The lake's spillway was operated at full capacity in 1997, when a series of wet storms caused snowmelt at the high elevations of the Feather River watershed.

The inflow to the lake was much higher than the capacity to release it and there were concerns the dam would be overtopped. The spillway was dumping maximum capacity for days during that time - over 100,000 CFS as I recall - and there was no failure. Eventually, the inflow slowed and the the spillway was able to prevent a total disaster.

A major levee did fail many miles downstream, but the results were better than a total failure of the dam. Today's failure of the spillway at a moderately benign 60 to 70K release is concerning.