Things are going from bad to worse at California’s battered Oroville Dam. As if the severely damaged spillway wasn’t enough of a danger, the Sacramento Bee is reporting that authorities are pumping out 60,000 cubic feet of water per second (cfs).
Unfortunately, the inflow of water due to the deluge of rain into the Oroville Lake just spiked at roughly 91,000 cfs. And things in the near future don’t look much better.........
But here’s where things start to get a bit strange.
While the State of California is soothing frayed nerves by telling the world (cited above by the Sac Bee) that the water level at the Oroville Lake may be at 850 feet, all is well. After all, the Oroville Dam tops out at 900 feet.
Yet just a few short days ago the Los Angeles Times reported that “the Federal Aviation Administration has issued a temporary ban on flights around the Oroville Dam to allow emergency aircraft to operate safely.”
With both aircraft and drones banned until May 17, the government is claiming the ban is necessary due to work crews continuing “to conduct aerial surveys of the erosion on the emergency spillway.”