Oroville Dam Erosion

149 Words1 Pages
Over the past few months, California has been hit with a slew of storms and now the Oroville Dam is overflowing with water. This would not have been as bad a situation if the emergency spillways were not damaged by erosion; or as the anchorman said “... erosion has opened a hole the almost size of a football field and it’s almost 40 feet deep…”. The towns downstream were evacuated because of the potential for flash flooding for the 75 miles downstream from the dam. Workers then started crushing rocks to reinforce and fix the damaged spillways and to delay the potential of flash flooding. Over 200,000 people were evacuated, highways were filled, and gas pumps were emptied in the panic. Over the following days, the levels of water pushing on