Thursday, February 09, 2017

What could go wrong?

As water climbs toward brim of Oroville Dam, state braces for first-ever use of emergency spillway.


4 comments:

  1. I especially love the "approximate path of water" shading on the Google Earth overlay in the article as the sort of cheerful non-engineering optimism that you'd expect from Yours Truly The Media, most especially how it follows a near-perfect rectangular path instead of a wonky looking trapezoid ...

    Let's re-label the Google Earth overlay with my variety of British cynicism:

    "Parking": "Temporary emergency helipad for rescuing workers from the parking area"

    "Approximate path of water": "Mud slide and forest debris zone of certain death"

    "Damaged concrete spillway": "Mud slide, forest debris, and chunky concrete debris zone of certain death"

    "Power lines": "Live electrical mains zone of certain death"

    "Conceptual water level": "Hypothetical water level before the water crested the dam"

    "Oroville Dam": "The former Oroville Dam", now chunky concrete debris zone of certain death

    There, much better now. :-)

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  2. At first, I thought that this was typical Snarkolepsy hyping the weather, but then I saw that there were millions of fishes loves at risk and I'm now ready to commit to an 8 percent tax on tuna, but only if we can preserve the dam in its current condition, as a historic monument. DF

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  3. Listen - how else are people in the rest of the country going to have hope that we will slide into the ocean if I don't hype the weather? I mean, come on - that's pretty exciting for California. PAC has the right idea - weather in California means certain death. Better?

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  4. OMG THAT CHUNKY CONCRETE DEBRIS IS COMING RIGHT FOR US

    :-)

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