, and her motion was unanimously approved by the board.

The supervisors have asked the county’s Department of Public Works to provide a report on the condition of the dams within 30 days and to develop a list of priority flood-control infrastructure projects that need to be completed.

“The Oroville situation reminds us of the need to proactively evaluate our county’s risk with regard to dams and other facilities which may be prone to failure from storms, earthquakes or other foreseeable events,” Barger said in a statement.

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Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) said Wednesday that officials will investigate what went wrong at the Oroville Dam once the emergency situation is over.

In a Facebook post, LaMalfa wrote that Oroville Dam “looks stable for now.”

LaMalfa said officials are focused on providing support to residents who were evacuated Sunday night. Residents were allowed to return home Tuesday afternoon after officials said the risk of flooding had diminished.

Speaking on the House floor Tuesday, LaMalfa said the soil in front of the emergency spillway must be stabilized with rock and concrete.

“It looks good,” he said. “I think things are stable for now. We also need prayer for no more rain for a while.”

After meeting privately with emergency officials on Tuesday, state Sen. Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber) said he was told the repairs were “temporary.”

“This cannot be a case of put rocks in the spillway and it is taken care of,” he said.

Before evacuees returned home Tuesday afternoon, a woman cared for kangaroos, zebras and other animals left behind by residents.

California Highway Patrol officers were checking on abandoned properties in the affected areas on Tuesday morning, when they came across the exotic animals at Tamara Archer Houston’s family farm in Sutter County, said Officer Chad Hertzell, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol in North Sacramento.

“It was like ‘Wow, a zebra,’ ” he said.

Archer Houston and her family had been collecting animals left during the rush to evacuate, according to the CHP.

“We had fun,” she said in a video on Facebook. “It was good.”

Among the rescued animals were two kangaroos named Kenzie and Dottie, Archer Houston said in the video, filmed by CHP officers.

“Kenzie actually sleeps inside with her owner every night in her bed in her diaper, so this has to be a whole new deal for her,” she said.

The sight was a rare treat for officers.

“We are thankful for the random acts of kindness we find out in the community,” the CHP wrote on Facebook. “Everyone seems to be coming together to take care of each other. This is what makes California so special.”

More than 100,000 people were ordered to evacuate from communities downstream of Lake Oroville on Sunday night after the emergency spillway at the dam developed a hole, prompting fears it could collapse.

Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea lifted the mandatory evacuation order Tuesday and changed it to a warning.

Although residents and business owners were allowed to return to their communities, he urged them to be prepared to evacuate again at a moment’s notice should new problems arise.

Even after Lake Oroville’s water level is reduced by a targeted 50 feet, water managers intend to further drain the reservoir so that it can absorb major rain storms and spring snowmelt, according to state planning documents.

The most recent 10-day forecast calls for water levels to be dropped 60 feet below the lake’s maximum of 901 feet, which would give it the ability to hold nearly 1 million acre-feet of water before overtopping a damaged emergency spillway that is still undergoing temporary repairs.

A joint plan created by the Department of Water Resources, Cal Fire and the Butte County Sheriff’s Office calls for the reduction of water releases down the reservoir’s main spillway later in the week. Water has been coursing down the damaged spillway at a rate of 100,000 cubic feet per second but will taper off to a third of that by late Friday, according to the plan.

A new series of storms forecast to arrive late Wednesday is expected to last through the weekend. Likewise, a cooling trend will drop more snowfall in the Sierra.

Officials hope to reduce the lake level to below 840 feet by next Wednesday. That level falls below what engineering documents show is normally required for flood control in wet weather. The biggest surge in water reaching the lake from the Feather Basin is forecast to arrive Tuesday, according to the planning documents.

With the mandatory evacuation order for the Feather River lifted, life in Oroville is returning to normal. As a result, the Gold Country Casino and Hotel — which has served as housing for emergency work crews — is now asking contract workers to leave by Friday so the hotel can honor prior reservations.

The workers can return Monday. The state also is operating a less luxurious emergency base camp nearby with meals provided by inmates on state firefighting crews.

Capt. Dan Olson, a spokesman from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said crews have been working around the clock to reinforce two damaged spillways at Oroville Dam before storms expected to begin as soon as Wednesday night. Officials are using drones to monitor the repairs and damage.

Meanwhile, the California Department of Water Resources is increasing water releases to meet its goal of dropping levels at Lake Oroville below 840 feet, he said.

The department has been releasing 4 inches of water an hour, which is about 8 feet a day, he said.

Here’s a snapshot of the resources involved in the repair effort:

• More than 125 construction crews
• 40 truckloads of aggregate rock
• 1,200 tons of rock deposited in eroded/damaged areas per hour
• Two helicopter drops of rocks, concrete and/or other materials every minute and a half
• A California National Guard Black Hawk helicopter is assisting with drops

The storm that officials at Lake Oroville have been bracing for is on the way.

Although the storms are expected to be far weaker than the ones that inundated Northern California last week, any additional rainfall could exacerbate the problems in the region, where more than 100,000 people were evacuated Sunday amid concern that a damaged spillway at Oroville Dam could fail.

The storm system is expected to arrive late Wednesday or early Thursday morning and could bring 2 to 4 inches of rainfall over Lake Oroville, said Tom Dang, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sacramento. Another storm Friday could drop an additional 1 to 3 inches on the region and is expected to have a much greater impact on Southern California.

The Northern California rain is also expected to be much cooler than last week’s. That’s good news when it comes to flood concerns. Warmer storms cause mountain snowpack to melt more quickly, sending runoff coursing into rivers, canals and reservoirs.

Last week’s storm was “very warm,” with snow levels as high as 8,000 feet and higher, Dang said. This week, snow levels are forecast at 5,000 to 6,000 feet, which is much more typical for a storm this time of year, he said.

The Oroville Reservoir continued to drain Wednesday morning as state water officials raced to reduce the lake’s level ahead of storms expected to arrive after midnight.

As of 5:30 a.m. the reservoir was down 20 feet since it reached capacity on Sunday when it overflowed and sparked sweeping evacuations south of the dam. The lake is draining at 100,000 cubic feet per second, a furious pace that is reducing the state’s second largest reservoir about one foot every three hours.

The Department of Water Resources wants to drop the reservoir’s level 50 feet overall by Sunday, which would provide a half a million acre-feet of space for future storms and, according to officials, ensure the dam doesn’t have to rely a second time on an emergency spillway that rapidly eroded over the weekend.

Engineers have been reinforcing the emergency spillway – an unlined hillside – with heavy boulders carried in by helicopter, as well as sand and concrete slurry. The incoming storms could bring 30 mph winds Thursday and Friday, which could hinder the effort, said National Weather Service Jason Clapp.

