You are now in California and the U.S. category.

Creeks and rivers topped their banks, hundreds of homes were evacuated and several thousand people found themselves trapped in a rural hamlet as Northern California emerged Tuesday from yet another winter storm. The atmospheric river of moisture that has saturated drought-parched ground with a series of drenching storms in recent weeks returned with a vengeance to the north on Monday after briefly focusing its fury on Southern California. The downpours swelled watercourses that already teetered near or above flood levels and left about half the state under flood, wind and snow advisories.

The state water board has egg—or should I say mud—all over its collective face. Earlier this month, board members refused to lift the drought restrictions on Californians. By keeping them in place until the traditional review time in April, they ignored pleas from water agencies to eliminate the restrictions now. Board members refused to lift the restrictions despite January rains and snows at near record levels. This month’s deluges pushed levels to records.

Just because nature allows a delay of many years while officials dither over a catastrophe in the making doesn’t make that disaster any easier to handle when it finally strikes. This is one major lesson of the Oroville Dam spillway crisis that saw the sudden evacuation of almost 200,000 people from their homes due to the threat of the dam’s emergency spillway crumbling under the force of millions of gallons of fast-moving water.

Lake Oroville will partially reopen on Thursday, nearly two weeks after more than 180,000 Northern California residents evacuated their homes and the lake area closed due to fears that the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam could fail. California State Parks closed the state recreation area, with the exception of the visitor center and north and south forebays, on Feb. 13 to avoid any interference as crews worked to strengthen the dam’s emergency spillway and remove debris from below the main spillway. Campgrounds were also closed to accommodate other agencies involved in the spillway work.

The Department of Water Resources plans to remove at least some of the debris at the bottom of the Oroville Dam spillway and study the structure, but just aren’t sure when they’ll have a chance to do that. The workers can’t just move into the Diversion Pool and pull out the concrete, mud and other debris that went into the water after the spillway broke Feb. 7 because water is still flowing at around 60,000 cubic feet per second and they’ll need heavy equipment to get the work done.