No, they don't have those cool sirens like the East Coast does for emergency's. The lady I work with Father helped build the dam & she believes completely that it will hold. The workers haven't really been seen around town at all. I have no idea where they stay. I live in downtown, which you'd think you'd see a lot of new people, but they are coming and going the back way, off of 70 & 162.
For me there are so many things that could go wrong with the spillway, but I am mostly concerned with the mountain. I keep wondering about saturation. I mean how long will it be before the entire mountain is just saturated and begin slides? They aren't in a position to "fix" anything, they are operating strictly on "risk mitigation". Normally the mountain "saturation" would have never happened, except now the 48 cfms are simply hitting the mountain, not the spillway. They have no choice but to open and close all spring run off. No matter what it's going to be a rough 6 months, but I think any earth movement, will end the debate. We had for the first time that I can remember that 2.0 EQ in Chico a week or so ago, and then in Durham. So earth movement or a sudden burst of one of the upper dams are my main concerns, as well as saturation of upper mountain pulling on spillway. I probably have this saturation thing blown out of proportion, but I can't help but think of a napkin spread out on a cone with the bottom of it in water and feeling eventually it will work its way up and soak the entire thing, after all there is a lot of "dirt" in between those huge bedrock holding the dam up. I'm ready as I ever will be to "go". Their evacuation plan for us seems pretty stupid to me also. Half of us are suppose to go North towards Chico, and half towards Gridley/Yuba City South.
There is no way I would go South, that's "lower" than here. And btw, that cement driver ( that poor man that lost his life ), what people may not know about Hwy 70 is that there are stretches from Marysville to Oroville on 70 that have run-off ditches. These run-off ditches are REALLY close to the highway, its a 2 lane highway there and the run off ditches run along side the highway and are at least 3-4 feet deep. My good friend was turning into her driveway off of 70, missed her driveway hit the ditch and wound up upside down in her car. The ditches are 3-4 deep and about 3 ft wide. They always scare me driving, cause one false move, like stopping to swerve for an animal, could land you in one of those ditches. It's a stupid design, and I'm guessing something to that effect happened to that poor driver. So again, going South on 70, during an evacuation, for me, FORGET IT.