At least 188,000 people were under evacuation orders Monday as crews raced against time to keep an emergency spillway at the country’s tallest dam from failing and potentially unleashing uncontrolled flood waters on towns below. Lake Oroville, about 150 miles northeast of San Francisco, is one of the state’s largest man-made lakes. Sunday’s evacuation
order came after engineers discovered a hole that was eroding near the top of the 770-foot-tall Oroville Dam’s emergency spillway, sparking fears it could fail. Water levels at the dam were dropping on Monday. California Department of Water Resources officials say flows into the lake were just under 45,000 cubic feet per second. Outflows remained high at nearly 100,000 cubic feet per second. READ MORE