“It’s just another problem they don’t need to have,” he said.

Up to 3 inches of rain could fall on the lake and 8 inches in the surrounding mountains and foothills through the weekend, Clapp said. Another storm is due Monday.

“That one looks a little juicier,” and could drop 2 inches of rain on Oroville and 5 inches in the mountains in 24 hours, Clapp said.

With both spillways badly damaged and a new storm approaching, America’s tallest dam on Tuesday became the site of a desperate operation to fortify the massive structures before they face another major test.

A swarm of trucks and helicopters dumped 1,200 tons of material per hour onto the eroded hillside that formed the dam’s emergency spillway. One quarry worked around the clock to mine boulders as heavy as 6 tons. An army of workers mixed concrete slurry to help seal the rocks in place.

“This is an aggressive, proactive attack to address the erosion,” said Bill Croyle, acting director of the state Department of Water Resources. “There’s a lot of people, a lot of equipment, a lot of materials moving around, from the ground and from the air.”

At the main spillway, a different and riskier operation was underway: Despite a large hole in the concrete chute, officials have been sending a massive amount of the swollen reservoir’s water down the chute to the Feather River in a desperate attempt to reduce the lake’s level.

The structure continued to hold Tuesday without sustaining more significant damage, officials said.

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A large swath of Northern California is on track to record its wettest winter on record with a new storm moving in late Wednesday.

These areas, many of them in the Sierra Nevada, are running at 200% of normal rainfall, if not more. The records cover October to February.

This story has brought special anxiety because of the situation at the Oroville Dam, where high water levels and two crippled spillways have sparked concerns about major flooding.

The storm system is expected to arrive late Wednesday or early Thursday morning and could bring 2 to 4 inches of rainfall over Lake Oroville, said Tom Dang, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sacramento. Another storm Friday could drop an additional 1 to 3 inches on the region and is expected to have a much greater impact on Southern California.

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Interview with Erica Stenholm and Ronnie Vaughan (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Erica Stenholm and Ronnie Vaughan talk about having to evacuate their home earlier this week because of the Oroville emergency. They were given the go-ahead from officials to return to their house on Tuesday.

A swarm of trucks and helicopters dumped 1,200 tons of rock per hour onto the eroded hillside that formed the Oroville dam’s emergency spillway. One quarry worked around the clock to mine boulders as heavy as 6 tons. An army of workers mixed concrete slurry to help seal the rocks in place.

“This is an aggressive proactive attack to address the erosion,” said Bill Croyle, acting director of the state Department of Water Resources. “There’s a lot of people, a lot of equipment, a lot of materials moving around, from the ground and from the air.”

At the main spillway, a different and riskier operation was underway: Despite a large hole in the concrete chute, officials have been sending a massive amount of the swollen reservoir’s water down the chute to the Feather River in a desperate attempt to reduce the lake’s level.

This effort has lowered the amount of water the spillway could handle, the structure continued to hold Tuesday without sustaining more significant damage, officials said.

The idea is to get the reservoir water level low enough that it can take in rain from an upcoming series of storms without reaching capacity. If the reservoir filled up again, water would automatically flow down the emergency spillway, which on Sunday appeared to be nearing collapse, forcing the evacuation of more than 100,000 people downstream.

Crews releasing 100,000 cubic feet of water per second through the main spillway have lowered the lake’s levels by about one foot every three hours without causing more damage to the main spillway, according to engineers. Meanwhile, hundreds of construction workers used thousands of tons of concrete and rock to shore up the erosion that had carved fissures into the unpaved slope behind the dam.

The reservoir’s water line is expected to fall 50 feet by late Saturday or early Sunday, providing a buffer capacity of half a million acre feet, officials said. That would avert the risk of using the eroded hillside as an emergency spillway again, officials believe.

Feb. 15, 7:40 a.m.: An original version of this post said that water releases had reduced the lake level by one foot every hour.

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Evacuees from the Oroville spillway crisis hear the evacuation order being lifted in Bangor. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Christina Widener, 51, evacuated with her husband and her 94-year-old grandmother, who suffers from dementia. They drove to Red Bluff, about 60 miles away, before finding a motel room.

“I think it made sense at the time,” she said of the hasty evacuation order Sunday evening. “But I wish she hadn’t left.”

The mother of four has lived in her bungalow near the river’s edge for 32 years, and in 1997 defied an evacuation order despite threat of arrest.

“We didn’t leave then and nothing happened,” she said, grabbing boots and a kitty container out of the back of her Ford SUV.

Widener had nothing but praise for the hospitality of Red Bluff -- waitresses offered to pay for their meals, strangers invited them to stay in their homes. Someone even offered to do their laundry.

“They were awesome,” she said.

While some evacuees drove far from Oroville, others made arrangements to stay with family or friends who reside in the foothills behind the lake -- safe ground should the dam fail.

“As long as you are up above, you should be good, right?” said Jerry Smith, a 26-year-old solar installer. He finished loading up frozen pizzas and bottled waters at a newly reopened grocery store, and was anxious to move on with his wife.

“I’m sorry, but we’ve got to go. We haven’t been home yet.”

Was he anxious?

“No, we should be OK.”

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has approved Gov. Jerry Brown’s request for assistance in dealing both with the Oroville Dam crisis and damage from record storms that hit the state in January.

Brown issued a state of emergency on Sunday to make it easier for state officials to quickly respond to the situation at the dam, where two damaged spillways have forced the evacuation of more than 100,000 people.

Many residents returned to their homes Tuesday, but officials said they could be evacuated again if storms coming later this week cause water levels at the reservoir to rise too much.

“I want to thank FEMA for moving quickly to approve our requests. This federal aid will get money and resources where it’s needed most,” Brown said in a statement.

The game plan is to get water behind the Oroville Dam below what its engineering designs call “flood control storage,” and keep it there. At that depth, the dam would have a buffer capacity of half a million acre-feet of water.

At the current release rate, a pounding 100,000 cubic feet per second, the dam will reach that point by late Saturday or early Sunday, even with another rain system arriving Wednesday, said Bill Croyle, acting director of the state Department of Water Resources.

Croyle said he is certain of the integrity of the main spillway and the steep hillside used for emergency overflow, now quickly being armored with layers of rock and concrete. Even so, he said, “our goal is to remove as much water from the reservoir [as needed] so we don’t have to use it.”

Currently, crews are dropping 40 truckloads of rock an hour on the eroded slope, a process that Croyle said would continue despite his belief that the slope as it is now is safe enough to use if needed.

Falling temperatures associated with this week’s approaching weather system will also help by lowering the elevation at which some of that precipitation falls as snow and is locked up until spring. But Croyle said that merely delays when the dam will be required to handle the melt from what has been a spectacular snow year.

