Sunday coffee

[wallace]

There's an emergency evacuation of the city of Oroville and towns along the Yuba River..it isn't even on the news.. weird.

The over-spillway of Oroville Dam is expected to break.

[LizStreithorst]

There was something on NPR about a dam in California that had damage from erosion and was using an emergency spillway.  But in the story they said that the dam was still structurally sound and that they would be an evaluation what repair will be needed tomorrow.  Nothing was said about an evacuation.  This isn't close to you, is it?

[wallace]

No, its south of here 100 miles. They are sending first responder strike teams from this far away and my son has been told to get ready to go.

Adjacent to the main dam is an emergency spillway that has never overtopped before, and water started going over it today. It would have gone according to plan, but part of the emergency spillway was eroding. At one point they were sure it would breach, that's when they issued the evacuation order. Effects 160,000 people I think. Then they turned the main spillway up (which started breaking apart on Tuesday) to 100,000 cubic feet per second to reduce the flow over the emergency spillway.. and that seems to have made things better.

This is fascinating stuff... one of the things I do in my work is flood hydrology, where I try to calculate flow rates in 100-year storms.

[Mugwump]

I got up off my ass and had a good day.

I played outside.  I hung cut outs of an elephant and a giraffe on the house side of the small barn so I can see them every time I walk out the kitchen door.  There's a nice lady in town who puts stuff she no longer wants out on the curb for people who pass by to take if they want.   They were so cool I had to ask if she was really giving them away.  She was!  The giraffe is on the 4' wall and the elephant is on the 8' wall with the gate in the center.  They are too cool.

Then I hauled fallen limbs and branches to the burn pile.  It's a never ending task around here.  Then I re-potted a couple of large asparagus ferns and a couple of peace lilies.  That was fun.  I did a ton of laundry.  I got to hang it outside because it was warm and lovely.  I swept and dusted the joint to make it look somewhat presentable.  Finally, I cut a bunch of daffodils and set them on an end table in the living room.

...can't wait for a nice spring here.....seems like we've been inside forever....