Evacuation order lifted as water lowered behind dam
Residents told to remain vigilant
OROVILLE, Calif. — Authorities lifted an evacuation order Tuesday for nearly 200,000 California residents who live below the nation’s tallest dam after declaring that the risk of catastrophic collapse of its eroded emergency spillway had been significantly reduced.
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea announced that people could return home immediately. Officials said they have drained enough of the lake behind Oroville Dam so that the emergency spillway will not be needed to handle runoff from an approaching storm.
But, the sheriff said, the region 150 miles northeast of San Francisco would remain under an evacuation warning, meaning that residents must be ready to flee again if conditions worsen.
Residents returning home “have to be vigilant,” and “there is the prospect that we will issue another evacuation order … if the situation changes,” Honea said. Rod Remocal of Biggs, west of Oroville, said the announcement “took a big load off” of him. He called it “the thrill of relief.”
The decision to lift the order came abruptly, just as the evacuation order Sunday night came shortly after officials said there was no threat.
The sheriff said water was being released through the dam’s damaged primary spillway without further harm to the concrete structure. Work to cover the earthen emergency spillway with rocks and cement was on pace to beat the next rain, and those storms would be less potent.
“As a result of these actions, the risks that we faced when we initiated those evacuations have significantly been reduced,” Honea said.
“This reduction to an evacuation warning properly balances the need for people to resume their daily lives while at the same time being prepared to deal with future increased threat,” he added.
The decision came as helicopters carried giant sandbags and cement blocks from a staging area on the south side of Oroville Dam toward the stricken spillway on the north side. Crews operating heavy equipment loaded rocks and boulders into dump trucks, which carried them over the dam and dumped them on damaged portions.
The surface of the reservoir was 12 feet lower than at its height, and the water release, described as the greatest in the dam’s nearly half century, will continue to lower a total of 50 feet.