He said state engineers are using cameras to monitor the damaged section of the spillway, and are watching it from above with overhead flights. The current release of water creates a curtain that obscures most of the gaping hole that appeared earlier, but what is visible from the side suggests there has been no increase in the damaged area.

“It’s performing very well,” Croyle said.

Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said he would leave it to residents to decide for themselves whether to leave if rising water levels again force use of the emergency spillway. He said he would order another evacuation only if something were to suggest the repaired slope was deteriorating.

The flow of water being released from Oroville Dam to make room before a series of upcoming storms is “sustainable” and has reduced the possibility of lake overflow, authorities announced Tuesday.

Engineers with the Department of Water Resources have been letting water rush out of the reservoir at a rate of 100,000 cubic feet per second ever since erosion severely damaged the facility’s emergency spillway.

The erosion sparked a sweeping evacuation order that was just lifted Tuesday afternoon. Officials said the decision to lift the mandatory evacuation order was based in part on the rate of water release from the lake’s main spillway, which has itself suffered major erosion damage.

The pace of the water’s release is “reasonable and sustainable,” said Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea.

Weather forecasts suggest the round of storms due later this week won’t be powerful enough to fill the lake faster than the water agency can drain it. If that did occur, the lake could overflow and cause further damage to the emergency spillway, possibly destroying portions of a concrete retaining wall.

To guard against that worst case scenario, engineers are scrambling to reinforce the hillside with rocks, boulders and cement, officials said.

Honea said use of the emergency spillway, while brief, allowed enough time for engineers to inspect the main spillway. Engineers were able to confirm that there was no additional erosion, or “piping,” that threatened the integrity of the main spillway.

Residents listen at the Bangor Community Hall as they get the news that the evacuation order has been lifted.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Authorities lifted mandatory evacuation orders Tuesday for communities below the Oroville Dam.

At a news conference Tuesday afternoon, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea announced the order had been changed to an evacuation warning after he said the risk of flooding had been reduced.

“We have concluded it is safe to reduce the emergency evacuation order to an evacuation warning,” said Honea, who had made the initial call Sunday to evacuate a large swath of three counties below the imperiled dam.

At the time, residents were told the spillway to the dam could collapse within an hour.

Roadblocks on the two main highways leading to Oroville were dismantled without announcement by midday Tuesday.

“Thousands of lives were protected” and the loss of the spillway was averted, Honea said.

He said use of the emergency spillway, while brief, bought time for an inspection. That review confirmed that no erosion or “piping” was threatening the integrity of the main spillway.

Honea said residents and business owners were now allowed to return to their communities, but that they needed to be prepared to evacuate again at a moment’s notice should new problems arise.

The decision comes amid growing frustration among residents, who were forced to flee their homes Sunday night and given little time to prepare.

More than 100,000 people were ordered to evacuate from communities downstream of Lake Oroville Sunday night after the emergency spillway at dam developed a hole, prompting fears it could collapse.

“It was pandemonium,” said Officer Chad Hertzell, a spokesman for California Highway Patrol in North Sacramento. “It was pretty crazy.”

Highways, streets and gas stations were jam-packed with fleeing motorists.

Carrying portable fuel tanks, CHP officers and workers from the California Department of Transportation helped stranded evacuees to fill up their gas tanks.

As residents raced to flee their communities, many left their belongings and pets behind, the officer said.

CHP officers have been checking on properties in Oroville this week and looking for any signs of looting, he said. Oroville was abandoned, except for a few stragglers, Hertzell said.

At a news conference Monday, Honea had defended his decision to call for evacuations on Sunday.

Honea said the sheriff’s office was working on a “repopulation” plan for evacuees.

When residents below Oroville Dam were told to evacuate this past weekend, it wasn’t the first time that area communities felt anxiety about their towering concrete neighbor.

Back in the mid-1970s, residents eyed the dam warily when a series of strong earthquakes rocked Northern California, according to Los Angeles Times reports.

The first temblor, magnitude 5.7, struck on Friday, Aug. 1, 1975. Less than a day later, residents from Oroville to Berkeley were rattled by 5.4, 5.2 and 4.8 temblors.

“Some geologists said the enormous weight of the man-made 15,500-acre lake behind Oroville Dam, with its 3.5 million acre-feet of water, might have shifted rock deep beneath the earth, acting as a trigger for the quake and aftershocks,” The Times reported.

Indeed, a seismologist told a Times reporter, “there is some very well-documented earthquake activity occurring after the building of dams.”

One person even filed a class-action lawsuit against the federal government later that year, claiming that ground slippage beneath the dam was the cause of the quakes.

Today, some scientists speculate that “reservoir loading” may have been a factor, according to U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist Art McGarr.

The 1975 quakes forced authorities to take a second look at the design of a dam planned north of Sacramento on the American River. The Auburn Dam was ultimately scrapped after a seismic study of the area launched in 1977 discovered a previously unknown fault.

As for Lake Oroville’s current problems, earthquakes were not responsible, McGarr said.

In advance of new rains, workers frantically tried Tuesday to repair the crippled emergency spillway at Oroville Dam.

Helicopters are dropping sacks of rocks into a hole created by erosion. Dump trucks are also bringing in more rocks to patch other spots and create slurry.

Here are some videos of the effort:

The Federal Aviation Administration has issued a temporary ban on flights around the Oroville Dam to allow emergency aircraft to operate safely.

“We implemented temporary flight restrictions that prohibit aircraft operations from the ground up to 4,500 feet altitude within a trapezoidal area around the dam,” said Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the FAA in Los Angeles.

The flight restriction includes recreational drones, according to the California Department of Water Resources. The restriction is scheduled to end May 17.

The ban comes as crews continue to conduct aerial surveys of the erosion on the emergency spillway.

Amid growing frustration among residents forced to evacuate from their homes, Butte County Sheriff’s officials said Tuesday “we are actively working on a plan to get in their homes” but did not offer a timetable.

More than 100,000 people were ordered to flee to higher ground Sunday afternoon after the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam developed a hole, prompting fears it could collapse.

Sheriff’s officials posted a message on Facebook on Wednesday thanking evacuees for their patience. The message also urged residents to stay vigilant during the crisis.

At a Monday afternoon news conference, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said authorities were working on a “repopulation” plan for evacuees, but there was no timeline for lifting the evacuation orders. He defended his decision to call for evacuations over the weekend.

“I recognize and absolutely appreciate the frustration people who were evacuated must feel,” Honea said. “It wasn’t a decision I made lightly.”

