AP Exclusive: Managers made errors in handling of dam crisis
OROVILLE, Calif. — Late in the afternoon of Feb. 12, Sheriff Kory Honea was at the emergency operations centre for the tallest dam in America when he overheard someone say something that stopped him in his tracks:
“This is not good.”
Over six straight days, the operators of the Oroville Dam had said there was no immediate danger after water surging down the main spillway gouged a hole the size of a football field in the concrete chute. But now suddenly they realized that the dam’s emergency backup spillway — essentially an unpaved hillside — was falling apart, too, and could unleash a deadly torrent of water.
Honea reacted by ordering the immediate evacuation of nearly 200,000 people downstream.