California's Lake Oroville Main Spillway Severely Damaged/Eroded. Oroville Dam's Recently Reconstructed Main Spillway Fundamentally Flawed

Pretty crazy how the spray disappeared. I wonder if another chunk of the MS broke off??

Last Edited by ~FW~ on 03/20/2017 04:33 PM

Most likely. that thing has been eroding for a while already. The original hole was tiny.

[link to www.youtube.com (secure)]

Thanks for finding and posting this. Am I crazy -- I do not see any part of the bottom half of the MS. There's the break up top and the rest looks to be all rocks from there down.

Just found it a while ago. I did expect the end of the spillway tip to break more but it seems to hold still.

You are right about it looking like the concrete has been chugged of.

I watched it again and I think the bottom half of the MS is totally gone.

I'm thinking we get inflows north of 50,000cfs and rising elevations by this time tomorrow.

2PM;

Elevation: 851.72
Outflows: 46,581
Inflows: 29,442
River Rel.: 47,604

Erosion front is steady gnawing it's way to the top of the MS. When they shutdown the MS again for "repairs", it will be a gruesome prospect.

The snow melt just keeps on coming...

Absolutely nothing.

No, the spray isn't disappeared, it's just not enough flow to make it big enough to see from the lake cam.

Look at the video linked above.

No it's not, you just can't see it with that spray round.

I did, you can still see the bottom of the MS. His angle is poor for viewing the bottom of the spillway. But if you look close enough, you can make it out through the tress.

Looking at it again and its there. You can see the side of it and a little portion. But still seems to have been some erosion.

[link to public.tableau.com (secure)]

I see the left hand wall of the spillway and all rock to the right of it.

I'm talking about the bottom half of the MS, below where the chasm is.

Has anybody else noticed that the dam cam does not show each view for the same amount of time...
Spray = ~25sec
Overview = ~33sec
Aux Spillway = ~42sec

With the Spray view being the most interesting at this time, why is the allotted time the shortest?

well, with the larger and larger inflows, a MS outflow of 46,000 CFS
isn't going to be near enough to keep the Lake from
filling-up to 901+ feet, and staying that way for a longggg time.

This is NEW video from today, Monday, from in front of the MS.

Heavy rains have started.

Rain and live feed on the dam camera. i guess they got all that grass seed down just in time.

4PM:

Level: 851.32
Outflows: 46,115
Inflows: 11,219
River rel.: 47,350

Pardon me while I fail to believe this inflow number.

I dare someone to go and start reading this thread right from the start!
Double dare!
Cool story bro.

Am I correct that they are going to run the MS until the water level hits 835'?

That's the plan.

I'm just wondering, after watching the video that was taken today from the front of the MS, if that left hand MS wall on the bottom will still be standing when they turn the water off.

Luckily the bottom of the spillway doesn't matter any more. It's the upper portion we have to keep an eye on.