Almost 200,000 people have evacuated the area surrounding Northern California’s overflowing Oroville Dam, where officials were working rapidly Monday to remove 50 feet of water and stabilize spillways.
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California Department of Water Resources personnel monitor water flowing through a damaged spillway on the Oroville Dam in Oroville, California.
Several weeks of heavy rain filled the 770-foot (235-meter) high dam to capacity.
They also aim to lower the water level by 50ft to ease the pressure, a goal officials said was well on track, as water continues to flow out of the lake twice as fast as water enters it.
The dam – the highest in the USA – has been standing for 50 years but torrential rain in recent weeks has tested the spillways for the first time.
In a statement posted on social media on Sunday afternoon, Mr Honea ordered residents to evacuate, repeating three times that it was “NOT a drill”.
The Oroville Dam lies upstream from the city of Oroville in Northern California.
The head of the Department of Water Resources said he was unaware of the report.
The auxiliary spillway at the Oroville Dam was expected to fail by 5:45pm local time, which could send an “uncontrolled release of flood waters from Lake Oroville”, according to the National Weather Service.
While the dam itself was apparently never in any danger of failing, the spillways – the canals that take excess water away – are now the focus of intense scrutiny.
At least 130,000 people were asked to evacuate over concerns the dam’s emergency spillway could fail.
He said if the situation was not dealt with they were looking at “a 30ft wall of water coming out of the lake”.
Last week, officials noticed a 200 foot-long gash in the dam’s main spillway.
“We have a very rigorous schedule of inspections that is determined by state and federal regulators”, said See.
Evacuation centers were set up at a fairground in Chico, 20 miles northwest of Oroville. The adjacent emergency spillway, which drains onto an unpaved hillside of soil, rocks and trees, has also developed a hole that could result in structural failure and that officials may have to plug by dropping rocks from helicopters.
Peter Gleick, a water researcher at the Oakland-based Pacific Institute, explained: “It would be a massive blow to the state’s water system if they lose Oroville”.
About 188,000 residents of Yuba, Sutter and Butte counties were ordered to evacuate.
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After enduring a record six-year drought, parts of the Golden State are seeing near-record levels of rain and snowfall as a slew of atmospheric “rivers” dump precipitation across the region. A day after damage at the Oroville Dam forced thousands to flee, scenes of gridlock are now replaced by eerie silence.
