*quality engineering, sadly only required because the original contractors cut corners and no regulators caught it before it failed. IMO, the companies that built it should be paying that $1 billion price tag. They’re the ones who used low quality concrete, left out literally tons of rebar, and decided a soft dirt emergency spillway on an earthen dam was good enough.

This is why we need a $3 trillion infrastructure bill. Really, we likely need ten times that. We haven’t invested in infrastructure for decades.
Had there been regular real inspections they likely would have noticed the problem when repairs only cost $100 million. There are literally thousands of dams in America with similar, or worse issues, and no money to even properly inspect them, much less fix them before they fail. Waiting for them to fail costs at least 10 times what pre-failure repairs cost, but we only care after they fail.

Thanks Manchin, our nation is crumbling thanks to you joining the obstructionist Republican Party, someone needs to burn his yacht with his family on board while he watches, then burn him in his mansion and distribute his hundreds of millions back to the state he stole it from.
Edit: Btw- Goldman Sacks has revised their 2022 estimate for gdp based on Manchin killing the infrastructure bill from over 3% to barely 2%. >$200 BILLION just gone with his vote against America. This as Manchin says “the Democrats aught to push me into the Republican Party”, but you’re already there, Joe. They aught to deny you funding and primary you, but not hand another seat to Republicans as you suggest, traitor. They really aught to strip you of all assignments, all funding, all security, and start broadcasting your location 24/7 until you are gone. If you ask me, they aught to drop you feet first in a slow meat grinder and make a day of it, televised. Then they aught to forced feed you to your family before taking every dime they have and denying them any assistance from anywhere. That’s what aught to happen to skidmarks like you.

Juan Browne (blancolirio) breaks down the dam failures and situation


In addition from Juan as of 5/20 3pm est.
"According to Midland County officials as of ~3pm (EST) 5/20/2020, the Sanford dam may still be somewhat intact but they can't tell because it's underwater (they're using the term "failed" because it's spilling over, not necessarily because the structure has collapsed). Latest images of the Sanford dam appear to show overflow limited to the emergency spillway area. The current hope is that the dam itself will hold long enough for the upstream flow from the Wixom lake breach to recede. If the Sanford dam fails, areas downstream are looking at 500-year flood levels. Local and state police have already begun staging in a number of downstream areas, presumably to facilitate evacuations if the dam fails."

Lake Dunlap Dam Spillway Failure has been added as a related post - related requested by Buttle on that post.

Your video, Lake Dunlap Dam Spillway Failure, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Sounds like someone didn't do their homework the first time.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/08/13/oroville-dam-see-before-and-after-video-of-construction-progress/

Also in January, an independent team of experts who reviewed the spillway failure concluded in a report that Department of Water Resources officials were “overconfident and complacent” and gave “inadequate priority for dam safety” for decades at Oroville.

They noted that main concrete spillway at the 770-foot tall dam north of Sacramento, in Butte County, was built in the late 1960s on poor quality rock. The spillway, only seven inches thick in some areas and not adequately anchored, cracked in multiple places in the following years, allowing water to flow underneath. On Feb. 7, 2017, water from powerful winter storms rushed under the massive spillway, which forced up its giant slabs and ripped a huge hole in the structure causing one of the most serious dam emergencies in California history.

OK, I'll be that guy; the last overflow ripped away the last spillway like it was made of tissue paper; what's different about this one?

Not so much about the spillway itself.

I love work. I can watch it all day long.

Some folks just have a spillway fetish.

Can someone explain why these Oroville Spillway videos always pop up? I see them on a couple sites. I'm not saying they aren't entertain to watch. I'm just wonder why 'they are a thing'.

It blows my mind every time I see it how much energy takes to build a simple spillway.

I can't get enough of watching them rebuild the spillway *promote

I read here that they pour at night for slower curing as it's quite hot during the day. They had to remove one of the slabs they poured last year because it had set up to quickly in the heat and wind. https://www.chicoer.com/2018/07/14/oroville-dam-a-tour-of-two-spillways-phase-two/

The emergency spillway looks the the secret exit from the city in "Logan's Run"

To add to @eric3579's comment, the work was fairly carefully planned to occur over Summer, and after the water level had been reduced, to minimise the chances that they would get caught out like that. The hydro plant should be able to release more water than required for the duration of the second phase of works.

Their first phase was designed to leave the main spillway usable over winter, so this second phase could commence afterwards. The emergency spillway was designed never to be used, it was more like a fuse to allow evacuation if the dam fails. The revised design, taking into account the fact that the emergency spillway was required, appears to have strengthened it enough to be used as a backup instead.

The repairs would have been a heck of a lot cheaper if they had been conducted a decade ago, although I do wonder if all the flaws would have been obvious at the time.