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A comprehensive condition assessment of nine dams owned by the city of San Diego has been underway for the past year, according to the Public Utilities Department said. Asked about the condition of San Diego dams after Sunday’s mass evacuation in Oroville in Northern California, department officials told City News Service that they hired independent experts in dam design, construction and safety to perform detailed inspections of the dams in February of last year.

 

A year ago, politicians and experts were predicting a near-permanent statewide drought, a “new normal” desert climate. The most vivid example of how wrong they were is that California’s majestic Oroville Dam is currently in danger of spillway failure in a season of record snow and rainfall. That could spell catastrophe for thousands who live below it and for the state of California at large that depends on its stored water.

 

The game plan is to get water behind the Oroville Dam below what its engineering designs call “flood control storage,” and keep it there. At that depth, the dam would have a buffer capacity of half a million acre-feet of water. At the current release rate, a pounding 100,000 cubic feet per second, the dam will reach that point by late Saturday or early Sunday, even with another rain system arriving Wednesday, said Bill Croyle, acting director of the state Department of Water Resources.

 

Lake Oroville and its dam in Northern California are critical components in California’s complex water-delivery system. Damage to spillways that are used to drop water levels in the lake and relieve pressure on the dam prompted evacuation orders covering nearly 200,000 people. Here’s a look at Lake Oroville and its place in California’s water system Lake Oroville is the starting point for California’s State Water Project, which provides drinking water to 23 million of the state’s 39 million people and irrigates 750,000 acres of farms.

The Oroville reservoir spill forced nearly 200,000 people to evacuate and Gov. Jerry Brown to issue a state of emergency, and officials are hurrying to make repairs before the next storms. Water overwhelming a failing retaining wall at the massive dam has raised questions and calls for action about California infrastructure. News reports are everywhere. By now, you’ve heard about it, but have you seen it? The video and photographs are wild. It’s a complicated scenario that can best be described in images. So here’s a look at the situation from those watching it unfold in person.