Dam evacuees might have to wait for repair
Time runs short to repair damage with more rain on way.
Nearly 200,000 people were ordered out of their homes as an eroded spillway threatened to flood town of Oroville, Calif.
Nearly OROVILLE, CALIF. — 200,000 people who were ordered to leave their homes out of fear that a spillway could collapse may not be able to return until the barrier at the nation’s tallest dam is repaired, a sheriff said Monday.
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea did not say how long the fixes could take and offered no timetable for lifting the evacuation order. Officials from the California Department of Water Resources were consider- ing using helicopters to drop loads of rock on the eroded spillway at Lake Oroville, about 150 miles northeast of San Francisco.
Meanwhile, the water level behind the dam dropped, easing slightly the fears of a catastrophic spillway collapse. But with more rain expected later in the week, time was running short to fix the damage ahead of the storms.
Authorities ordered mass evacuations Su n day for everyone living below the lake out of concern that the spillway could fail and send a 30-foot wall of water roar- ing downstream.
Nancy Borsdorf described a scene of chaos on her way out, including drivers aban- doning cars as they ran out of gas.
“People were just panick- ing,” said Borsdorf, who was at a shelter Monday in Chico.
“We’ve always loved and trusted our dam,” she said, having lived in Oroville for 13 years. “I’m really hope- ful Oroville wasn’t flooded.”
Asked if the spillway was supposed to handle far more water, the acting head of Cal- ifornia’s water agency said he was “not sure anything went wrong” on the damaged spillway.
Bill Croyle said sometimes low-flow water can be high energy and cause more damage than expected. His com- ments came after officials assured residents for days that the damage was noth- ing to be concerned, then ordered everyone to get out in an hour.
The water level in the lake rose significantly in recent weeks after storms dumped rain and snow across Califor- nia, particularly in northern parts of the state. The high water forced the use of the dam’s emergency spillway, or overflow, for the first time in the dam’s nearly 50-year history on Saturday.
The threat appeared to ease somewhat Monday as the water level fell. Officials said water was flowing out of the lake at nearly twice the rate as water flowing into it.
Sunday afternoon’s evacu- ation order came after engi- neers spotted a hole in the earthen secondary spillway for the 770-foot-tall Oroville Dam and told authorities that it could fail within the hour.
With more rain expected Wednesday and Thursday, officials were rushing to try to fix the damage and hop- ing to reduce the dam’s water level by 50 feet ahead of the storms.
The sudden evacuation panicked residents, who scrambled to get their belong- ings into cars and then grew angry as they sat in bumper- to-bumper traffic hours after the order was given.
Raj Gill, managing a Shell station where anxious motor- ists got gas and snacks, said his boss told him to close the station and flee himself. But he stayed open to feed a steady line of customers.
“You can’t even move,” he said. “I’m trying to get out of here too. I’m worried about the flooding. I’ve seen the pictures — that’s a lot of water.”
A Red Cross spokeswoman said more than 500 people showed up at an evacuation center in Chico, California.
The shelter ran out of blan- kets and cots, and a trac- tor-trailer with 1,000 more cots was stuck in the grid- lock, Red Cross shelter manager Pam Deditch said.
At least 250 California law enforcement officers were posted near the dam and along evacuation routes to manage the exodus and ensure evacuated towns do not become targets for loot- ing or other criminal activity.