Oroville Dam Collapse - Who Knew Pineapple Express could be Fatal ?

[St. Phatty]

I listened to a webcast with a water guy at

https://s3.amazonaws.com/cm-us-standard/audio/Scott-Cahill-Oroville-Dam-2017-2-13.mp3


From Peak Prosperity .com,
Chris Martenson = corp exec that dropped out around 2005


Fvckin A !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Listening to that, I got the Chills like in the movie San Andreas.

Except the dam problems exist in reality.

And the fvcker is 770 feet high.

The main causeway and the Emergency causeway have both failed, making the washing out of the dirt at the base of the 3rd causeway a Big Fvcking problem.


If they continue on the present course - dropping bags of river size rocks on the dirt area below the 3rd causeway - I believe they will get HAMMERED - hammered by the next set of rains.

Supposed to get back up to an inch a day on Thursday in the Oroville area, so that rain hits the lake next to the dam around Friday.


It used to be Standard Viewing in all engineering schools to watch the Tacoma/Verazano Narrows bridge collapse, that bridge up in Wash-state that started doing the Hula hoop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-zczJXSxnw


I think if they continue with the fixes they're talking about,

21st century engineering students will have some new Spectacular Structure failure video to watch.


Looking at the bright side - all that rain will expose some new streaks of Gold for miners up in the foothills.

These pineapple express rains are high-grading the entire countryside in Norcal.

High-grading is when they use canals dug into the mountainside, to gravity feed water hoses, making for spectacular pressure which blasts away gravel rocks trees & everything, exposing rocks underneath etc.

 

[igrowone]

there will be gold
though looks like a heavy price for it
going to be interesting on the chain of blame that will be followed

 

[St. Phatty]

there will be gold
though looks like a heavy price for it
going to be interesting on the chain of blame that will be followed

I think the blame will be pretty clear.

There was a lawsuit by Water Resources geeks back in 2005/6.

What they described as their worst fear,
what they were trying to fix,
is the 3rd causeway.


The dirt area that the Ca National Guard or whoever
is now dropping bags of river size rocks on -

The Water Geeks wanted to cover it with concrete,
to prepare for extreme rain events.


State of Ca decided they had it covered.

Looked it up, 2005/6 was right in the middle of the Schwarzenegger years. Got re-elected in 2006.

What a fvcking legacy.

See, you're RIGHT !!! I'm blaming Arnold.


http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/...tate-officials-ignored-warnings-12-years-ago/

"The revelations in a May 26, 2006, filing from the state Department of Water Resources to federal officials underscored how state officials rejected calls 11 years ago from three environmental groups to require that concrete be used to armor the emergency spillway at the nation’s tallest dam."


http://www.desertsun.com/story/news...ed-global-warming-2008-lawsuit-says/97903842/

Looks like Plumas and Butte counties do have something to say.


For about 3/4 second I was thinking ...

if I wore a helmet and had some flotation, flippers and my boogie board, I could RIDE that thing ...

definitely stoned thinking.

 

[igrowone]

yeah, a proverbial clusterfuck
though i see some more upbeat news on the wires at the moment
evacuation rescinded? hard to believe, seems more like disaster by next week after the next rains

 

[vta]

Arnold deserves part of the blame, other than decriminalizing cannabis...he didn't do so well. However, it does seem to be a trend here...our current Governor has not shown the leadership needed to make sure our infrastructure is taken care of. He want's to spend 10 billion dollars on a high speed train while our water system is crumbling, highways and bridges need more repair at a faster rate at which is currently going on. But then again this is California. They raised my water rates because they didn't do shit to the infrastructure over the past couple decades...they could of expanded reservoirs, as our population has exploded. Which brings us to the $25 billion a year we spend on illegal aliens here in CA. The amount of waste coming out of Sacramento is mind boggling.

 

[gekolite]

let me see , I think it is a good idea to dump 1,000,000 gallons a second on a dirt hill, it will be ok , right vern ?

