Oroville Dam Spillway Opens

For the first time since the 2017 rain season the Oroville Dam main spillway reopened with an initial release of 5,000 cfs of water flow. The spillway was ruptured on February 7, 2019 when large chunks of concrete were pushed by back pressure out of the spillway as water flowed over the deck.

The rupture was followed by the dam over topping on February 11, 2017 at the emergency spillway. Then on February 12, 2017 an emergency evacuation of 190,00 people as the dam neared complete failure.

Both the main emergency and main spillways were rebuilt at a cost of $1.1 billion dollars.