Authorities have lifted an evacuation order for nearly 200,000 California residents who live below Oroville Dam with a damaged spillway that threatened to collapse and cause catastrophic flooding. Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea says the risks to a damaged spillway at the nation’s tallest dam are significantly reduced because an inspection found no further erosion. Honea said Tuesday that experts found no additional damage to “compromise the overall integrity” of the spillway. He says the lake behind Oroville Dam also is capable of handling additional rain from an expected storm this week. Honea says residents returning homes should be prepared for “the prospect that we will issue another evacuation order. Honea said Tuesday that they could tell people to leave again “if the situation changes.” The first signs that the order was lifted came when Caltrans lifted road closures in the area at 11:30AM. Emergency crews were working Tuesday to fill a hole in the emergency spillway for flood-water from the dam. Eric Holland of the state Department of Water Resources’ dam-safety division says any of a number of different problems could have caused the spillway troubles. Holland says authorities often never discover in these cases what exactly happened, because flood water has washed out everything at the scene.
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