 

[MelloYello]

http://hillarydaily.com/brandon/201...-15-billion-to-dig-two-controversial-tunnels/

and

http://hypelee.com/2017/02/emergency-spillway-used-at-oroville-dam-for-first-time/

 

[Dr. Purpur]

The level has dropped. They will put a patch on it over the next several days and there will be no collapse. It is a mess right now, but they will make the repairs to the spillway. Everyone is watching. It will be ok

 

[St. Phatty]

It's sort of wierd because when I got up this morning, I knew nothing about the Oroville dam.

What happened is, the excess water that damaged the main and secondary spillway, was also chewing into the "backup backup" spillway on the North side of the dam.

It was uncontrolled - but it stopped/abated ... just in time too.


Like with wildfire, it's the uncontrolled/ out of control situation that is the problem.


Could not resist doing the math.

The watershed is 3611 square miles.

1 inch of rain = 8.39 Billion cubic feet of water.

Lake surface area = 674 Million square feet.

Every inch of rain adds 12.4 feet to the Lake.

They drained it to get the level down about 50 feet from Max.

4 days at the 1 inch of rain a day pace -
and the dam is maximally stressed, again.

Guess how much rain is in the forecast ?

4 inches spread over 6 days.

https://www.wunderground.com/us/ca/oroville?MR=1


Pineapple Express Giveth, and Pineapple Express Taketh Away.

Where's the Moment of Silence Emoticon ?


The 3rd spillway on the North Side that they are now protecting with rocks is about 900 feet in the North South Direction.

Just to have a number, let's say they made the apron 300 feet in the East West direction.

So it's a huge reinforced concrete apron, 3 football fields by 1 football field. 900 x 300 feet. The works, concrete as if your life depended on it.

That's what the water resources people wanted to build.

For the construction folks in our midst - how much would that cost to build ?

 

[Andyo]

fukin with nature

fukin with nature

when you fuk with nature she will fuk you eventually
leave the trees and rivers be !A

 

[GOT_BUD?]

CA was just talking about seceding from the nation (Texas did it first). Then all this rain happened and damn near caused a dam to collapse. "We need federal aid right now!"

Almost laughable.

I am so glad I left that shit hole state when I did, 40 or so years ago. Great weather, crappy people, shitty politicians.

 

[St. Phatty]

Just read Oroville has much of the state's ag water.

Also boned up on the current 'fix'.

Which has a lot of finger-crossing & Hope. The Obama approach.

The new rain will put them back where they were last week, when they were about to lose the 3rd spillway.

best guess - 50-50 chance the dam goes after the next 4 inches of Pineapple Express.


Silver Lining - Oroville dam collapse would not be good for California's economy, or the national economy.

So it could help keep interest rates down.


If Fed Chair Janet Yellen starts talking about the Oroville dam in her slow monotonic voice ... watch fvcking out.

 

[gekolite]

thick

thick

It's sort of wierd because when I got up this morning, I knew nothing about the Oroville dam.

What happened is, the excess water that damaged the main and secondary spillway, was also chewing into the "backup backup" spillway on the North side of the dam.

It was uncontrolled - but it stopped/abated ... just in time too.


Like with wildfire, it's the uncontrolled/ out of control situation that is the problem.


Could not resist doing the math.

The watershed is 3611 square miles.

1 inch of rain = 8.39 Billion cubic feet of water.

Lake surface area = 674 Million square feet.

Every inch of rain adds 12.4 feet to the Lake.

They drained it to get the level down about 50 feet from Max.

4 days at the 1 inch of rain a day pace -
and the dam is maximally stressed, again.

Guess how much rain is in the forecast ?

4 inches spread over 6 days.

https://www.wunderground.com/us/ca/oroville?MR=1


Pineapple Express Giveth, and Pineapple Express Taketh Away.

Where's the Moment of Silence Emoticon ?


The 3rd spillway on the North Side that they are now protecting with rocks is about 900 feet in the North South Direction.

