‘This is NOT a drill’: Evacuations are ordered as spillway on tallest US dam crumbles

2-MIN READ2-MIN

Floodwaters pour lowing over the spillway of the Oroville Dam, the tallest in the US. Photo: AP

Published: 1:38pm, 13 Feb 2017

Residents below the tallest dam in the United States, near Oroville in Northern California, were urgently ordered to evacuate on Sunday after a spillway appeared for a time to be in danger of imminent collapse.

The abrupt evacuation orders came as authorities said that an auxiliary spillway on the Lake Oroville Dam could give way at any time, unleashing floodwaters onto rural communities along the Feather River.

“Immediate evacuation from the low levels of Oroville and areas downstream is ordered,” the Butte County sheriff said in a statement posted on social media. “This is NOT A Drill.”

The California Department of Water Resources said on Twitter at about 4.30pm PST that the spillway next to the dam was “predicted to fail within the next hour.”

California Highway Patrol officer Ken Weckman directs traffic as residents evacuate Marysville, California, on Sunday as an emergency spillway of the Oroville Dam threatened to collapse. Photo: AP

Several hours later the situation appeared less dire as the spillway remained standing and the Water Resources department said crews using helicopters would drop rocks to fill a gouge in the spillway. Authorities were also releasing water to lower the lake’s level after weeks of heavy rains in the drought-plagued state.

Butte County Sheriff Korey Honea said at an evening press conference that he was told by experts earlier on Sunday that the hole that was being created in the spillway could compromise the structure. Rather than risk thousands of lives, the sheriff said, a decision was made to order the evacuations.