At the Chico evacuation center at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds, volunteers worked doggedly to lighten the mood. There were arts and crafts tables, a rolling book cart, Valentine cookies.

“All these people are displaced, and it’s really sad when you just go around and look and see … the elderly people and the people that need medication and medical attention,” said Vince Haynie, a volunteer with the Rhema Word of Faith ministry who was delivering blankets and baby supplies. “They displaced people at the drop of a dime.”

Isaac Loseth, 18, said the atmosphere Sunday night at the fairgrounds was “hectic” and “uptight.” He slept in his grandparents’ RV in the parking lot and worried about his home. Loseth lives near the Thermalito Afterbay, a reservoir about 13 miles southwest of Oroville Dam. If the levees around Thermalito were to breach, he said, “our house would be flooded.”

The California National Guard has sent 25 soldiers and 13 high-water vehicles to help authorities in Oroville.

They will be assisting the Butte County Sheriff’s Office and California Office of Emergency Services with the Oroville Dam situation.

The soldiers and vehicles were deployed from the 235th Engineer Company in Petaluma and the Santa Rosa-based 579th Engineer Battalion.

According to the U.S. Department of Defense, the vehicles allow first-responders to navigate through flood waters, bring supplies to residents and rescue those who are trapped.

Soldiers from the 2632nd Transportation Company on Monday dropped off blankets, cots and other essential items to shelters throughout the affected area.

The deployment comes after Adjutant General David Baldwin announced on Sunday that all 23,000 soldiers and airmen were put on alert.

The last time officials sent out such a notification was during the 1992 riots in Los Angeles.

At a news briefing Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said President Trump has been “keeping a close eye” on the Oroville Dam emergency and is working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to assist state officials.

“The situation is a textbook example of why we need to pursue a major infrastructure package in Congress,” Spicer said. “Dams, bridges, roads and all ports around the country have fallen into disrepair. In order to prevent the next disaster, we will pursue the president’s vision for overhaul of our nation’s crumbling infrastructure.”

The White House is working closely with Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale), whose district includes Oroville and surrounding communities, to help communities affected by the emergency, he said.

“We hope everyone remains safe as the evacuations continue,” Spicer said.

As work continue to prevent disastrous flooding at Oroville Dam, one big question keeps occurring: How did we get here?

The operators at North America’s tallest dam found themselves in a precarious position, with both spillways used to release water compromised and the reservoir still filled almost to capacity after a winter of record rain and snow. It’s a drama that began a week ago and got worse day by day.

Here’s how it happened:

Hole in the main spillway

The first situation officials faced was damage in the main concrete spillway last Tuesday. Officials stopped water draining out of the lake to inspect the damage. They then studied the problem to see if they could fix it.

But “we determined we could not fix the hole,” Bill Croyle, the acting director of the state Department of Water Resources, said at a news conference Sunday. It was 250 feet long, 170 feet wide and 40 to 50 feet deep. There wasn’t enough time to halt the flow down the spillway chute dry and then repair the damage. Officials thought they had no choice other than to use the main spillway, even in its crippled state, though it would be further damaged.

A delicate balancing act

The result is a balancing act — drain as much water as possible as quickly as possible while trying to minimize further damage to the spillway. The main spillway was returned to action, but at reduced capacity compared to what it could normally do under the current conditions. After all, the spillway needs to last for the remainder of the rainy season.

More rain than expected

Officials had held out hope that they wouldn’t need to use the dam’s emergency spillway, but then it rained Friday night.

“It came in a little wetter. The storm system parked over this region of California was parked a little longer,” Croyle said.

Crisis at emergency spillway

So on Saturday, water started flowing down the emergency spillway for the first time since the dam was completed in 1968. Initially, it seemed the operation was going fine. But on Sunday afternoon, officials detected a hole — earth was eroding away in a path that could dig a canyon or tunnel underneath a concrete retaining wall holding in a 30-foot wall of water in Lake Oroville. If the hole grew, there could suddenly be a path for that water to escape the reservoir uncontrolled, causing the failure of the concrete wall and resulting in a massive flood. More than 100,000 people were evacuated downstream.

Frantic to lower the reservoir level and stop water flowing down the emergency spillway, officials approximately doubled the amount of water flowing out of the main spillway.

Luck when they needed it most

By that point, luckily, the deterioration of the main spillway had largely stabilized, although there is still cause for concern.

‘Never-happened-before event’

Croyle was asked this question at Sunday night’s news conference: Why didn’t officials increase the flow down the damaged main spillway earlier?

Croyle’s answer, essentially, was that officials were reacting to the best information they had at the time.

On Monday, he described the situation at Oroville as unprecedented.

“I’m not sure anything went wrong,” he said. “This was a new, never-happened-before event.”

More than a decade ago, several environmental groups argued that substantial erosion would occur on the hillside during a significant emergency spill. They asked a federal commission to order the state “to armor or otherwise reconstruct the ungated spillway.”

Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday welcomed calls for more scrutiny about Oroville’s spillway system.

More than 2,000 evacuees from the Oroville Dam emergency sought assistance at a community shelters and the Red Cross, according to organizers.

The evacuees got meals and had a place to shower at the Silver Dollar fairgrounds in Chico, according to the American Red Cross of Northeastern California. They received toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo and other essential items.

More than 100,000 people were evacuated from communities downstream of Lake Oroville on Sunday night after concerns arose that an emergency spillway could fail.

At a Monday afternoon news conference, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said authorities were working on a “repopulation” plan for evacuees, but there was no timeline for lifting the evacuation orders.

Meanwhile, the North Valley Animal Disaster Group was swamped with calls from evacuees needing a place to house their pets and farm animals. On Monday, the group of volunteers accepted at least 275 animals and placed them at the Silver Dollar fairgrounds in Chico.

If you need shelter for animals, call the North Valley Animal Disaster Group’s hotline at (530) 895-0000.

Here’s a list of shelters from the California Office of Emergency Services.

Oroville

Church of the Nazarene, 2238 Monte Vista Ave.

For bus transportation out of evacuation zone call (530) 342-0221 or (800) 822-8145

Chico

Silver Dollar fairgrounds, 2357 Fair St. They are accepting small and large animals.

Elks Lodge, 1705 Manzanita Ave. They are allowing RVs in parking lot.

Neighborhood Church of Chico, 2801 Notre Dame Blvd. No animals are accepted inside the church.

East Avenue Church, 1184 East Ave. No animals are accepted.

St. Johns Episcopal Church, 2341 Floral Ave. Small animals are accepted if they are leashed and crated.

Azads Martial Arts, 313 Walnut St. No animals are accepted.

Grace Community Church, 2346 Floral Ave. The church allows RVs in parking lot. Small animals are accepted if they are leashed and crated.

