Evacuation orders remain for 188K people, as officials monitor Lake Oroville

OROVILLE, Calif. (KTVU) - Officials have ordered residents near one of the nation's biggest dams to evacuate the area, saying a "hazardous situation is developing" after an emergency spillway severely eroded.

More than 180,000 people were evacuated Sunday afternoon after officials spotted erosion on the emergency spillway at Lake Oroville. Officials fear the spillway could fail and send a wall of water into communities along the Feather River Basin.

Water stopped spilling over the emergency spillway early Monday morning, but evacuation orders are still in place.

Officials said the cities of Yuba City (Sutter County), with 65,000 people, and 12,000-population Marysville (Yuba County) across Feather River, were under mandatory evacuation orders. Residents in Oroville in Butte County, population 16,000, along with other towns in low-lying areas of Sutter, Yuba and Butte counties, were also covered by the evacuation order.

People in downstream areas need to leave the area immediately, the department said. Roads were said to jammed with traffic gridlock as residents attempted to evacuate the area.

Officials earlier Sunday stressed the dam was structurally sound and said there was no threat to the public.

Residents of Oroville, a town of 16,000 people, should head north toward Chico, and other cities should follow orders from their local law enforcement agencies, the Butte County Sheriff's office said.

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The Yuba County Office of Emergency Services asked residents in the valley floor, including Marysville, a city of 12,000 people, to evacuate and take routes to the east, south, or west and avoid traveling north toward Oroville.

The California Department of Water Resources said it is releasing as much as 100,000 cubic feet per second from the main, heavily damaged spillway to try to drain the lake.

Department Kevin Dossey tells the Sacramento Bee the emergency spillway was rated to handle 250,000 cubic feet per second, but it began to show weakness Sunday at a small fraction of that. Flows through the spillway peaked at 12,600 cubic feet per second at 1 a.m. Sunday and were down to 8,000 cubic feet per second by midday.

Evacuation shelters

  • Silver Dollar Fairgrounds (Full as of Sunday night), 2357 Fair Street, Chico (small animals accepted);
  • Paradise Alliance Church (CMA), 6491 Clark Road (small animals accepted, RVs allowed in Parking Lot);
  • Elks Lodge (Paradise) 1100 Elks Lane, Paradise - (no small animals accepted, RVs allowed in Parking Lot).
  • Neighborhood Church in Chico, 2801 Notre Dame;
  • Nevada County Fairgrounds (via Gate 4), 11228 McCourtney Rd, Grass Valley, CA - (RVs allowed and space for animal evacuations).

Water began flowing over the emergency spillway at the Oroville Dam in Northern California on Saturday for the first time in its nearly 50-year history after heavy rainfall.

Unexpected erosion chewed through the main spillway earlier this week, sending chunks of concrete flying and creating a 200-foot-long, 30-foot-deep hole that continues growing. Engineers don't know what caused the cave-in, but Chris Orrock, a spokesman for the state Department of Water Resources, said it appears the dam's main spillway has stopped crumbling even though it's being used for water releases.

About 150 miles northeast of San Francisco, Lake Oroville is one of California's largest man-made lakes, and the 770-foot-tall Oroville Dam is the nation's tallest. The lake is a central piece of California's government-run water delivery network, supplying water for agriculture in the Central Valley and residents and businesses in Southern California.

School Closures:

Most schools in Butte County will be closed Monday. The only exceptions are schools in Chico and Paradise districts, which are north of potential flooding. Butte College and the county office of education will also be closed.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.