Oroville Dam crisis highlights deteriorating state of US infrastructure
By
Ben McGrath
16 February 2017
While the immediate danger to residents living around Oroville Dam in California’s Central Valley seemed to subside Tuesday, the threat from damaged infrastructure there will continue to persist, as will that stemming from the breakdown of the nation’s infrastructure in general.
With rain and snow expected to drench the area for another week beginning Wednesday night, President Donald Trump approved the use of federal emergency aid for California Monday evening.
Even with the evacuation order rescinded on Tuesday, an evacuation warning remains in effect, meaning there is still a clear danger that one of the dam’s two spillways could collapse. Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea stated at a press conference, “People who have special needs or require extended time to evacuate should consider remaining evacuated.”
Many evacuees remained in the shelters that had been rapidly set up over the weekend. For workers and residents living in or near poverty–the majority of the population around Oroville Dam–the ability to simply get in a vehicle and uproot their lives at a moment’s notice is not possible without great hardship. Lack of access to transportation to and from shelters highlights the struggle to meet daily needs, since things like medical care are out of reach when a family cannot afford a car or gas to go to a doctor’s office or hospital.
Lake Oroville continues to be drained in the hopes of bringing it down to 850 feet in preparation for the coming storms. It is hoped that water levels can be dropped an additional 10 feet by next week, down to the normal level for flood management. From a peak of 901 feet when water began to flow over the emergency…