Glenn County

Glenn County Fairgrounds, 221 E. Yolo St. Orland. The fairground is accepting livestock, but no small animals. It has sites for 40 RVs.

Nevada County

Nevada County Fairgrounds, 11228 McCourtney Road, Grass Valley. The fairgrounds are accepting small and large animals. It has also more than 80 RV sites.

Yuba County

Beale Air Force Base. They are accepting dogs.

A flight crew from the California Highway Patrol captured the bustling scene Monday at Oroville Dam as crews race to repair the eroded spillway.

A CHP flight crew also flew over the dam at night. Using night goggles and a spotlight, the flight crew filmed the mist and rushing water at the dam.

State water officials continued to lower the level of Lake Oroville on Tuesday in anticipation of a series of storms that were forecast to begin arriving with new rain late Wednesday.

By 7 a.m. Tuesday, Department of Water Resources crews had lowered the reservoir level by at least 11 feet from the point at which it threatened potential disaster this weekend.

The water level at Oroville peaked on Saturday at about 902 feet, which sent water cascading over a concrete weir and into an unlined emergency spillway that had never been used.

On Sunday however, the earthen emergency spillway began to show signs of heavy erosion. Fearing that the damage could undermine the concrete weir that formed the lake’s shore and cause it to fail, and send a wall of water coursing into the Feather River below, officials ordered sweeping evacuations for more than 100,000 people.

READ MORE >

Here are a series of closures affecting highways and roads near the Oroville Dam.

At least one road is flooded and impassable, according to the California Department of Transportation.

California and local officials are rushing to repair the spillways at Lake Oroville and lower the water level by as much as 50 feet ahead of rain forecast for later this week. Damage to the spillway was first noticed Feb. 7. That set off a series of actions by officials concerned that damage to an emergency spillway could cause large amounts of water to be dumped into the Feather River, which runs through downtown Oroville.

Here’s a breakdown of what happened -- and how

With new storms approach, work will continue Tuesday at Oroville Dam to shore up a damaged emergency spillway that prompted the evacuation of more than 100,000 residents.

What are workers doing?

Drops: Helicopters are dropping sacks of rocks into a hole created by erosion. Dump trucks are also bringing in more rocks to patch other spots and create slurry.

Road: They’re also building a gravel road out to where the helicopters are dropping the rocks. Then the trucks can drive out and create a slurry to deposit.

“You’re putting rocks in a hole. Then you’re putting slurry in to solidify it,” said Chris Orrock, spokesman for the Department of Water Resources. “When water comes down, it will hit that patch and roll off.”

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Teresa Seim of Oroville evacuated to the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds in Chico. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) Live updates >>

Scrutiny continued to grow over the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam after it eroded Sunday, forcing the evacuations of more than 100,000 people.

The damage occurred even though the spillway was designed to handle much more water than the amount that overflowed. Some questioned why officials didn’t heed suggestions more than a decade ago to fortify the emergency spillway.

Earth and weak rock near the top of the spillway started to erode when peak flows were 12,600 cubic feet per second, compared with the designed capacity of 450,000 cubic feet per second, according to the Department of Water Resources. The erosion happened so quickly that officials feared the concrete wall would be undermined, and ordered sweeping evacuations in Butte, Yuba and Sutter counties that remained in effect Monday night.

With more storms expected to slam Northern California later this week, officials worked frantically Monday to drain water from brimming Lake Oroville in hopes of heading off a potentially catastrophic flood.

Bill Croyle, the acting director of the Department of Water Resources, said Monday that he was “not sure anything went wrong. This was a new, never-happened-before event.”

But during 2005 relicensing proceedings for Oroville Dam, several environmental groups argued that substantial erosion would occur on the hillside in the event of a significant emergency spill. In a filing, they asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to order the state to “to armor or otherwise reconstruct the ungated spillway.”

State Water Project contractors, including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, were involved in the relicensing. MWD General Manager Jeffrey Kightlinger said Monday his agency deferred to the state and federal agencies on the matter.

“They did look at that issue and they determined that [the existing emergency spillway] did meet the appropriate FERC guidelines,” Kightlinger said. “In the FERC guidelines, they talk about how you don’t put a lot of funding and concrete, etc. into emergency spillways because presumably they will rarely if ever be used.”

“We did not say it was a cost issue,” he added.

Brown, after meeting with advisors at the state’s emergency operations center near Sacramento, was asked by reporters about the concerns raised in 2005 about Oroville’s spillway system.

He said he welcomed calls for more scrutiny. “We’re in a very complex society where things can go wrong,” he said. “When they do, they ripple out and affect hundreds of thousands and in some cases millions of people.”

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Teresa Seim of Oroville evacuated to the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds in Chico. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) Live updates >>

Teresa Seim of Oroville on being evacuated to the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds in Chico. (Video by Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

A dump truck crosses the primary spillway on way to deliver boulders to the damaged emergency spillway at Lake Oroville Monday evening

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Officials have begun a complex operation aimed at trying to repair the damaged emergency spillway at Oroville Dam in advance of new storms coming to the area.

Chris Orrock, spokesman for the Department of Water Resources, said workers were beginning a multi-part operation to repair the emergency spillway.

In one part, helicopters are dropping sacks of rocks into a hole created by erosion. Dump trucks are also bringing in more rocks to patch other spots and create slurry to solidify it.

They’re also building a gravel road out to where the helicopters are dropping the rocks. Then the trucks can drive out and create a slurry to deposit in the hole and solidify it.

“You’re putting rocks in a hole. Then you’re putting slurry in to solidify it,” he said. “When water comes down, it will hit that patch and roll off.”

The work began this afternoon but some of it has slowed with nightfall.

John France, an engineering consultant at AECom who has worked on dams for more than 30 years, said dropping large boulders in the hole in the primary spillway is a smart temporary fix.

“The large rocks will break up the flow of water a bit so it won’t have so much energy,” he said. “If the water has less energy, the underlying structure won’t erode as quickly.”

Dusty Myers, chief of the Dam Safety Division of the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, agreed.

“The higher the velocity of the water, the more erosion it will cause,” he said. “The rocks to me sound like a precautionary measure to keep any more damage from occurring.”

The emergency spillway was brought into service for the first time ever this weekend after the main spillway suffered damage. But on Sunday, officials noticed a hole in the emergency spillway. Fearing further damage to the spillway, officials ordered more than 100,000 people to evacuate downstream and began pumping water out of the reservoir through the damaged main spillway. That brought water levels low enough that water stopped flowing from the emergency spillway.

Another rainstorm is expected Wednesday night, lasting through the weekend.

Megerian reported from Oroville, Netburn from Los Angeles.