Just to have a number, let's say they made the apron 300 feet in the East West direction.

So it's a huge reinforced concrete apron, 3 football fields by 1 football field. 900 x 300 feet. The works, concrete as if your life depended on it.

That's what the water resources people wanted to build.

For the construction folks in our midst - how much would that cost to build ?

how thick or deep ? if 3, deep the concrete costs alone would be over 30 million , that is just concrete , plus other materials like rebar and base rock then labor costs.

 

[St. Phatty]

how thick or deep ? if 3, deep the concrete costs alone would be over 30 million , that is just concrete , plus other materials like rebar and base rock then labor costs.

Thanks a lot for the info !


Looks like California & Schwarzenegger

saved maybe $100 million by avoiding doing the work back in 2006.


I actually sent Gov. Brown a letter telling him what to do to prevent the worst-case outcome.


Starting with sending National Guard 20 to 50 miles upstream with explosives & earth moving equipment, to set up some landslides & re-design the water-shed a little bit, to re-direct 1 to 5% of the water in upcoming rainstorms to another watershed with a functional dam.


Not a pretty solution. But on the path they're going ...

In the main spillway, for whatever reason, the hole gets bigger and eats into the base of the spillway, like a sand castle at the beach or something.

So if the Dam fills back up enough to use the main spillway - it's a fire hose directed literally at the foundation of the Dam, below the main spillway, like one of those digging machines in The Matrix.


A Dam that came so close to failing last week, meaning it is fatigued. And they're letting people back in, with more heavy rain coming in - filling a lake with a weakened Dam at one end ?!

One bridge goes out, one landslide in the wrong place, and you got thousands of people stuck on the wrong side of a BIG broke dam.

I told Gov. Brown to re-evacuate the place.

 

[vta]

...CNBC reports that Governor Brown feels entitled to at least 12 percent of the $1 trillion that Trump called for in infrastructure spending.

From CNBC:

Brown also said he will push for California to get its share of the $1 trillion in money Trump wants to spend nationally on infrastructure projects.

“I fully embrace and will strive to make sure that California gets 12 percent,” the governor said, pointing out that’s roughly California’s share of the U.S. population. “We have certainly $120 billion that we can spend it on wisely.”

When President Trump said $1 trillion needed to be spent on the nation’s infrastructure Governor Brown responded by submitting a $100 billion wishlist for projects in California.

In the $100 billion request submitted by Governor Brown there was not a single mention of the Oroville dam. Governor Brown had absolutely no plans to fix it despite warnings that the dam was in serious need of repair for nearly 12 years according to Mercury News.

Moonbeam is some piece of work. Hopefully this dam holds up against the storm coming tonight...they need to have a final solution in place before the snow melt.

Here is a nifty article about this whole clusterfuck... CA Dams Crumble While Politicians Fiddle in Nonsense

 

[St. Phatty]

Latest weather forecast is,
12 inches of rain over 10 days.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02...-river-taking-aim-on-beleaguered-orovilledam/

Not sure about 'wattsupwiththat'. Their weather info looks like it has a solid source, Weatherbell, a paid subscription service.

11.62 inches - heaviest rainfall on the West Coast of North America.

Forecast to fall on - Oroville.

if the info is solid, it's like God has a sniper rifle
and Oroville is dead in the crosshairs.

Anybody want to predict a date for the Oroville collapse ?

The water level will peak again in 12 to 14 days.

I'm thinking, Feb. 28 or March 1 or 2.


If they keep going with their current planned fixes, and leave the water rushing down the main causeway, where it is having a jack-hammer like effect ... 8 days = Feb. 24.


I definitely notice a rubber-necker effect.

Watching this is like watching a 1000 car crashes.

 

[VonBudí]

completely misunderstood the scale until i saw this

https://imgur.com/gallery/mpUge

 

[igrowone]

^^^ great pics, man's works vs nature
but have the repairs gotten to a 'good enough' point?
crisis averted for now?