Infinite thanks to commentor Rikyrah for highlighting Awesome Luvvie’s latest extremely righteous twitter rant. Excerpts:
This is why I am not meant for politics. I don't have the grace. Or the "lose well" attitude. I'd cuss everybody out if I lost to a cheeto.
— Awesomely Luvvie (@Luvvie) February 11, 2017
If I were Hillary, I'd send y'all a postcard that says "Went hiking. Gone forever. DON'T CALL ME FOR SHIT. K BYEEEE."
— Awesomely Luvvie (@Luvvie) February 11, 2017
We are outchea hustling backwards for real. Don't look to Hillary to be Captain Save-A-Hoe. She did what she could. She fought hard.
— Awesomely Luvvie (@Luvvie) February 11, 2017
So let the person who lost feel heartbroken and take the time to be out the public eye for a bit. You know the person you called "cold."
— Awesomely Luvvie (@Luvvie) February 11, 2017
The only thing Hillary Clinton should owe are 2016 taxes and maybe Christmas gifts to grandkids. She doesn't owe anyone a fight right now.
— Awesomely Luvvie (@Luvvie) February 11, 2017
(And yes, I was reminded that I’ve been meaning to order a copy of Ms. Ajayi’s book I’m Judging You… )
? Martin
Repost from below:
So the plan in Oroville is to get the lake level down to 850′. It’s currently at 899, dropping at about 8′ per day. If everything goes well, and inflow to the lake continues to decline, and they can keep the main spillway going at 100K CFS without completely destroying everything, they might make it before the next big storm comes through. Apparently it’s supposed to be a bit colder than the last one, which would keep more of the precipitation on the ground as snow in the upper elevations which should help.
The flash flood warning is scheduled to lift at 4PM tomorrow. Unclear what will happen with the evacuation order. If I had to guess, they’ll allow people back home tomorrow afternoon after they’ve had time to get a good look at things, and tell them to pack and be prepared to leave again later in the week when the storm arrives.
SectionH
@? Martin: TY for the updates.
A friend has family in the area who, uh, will be happy to go home. Panic, no. Being prudent, oh yeah.
? Martin
Did a bit of math. The concrete structure that composes the emergency spillway is about 30′ high. If it were to fail, because the soil beneath it is eroded away, the lake would lose about 28 billion gallons of water in a matter of a few hours (they’re currently releasing about 750,000 gallons per second). The water structures downstream (levees, etc.) are rated for about 150,000 CFS. This would release 1-2 orders of magnitude more than that. Basically everything along highway 70 from Oroville to at least Yuba City would get wiped out, and flooding of some magnitude would probably reach Sacramento itself. Flooding like this tends to uproot trees and break apart structures like bridges and power pylons, washing them downstream where they get caught on other structures, causing the water to back up until it again bursts through.
Anyone who lived in the low-lying areas near the feather river would have little time to evacuate. Flood rate from Oroville to Yuba City is about 6 hours. The moment water was released, thats how much time you have to escape. Prorate that based on how far north of Yuba City you are. If you’re in Oroville, by the time you reach your car it’ll be too late. So, worst case scenario, this is potentially a Katrina-level event for that area. Fortunately, things are looking steadily better for now, with the next storm being a giant fucking asterisk.
opiejeanne
@? Martin: I have several friends in Auburn, about 70 miles south. I can’t figure out if they’re in danger or not.
It looks like the river is to the west of Auburn, but i’m not sure what other waterways will be affected.
? Martin
And expect this story to blow up.
That’s precisely, to the letter, what is happening.
? Martin
@opiejeanne: Yeah, they should be just fine. They’re up above Folsom Dam – up over 1000′. They’ll have people evacuating toward them, and may have some trouble getting to places west of them, but they’re in no danger.
Joyce H
Meanwhile, CNN has a report that Trump got the news of the North Korean missile launch while at dinner at Mar A Lago. Did he step away from the table to deal with the matter? No, he did not. He stayed there, receiving reports and strategizing with his aides and the Japanese Prime Minister while the wait staff removed the salads and brought the main courses, and the first ladies talked amongst themselves, at the dinner table which was smack in the middle of the dining area.
“As Mar-a-Lago’s wealthy members looked on from their tables, and with a keyboard player crooning in the background, Trump and Abe’s evening meal quickly morphed into a strategy session, the decision-making on full view to fellow diners, who described it in detail to CNN.”
Mar A Lago situation room
And I’ll bet he loved every minute of it – ‘hey everybody, look at me getting Very Important Reports and making Very Important Decisions because I am a Very Important Man’. I swear, every time I think it’s simply impossible for me to have any MORE contempt for this ridiculous little poseur, it’s like he goes, ‘oh, yeah? watch this!’
SiubhanDuinne
@Joyce H:
In that linked CNN story, the last couple of sentences really say it all, don’t they?
amk
@? Martin: Should people have been allowed to settle in flood prone areas in the first place?
? Martin
@amk: Sure. To start with, most of the people were there before the dam was built. But more notably, the dam can be controlled. In fact, that’s the very point of it – to help control the rate of flow down the river to make it safer for people to live there.
This isn’t a natural disaster – it’s a man-made one. Maybe one that couldn’t have been foreseen, but more likely it could have been, as the article I reference notes. How much would it have cost to make the changes indicated? A fuckton less than it’ll cost to clean this whole mess up, I can assure you.