When Logan Sandate thought about the many Oroville evacuees who had to leave their livestock behind, he decided to take action.

The 19-year-old took to social media and offered to transport people’s large animals to safety, free of charge. His posts went viral on Twitter and Facebook, and many people called him asking for help.

Sandate, who works in the cattle industry, said he understands the importance of helping those who depend on the animals to make a living.

“It made me think, what if that was my house and animal? I figured I have the truck and trailer and if people need help I’ll be willing,” he said.

The Orland, Calif., resident, lives about one hour away from Oroville and said that even though he’s received many phone calls from people who need help, he hasn’t been able to reach them because those areas are on lockdown and he isn’t allowed to drive in.

Other people in neighboring areas have opened up their facilities to care for livestock. Mike Ballau and his wife, Connie, Ballau oversee Camelot Equestrian Park in Oroville and are currently caring for about 30 horses and one baby pig belonging to people who had to evacuate.

They expect to care for up to 90 animals.

Doug Ose, manager at Gibson Ranch has offered to care for the horses of people who were told to evacuate. His facility is 320 acres and he said he is able to accommodate about 20 horses.
Ose said he is also receiving calls from people who are offering to help transport the horses to his ranch. “Whether it’s horses, sheep or cattle, people are scrambling to get livestock out of the way and we are trying to help,” Ose said.

California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra warned businesses against price gouging in the wake of the massive Oroville dam evacuations.

“California’s price gouging law protects people impacted by an emergency from illegal price gouging on gas, food, housing, and other essential supplies,” Becerra said in a statement. “I urge hotels, gas stations, and other businesses operating in and around the evacuation area to understand and comply with the law, and I encourage anyone who has information regarding illegal price gouging to report it to our office.”

Times reporter Chris Megerian was was able to drive across the dam to where the spillway is. Here are his impressions:

The lake behind me is placid, but geysers of water are shooting down the concrete spillway. It rushes down like a water slide the width of a freeway, and then plummets down below. I can see the mist rising from where it hits the river, and I can see the river in the distance.

There’s a lot of activity here as repairs begin to the emergency spillway. Helicopters are flying overhead carrying sacks of rocks, and they’re dropping those off on the far side of the emergency spillway, where there was some erosion. Then there are giant dump trucks carrying more rocks across the dam and a road that passes over the concrete spillway, and they’re dumping those rocks in another spot.

A utility worker looks toward water being released down an amergency spillway at the Oroville Dam.

(( Josh Edelson / AFP/Getty Images)

Erosion near an Oroville reservoir emergency spillway was first predicted in court documents filed by environmentalists more than a decade ago.

In a technical memo on Lake Oroville’s discharge, the Yuba County Water Agency wrote in 2002 that if the Department of Water Resources used the emergency spillway, “extensive erosion would take place” and that “the spillway road and possibly high voltage transmission towers would be impacted,” according to a motion to intervene on the licensing filed by environmentalist groups in 2005.

“Because the area downstream from the emergency spillway crest is an unlined hillside, significant erosion of the hillside would occur,” the document said.

According to the California Department of Water Resources, that’s exactly what happened. After the dam’s main spillway was damaged, engineers decreased its output to save nearby power lines and prevent further damage to the spillway’s lower half.

But that allowed the lake to fill beyond capacity, which forced water to flow over the emergency spillway on Saturday. The results were as predicted more than a decade ago — PG&E equipment was jeopardized and the hillside dramatically eroded, forcing more than 100,000 residents down river to evacuate as a precaution in case the spillway completely failed.

In the Department of Water Resources’ response issued with the final environmental impact report in 2008, the agency found that the dam, its structures and the emergency spillway weir were in “good condition.”

Department of Water Resources officials said on Monday that they could not comment on the 2005 document.

Officials say they’re still releasing 100,000 cubic feet per second from the paved spillway. No water is going over the emergency spillway at this point.

“It’s hard to look at a crystal ball and predict how it’s going to evolve,” said Kevin Lawson of Cal Fire.

The flow into the lake is roughly 37,000 cubic feet per second, so they’re shedding a net 60,000 or so cubic feet per second.

They’re hoping to drop 8 feet per day.

It’s unclear if they’ll hit the target of lowering the lake by 50 feet before the next rain hits. But they’re expecting a smaller level of precipitation at a cooler temperature, so it may not run into the lake as quickly, giving them more time.

“We’re going to deal with that as it comes in,” said acting state Department of Water Resources Director Bill Croyle.

There were questions about problems with the emergency spillway, which began eroding instead of serving its function.

“I’m not sure anything went wrong,” Croyle said. “This was a new, never-happened-before event.”

When the press conference ended, Croyle left for an updated briefing on spillway conditions. They have not started dropping rocks from helicopters at this point, but they’ve been staging supplies.

Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea shot down rumors the evacuation could end Monday afternoon. They’re working on a “repopulation” plan but there’s no timeline.

“Getting those people home is important to me. But I have to be able to sleep at night knowing they’re back in that area.”

His department had to move 500 inmates from Butte to Alameda County jail during the evacuation. They’re being held there for the time being.

Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea on Monday defended his decision a day earlier calling for evacuations of more than 100,000 residents downstream from the Oroville Dam after concerns that a spillway could fail and unleash a 30-foot-tall wall of water on the region.

“I recognize and absolutely appreciate the frustration people who were evacuated must feel,” Honea said at a press conference. “It wasn’t a decision I made lightly.”

The calls for cities and towns below Lake Oroville to evacuate were unexpected and triggered panic Sunday evening. Some people abandoned their cars on the highway and left with the clothes on their back after the Department of Water Resources announced that an emergency spillway would fail within the hour.

Engineers scrambled to release enough water from the reservoir to relieve pressure from the emergency spillway Sunday and apparently it worked. The lake’s water level had dropped several feet by Monday and crews were gathering giant boulders that helicopters would airlift to the emergency spillway and plop onto the area that was eroding, DWR said.

Honea shot down rumors the evacuation could end Monday afternoon. They’re working on a “repopulation” plan but there’s no timeline.

“Getting those people home is important to me. But I have to be able to sleep at night knowing they’re back in that area,” he said.

His department had to move 500 inmates from Butte to the Alameda County jail during the evacuation. They’re being held there for the time being.

How seriously were authorities taking the Oroville threat yesterday? Officials evacuated their command post down the road from the spillway.

They seem to be feeling more comfortable today. The post they evacuated was used for the media briefing earlier (recap below).

“We had to move just like all of our neighbors,” a Cal Fire spokesman said. They regrouped on higher ground.

Read More

The Department of Water Resources acting director told reporters Monday that he was “not familiar with 2005 documentation or conversation” surrounding potential spillway problems at Lake Oroville.

