After chaotic exodus, threat from troubled Northern Calif. dam eases

OROVILLE, Calif. - The water level dropped Monday behind the nation’s tallest dam, reducing the risk of a catastrophic spillway collapse and easing fears that prompted the evacuation of nearly 200,000 people downstream.

As the day began, officials from the California Department of Water Resources prepared to inspect an erosion scar on the spillway at the dam on Lake Oroville, about 150 miles northeast of San Francisco.

Authorities ordered evacuations Sunday for everyone living below the lake out of concern that the spillway could fail and send a 30-foot wall of water roaring downstream.

CBS station KPIX reported on the mass exodus from Oroville, a small city near the dam.

“I just got a text message and then an alert saying get out as fast as you can and there’s fire trucks going up and down our street saying evacuate,” said Julie Swift.

“I was surprised by all the traffic and my neighborhood was already basically empty,” Nancy Borsdorf told KPIX. “I panicked and started putting things in my car. Basically, my violin, a Didgeridoo (a wind instrument), some family photos, and I grabbed some wet laundry. Can you believe that?” 

“We grabbed our dog and headed to higher ground - away from the river,” said Kimberly Cumings, who moved with her husband, Patrick, and 3-year-old daughter to Oroville from Fresno a month ago for a new job. They were eating at a restaurant when the evacuation order came.

A driver with a large vehicle and three children of her own gave them a ride to the Red Cross evacuation center at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds in Chico.

“You can’t take a chance with the baby,” Patrick Cumings said of their decision to flee.

The water level in Lake Oroville rose significantly in recent weeks after a series of storms that dumped rain and snow across California, particularly in northern parts of the state. The high water forced the use of the dam’s emergency spillway, or overflow, for the first time in the dam’s nearly 50-year history on Saturday.

The threat appeared to ease somewhat Monday as the water level dropped. Officials said water was flowing out of the lake at nearly twice the rate as water flowing into it.

KPIX reports a fleet of state and National Guard helicopters were set to begin dumping tons of rocks on an eroding spillway at the Oroville Dam Monday.

At dawn, officials began inspecting an erosion scar on the potentially hazardous emergency spillway.  

Sunday afternoon’s evacuation order came after engineers spotted a hole on the concrete lip of the secondary spillway for the 770-foot-tall Oroville Dam and told authorities that it could fail within the hour.

With more rain expected Wednesday and Thursday, officials were rushing to try to fix the damage and hoping to reduce the dam’s water level by 50 feet ahead of the storms.

The sudden evacuation panicked residents, who scrambled to get their belongings into cars and then grew angry as they sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic hours after the evacuation order was given.

Raj Gill, managing a Shell station where anxious motorists got gas and snacks, said his boss told him to close the station and flee himself. But he stayed open to feed a steady line of customers.

“You can’t even move,” he said. “I’m trying to get out of here too. I’m worried about the flooding. I’ve seen the pictures — that’s a lot of water.”

A Red Cross spokeswoman said more than 500 people showed up at an evacuation center in Chico, California.

About 188,000 residents of Yuba, Sutter and Butte counties were ordered to evacuate.

Engineers do not know what caused the cave-in. Chris Orrock, a Department of Water Resources spokesman, said it appears the dam’s main spillway has stopped crumbling even though it is being used for water releases.

The lake is a central piece of California’s government-run water delivery network, supplying water for the state’s Central Valley agricultural heartland and residents and businesses in Southern California.