Workers Rush Repairs At Oroville Dam, Reduce Lake Level Before Storms
OROVILLE (AP) -- The Oroville Reservoir is continuing to drain as state water officials scrambled to reduce the lake's level ahead of impending storms.
State Department of Water Resources spokesman Chris Orrock says that the reservoir was down 20 feet since it reached capacity on Sunday when it overflowed and sparked an evacuation order for nearly 200,000 people south of the dam.
Orrock says the lake is draining at 100,000 cubic feet per second, reducing the reservoir about a foot every three hours. Orrock says the department wants to drop the reservoir's level 50 feet overall by Sunday.
Forecasts call for 2-4 inches of rain and snow in the foothills and mountains starting Wednesday night or early Thursday. But the storm was looking colder than projected, meaning less rain and less runoff than last week's storms.
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