Speaking at a 12:30 p.m. press conference, acting DWR director Bill Croyle was asked to comment on calls more than 10 years ago to establish a concrete channel for the dam’s emergency spillway.

Although the dam facility’s main spillway is paved with concrete, the emergency spillway is not. Erosion that occurred along the emergency spillway over the weekend prompted the evacuation of more than 100,000 people late Sunday.

As California officials are frantically working to reduce water levels at the Oroville Dam, the Federal Emergency Management Agency says its preparing for the “worst case scenario.”

The agency has sent an eight-person incident management team to assist the state’s Office of Emergency Services to help prepare for the potentially devastating flooding that could affect communities below the dam, said Dr. Ahsha Tribble, acting regional administrator for FEMA’s Region 9. The regional office covers California, Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada and the Pacific Islands.

FEMA representatives were dispatched to the Flood Operations Center in Sacramento, she said. The regional office has also called on other federal agencies to assist state officials if needed, Tribble said.

“We are trying to plan for the worst case scenario,” she said. “It’s not a wait-and-see game.”

So far, the agency is working to provide cots, blankets and water to more than 100,000 residents who were evacuated Sunday night, Tribble said.

“There wasn’t a whole lot of notice for folks to take notice,” she said.

According to Tribble, the agency has been working with state officials as well as the National Weather Service to prepare for any disasters from the recent rains.

“Over the last month, we went from drought to precipitation,” she said.

Tribble said the situation is still very active.

“The federal government is providing assistance and we are taking our cues from the state,” she said.

The map below shows areas at risk during a major flood event, such as a massive rainstorm, not a projection of what would happen if the Oroville Dam’s emergency spillway failed. The information is based on FEMA’s 100-year floodplain assessment.

For the Record, 5 p.m.: An earlier version of the headline on this post incorrectly said the map showed areas at risk of flooding from the Oroville Dam’s emergency spillway.

The aerial photo above of the emergency spillway at Lake Oroville shows signs of major damage. The water level dropped Monday, reducing the risk of a catastrophic spillway collapse.

SEE MORE PHOTOS >>

As Doris O’Kelley and her husband rushed out of their residence in Oroville on Sunday night, she had one thing on her mind: When would she be able to come home?

O’Kelley, 84, and her husband, William, 86, spent an uneasy and sleepless night on a cot in the evacuation shelter at the Silver Dollar Fairground in Chico. She was itching to get home and was unimpressed with how officials were communicating with residents about the situation.

“I’d like to see them be a little more plain about what’s going on,” she said. She would have preferred a more straightforward message, she said, than the technical jargon she’d been hearing from authorities.

O’Kelley wasn’t worried about the prospect of an incoming storm triggering another emergency. If another evacuation order comes, she said, “I’m going to stay home.”

Her husband laughed and shook his head.

Evacuation orders caused such a panicked flight for people that some drivers abandoned their cars on the highways along the escape routes, including highways 99 and 70.

“We’ve towed about half a dozen cars this morning,” said a California Highway Patrol dispatcher in Chico.

On Highway 20 near Yuba City, a large RV sat abandoned and stuck in the mud off the side of the road.

Melanie Mason reports from the Oroville Dam evacuation center at the Silver Dollar fairground in Chico.

Union Pacific has stopped train service through cities affected by the Oroville Dam emergency.

The railroad said it is unable to run trains and provide service between Roseville, Chico and Oroville due to the risk of flooding. Trains approaching Roseville are being rerouted.

“We are watching the situation closely to determine if trains will need to be rerouted around the closures,” the railroad said.

Customers in the affected area could experience shipment delays for 48 hours or more. The Oroville Dam emergency could also affect train traffic between Oregon, Washington state and Southern California, the railroad said.

Trains were out of service between Oroville and Winnemucca, Nev., after sections of the tracks were washed out due to recent rains and flooding.

“At Union Pacific, safety is our top priority,” the railroad said. “While we will always do everything we can to recover operations, the safety of our employees and the communities we serve will always be our primary concern.”

The chart below shows how the water level at the Oroville reservoir has been reduced over the last 24 hours.

According to a spokesman for the Department of Water Resources, water is pouring down the facility’s damaged main spillway at a rate of about 100,000 cubic feet per second.

By 10 a.m., the lake’s water level was 4 feet lower than the emergency spillway, which suffered damage during its first ever water release over the weekend.

Here are some new photos from this morning of the situation at the Oroville Dam.

Water levels at the reservoir have receded, and the damaged emergency spillway is no longer receiving water.

But the damaged main spillway is still going strong, as the photos below show.

The photos also show the erosion along the emergency spillway.

The water level of Lake Oroville is dropping at a rate of roughly 3 to 4 inches per hour, according to officials.

According to a spokesman for the Department of Water Resources, water is pouring down the facility’s damaged main spillway at a rate of about 100,000 cubic feet per second.

By 10 a.m., the lake’s water level was 4 feet lower than the emergency spillway, which suffered damage during its first ever water release over the weekend.

Workers with the Department of Water Resources are scrambling to reduce the lake’s overall water level to 50 feet below the emergency spillway elevation of 901 feet. That mission has taken on added urgency as heavy rains are expected later in the week.

David Town, 48, had been on a “midlife adventure” for the last two months, hitchhiking from his home in Ventura and making his way up north.

But that adventure took an unexpected twist Sunday night, when the bus he was riding en route to Oroville — where he had planned to visit a friend — abruptly turned around and left him at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds in Chico with other flood evacuees.

But, looking at the bright side, he said it was all very calm and organized. And people “were being fed right off the bat.”

After spending Sunday night on a cot and filling up on a breakfast of pancakes, sausage and eggs, Town said his first order of business was to track down his friend.

“I’m so glad to be here at the right moment and be able to lend a hand if she needs it,” Town said. After that, he’ll continue on with his adventure. Next stop: Reno.

Isaac Loseth wasn’t so thrilled.

The 18-year-old lives near the Thermalito Afterbay, a reservoir southwest of Oroville Dam that serves as a warming basin for water that’s used for agricultural purposes. If the levees around the afterbay breach, “our house would be flooded,” Loseth said.

For Loseth, the atmosphere at the Chico fairground Sunday night was “hectic” and “uptight.” But after spending the night in the fairground parking lot in his grandparents’ RV, he detected a calmer mood Monday morning as he walked his dog through the fairgrounds.

“I think they made the right call as a safety precaution,” he said. “Better safe than sorry.”

Loseth said he hoped to return home today but knew that additional storms are forecast for later this week. If he has to evacuate again, he said, “it’s all right.”

Pablo Machado, 71, of Oroville, also spent Sunday night at the fairgrounds, with his wife and sister-in-law, and was checking in early Monday with a daughter in Sacramento to get the latest updates on the situation.

He was heartened, he said, to hear that things seemed to be improving at the dam.

Although he was eager to get home, he said, he agreed with the decision to evacuate.

“These are natural occurrences,” he said in Spanish, shrugging. “What can you do about it?”

Brittany Bartel and her daughter were caught by surprise when authorities began evacuating the low-lying town of Marysville, about an hour’s drive south of Oroville, Sunday.

Bartel and her daughter left their home with what they could throw into the car in 30 minutes, including their 10-week-old puppy and a cat. They slept in a car in a commuter parking lot near Grass Valley, camped out with a small group of Marysville evacuees.

“We were pretty cold,” Bartel said.

Bartel and her daughter were among the more than 100,000 people who were told to evacuate because of a “hazardous situation” involving the Oroville Dam’s emergency spillway after the nation’s tallest dam reached capacity over the weekend.

“This is not a drill. Repeat this is not a drill,” the National Weather Service said Sunday, urging people living below Oroville Dam to evacuate.

The parking lot near Grass Valley became a campsite, of sorts, for Marysville evacuees who pitched tents and slept in their cars.

Erin Smith, 31, and her husband, daughter and dog spent the night near Bartel’s car. She had spent days watching accounts of the deteriorating spillway and the troubling reports of how much water was entering the lake and how much could be safely discharged.

Smith had begun to pack before the mandatory evacuations, and her daughter brought along her own backcountry emergency kit.

Smith said she would be wary of any declaration that it was safe to return home.

“I don’t think I would go down to stay,” she said. “I would go down to prep more.”

She said she would make her decision on when it was safe to sleep in her home again only after assessing the situation herself.

“It’s questionable. I want to see what the spillway looks like. I don’t like taking people’s word,” Smith said as her family huddled around a small camp stove.

Beale Air Force Base has opened its gates to residents evacuated from communities below the Oroville Dam.

The base, east of Marysville, has taken in 375 residents as of Monday morning, according to base officials. Residents received food, water and shelter.

“We are planning to receive many more and we offer support to our communities in need,” the base wrote on Facebook. “Team Beale understands the hardships many are enduring during this crisis, and we want to offer all of the aid we can.”

The base is now working with the California Office of Emergency Services to help residents who need long-term and specialized care.

Anyone who needs assistance is urged to call the Beale Air Force Base Emergency Family Action Center at (530) 634-5627.

In some ways, the efforts to make repairs to the damaged emergency spillway at the Oroville Dam are a race against time.

Forecasters say Monday and Tuesday should be dry. But on Wednesday, more rain is possible. And the wet weather is expected to continue into the weekend.

The rain is likely to increase water levels at Lake Oroville. Sunday night, officials were able to send water out of the damaged main spillway, taking pressure off the emergency spillway. Workers plan to make repairs to the emergency spillway beginning Monday.

The main spillway was damaged -- officials say the cost could reach $200 million or more -- after a series of record rain and snow storms swelled the reservoir.

After five years of drought, Northern California has experienced one of the wettest winters on record.

Workers are expected on Monday to begin repairing erosion at the emergency spillway at Lake Oroville that threatened to flood downstream towns and forced more than 100,000 people from their homes Sunday.

Officials said they would use bags of rocks to try to plug the hole at the emergency spillway.

It appeared prep work was beginning Monday morning.

They emphasized the situation remains dangerous at the reservoir and urged residents in communities along the Feather River to evacuate to higher ground.

An approaching storm has added new urgency to the Department of Water Resources’ frantic efforts to reduce water levels at Oroville Dam by 50 feet.

Rain is expected to begin falling late Wednesday and continue through the weekend, according to Tom Dang, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Sacramento.

At least 3 inches of rain is expected to fall on Oroville, while the surrounding mountains and foothills could get up to 8 inches of rain by Monday.

“Obviously any rain this week is not helpful at all,” Dang said.

Lake Oroville is located amid a massive watershed that includes the snow-packed Sierra Nevada. As a result, water continues to drain into the reservoir long after rainfall ends.

It’s due partly to this runoff that water began flowing down the dam’s emergency spillway for the first time ever this weekend.

Though temperatures will be above average for this time of year, there is so much snow piled high in the mountains that there isn’t much concern of the storms melting it all, Dang said. The greater concern is rain runoff because the ground is so saturated, he said.

“If everything goes well — and there’s a lot of ifs — if they continue to release water, it sounds like levels will be down appreciably by the midweek storm,” said Dang. “We do have at least a few days of dry weather here to hopefully get a few things patched up.”

A new storm system forecast for later this week put water officials on a race against time. Bill Croyle, the acting director of the state Department of Water Resources, said they planned to continue discharging flows at a rate of 100,000 cubic feet per second, with the hope of lowering the reservoir level by 50 feet.

The biggest concern was that a hillside that keeps water in Lake Oroville — California’s second largest reservoir — would suddenly crumble Sunday afternoon, threatening the lives of thousands of people by flooding communities downstream.

With Lake Oroville filled to the brim, such a collapse could have caused a “30-foot wall of water coming out of the lake,” Cal-Fire incident commander Kevin Lawson said at a Sunday night press conference.

Officials are warning commuters traveling south from the Chico area to allow extra travel time Monday, as several highways and roadways have been closed.

Specifically, Highway 99 is closed from Durham-Pentz Road to south of Yuba City; Highway 70 is also closed from Highway 149 to south of Yuba City.

Several roadways in Oroville, Thermalito, Biggs and Gridley, south to the Butte County line, are also closed.

The California National Guard is on standby and ready to assist with the Oroville Dam emergency, Adjutant General David Baldwin said during Sunday night’s press conference.

The California National Guard put out an alert to all 23,000 of its soldiers and airmen telling them to be “ready to go if needed,” Baldwin said. The last time officials sent out such a broad notification was during the 1992 riots in Los Angeles, he said.

The California National Guard would deploy eight helicopters to assist with spillway reconstruction; military police would also be deployed to Yuba County, Baldwin said.

California Gov. Jerry Brown late Sunday issued an emergency order aimed at speeding up state aid for the Oroville efforts.

There will be much discussion in the coming weeks about whether more could have been done to prevent the flood panic at the Oroville Dam, which was caused when first the main spillway and then the emergency spillway suffered damage.

More than a decade ago, there was debate about whether the emergency spillway needed to be strengthened to better handle a crisis when the main spillway was damaged.

According to the Oroville Mercury-Register, environmental groups called for the emergency spillway to be lined with concrete, but officials rejected the idea.

Read some state water documents about the debate here.