Kat
Yesterday, a BJ commenter posted the url to this, without the headline or content. I think it deserves some front page attention.
The Spy Revolt Against Trump Begins
02/12/17
As if the IC’s take on the new administration isn’t enough, here’s a view of it from the inside – that has me asking myself, ‘Why aren’t all these people just beet-red in embarrassment at their own incompetence? Did shame go out of style?’
Turmoil at the National Security Council, From the Top Down
By DAVID E. SANGER, ERIC SCHMITT and PETER BAKERFEB. 12, 2017
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@amk: This question arises with every major flood. The answer is yes, they should be allowed to settle there. Since the news reporting I can find so far is not intended for civil engineers, I have no idea what year flood this could turn into, or what year flood the dam was designed to handle, but think about it. Would you be willing to settle in a place that has a 1% chance every year of being flooded? How many people do you know who would take those odds?
Now, what do you think the odds are of a dam failing?
Thank you, Martin, for your updates. Just having the CFS numbers is a balm to this erosion control designer’s soul. I’d love to know the general soil information for the area and how they cleared the emergency spillway; I’m assuming they had enough sense to cut the trees and leave the stumps.
dianne
A little aside on the news last night said that Shasta Dam is at 97% capacity. That is the biggest dam in Ca and is the head of the Sacramento River. If they have to start releasing water from there in addition to the Feather River releases we are really in big trouble in Sacramento. Levees are all that hold the water back although we have a system of weirs that allow for releases of water above the Sacramento area.
Hal
President Save-a-hoe had a nice ring to it.
Percysowner
@amk: I admit I bought a house in a flood zone. At the time I bought it was a flood zone one which meant it had 1 in 1000 (.01) chance of ever flooding, but it’s near enough to a creek that it is a flood zone. Last year, possibly after looking at the weather changes caused by global warning, my flood zone became a flood zone 2 which means there is between a 1 in 100 to a 1 in 1000 chance of being flooded. Would I have bought in a flood zone 2, well I would have thought about it really hard, but since I can’t pick up my house and move it, here I am. OTOH, there is at most a 1% chance I’ll get flooded and at least a .01%. It’s not that risky. I keep up my flood insurance which went up 200% this year because of the change, and have weather alerts enabled on my phone and computer weather apps. If they say evacuate, my daughter ends up with me, 2 dogs and 2 cats.
imonlylurking
Thanks for the reminder to follow her on twitter. We need a Tweet roll so I can find all the juicers.
chris b
Uhh…did what she could? fought hard? She lost to Donald Fucking Trump. She ran a pretty uninspiring campaign, for which she bears responsibility. Yea…media/emails, Comey….but she lost states she never should have lost, including PA (where I voted for her). Acknowledge and learn from or lose again…
kindness
@amk: The entire Central Valley in California is a flood plain though. 150 years ago the whole valley would flood every winter. Wasn’t deep. A few feet but the valley made one big lake. Which is why it is flatter than Kansas (the silt settling) and such good farmland (the silt again).
Suggesting that no one live in the whole of the Central Valley isn’t going to fly anywhere. You can ask if it’s prudent to live there but 6 million people live there now. They aren’t moving. They’ll just build higher and better levies.
kindness
Saturday I was traveling north on 99 from the south to Sac. Above Galt and below Elk Grove the flooding was such that they closed many of the exits off the freeway. Water was only a few feet below the roadway, This morning coming into the bay Area I took route 132 in. Where the San Joaquin meets the Stanislaus river the water was about a foot below the roadway surface. I haven’t seen it that high since 96. If it tops the road (the road is the levee along that stretch) they’ll have to close it. The loose dirt making up the banks of the levee won’t last at all.
Ruckus
@kindness:
Aren’t there many places in the entire world where there are many reasons not to live, possible flooding, possible earthquakes, possible volcano eruption, possible fires, possible tornadoes, possible lightning strikes…….
I’ve lived in several different places over the years and have lived or still live in places where one or more of those events are possible most any time. One can rarely escape the earth being the earth, we can work towards mitigating the dangers but there is no place that’s totally safe. What was funny was living in OH where major earthquakes have happened, where a girl I worked with had been struck in her car by lightning, twice, (I’ve driven home from work through lightning storms) and tornadoes had damaged houses within just a few miles of mine, and while I didn’t live in a flood zone, there was a major one less than a mile from my house that caused problems on a semi regular basis and people asked me how could I possibly live in CA with all it’s natural disasters.
Ruckus
Annie
Thanks for posting rikyrah’s comment. Several of us responded and it is an awesome comment and very, very appropriate.
ruemara
I have to admit. I do want to drop-kick people saying this. Including people showing up to claim it wasn’t inspiring and she lost PA but utterly silent about gerrymandering, voter suppression and the white nationalist turnout. So fuck off, Chris.
Msb
What Awesomely Lovie and Ruemara said.
Hillary could have beaten garden-variety misogyny, 2 decades of Republican smears, voter suppression, Russian hacking, oh-but-emails or the director of the FBI, but she failed to beat them all in combination. She has nothing whatever to prove to me. I remain proud to have voted for her.
chris b
Ruemara – Go ahead, argue that Clinton ran a great, inspiring campaign across the entire country – a great 50-state strategy that made the progressive case in full. Argue she couldn’t have done anything better – she was without flaw and it was everything else that led to an electoral college drubbing. Of course she was up against the shitstorm of opposition you mention, but if you don’t place ANY blame – not a single shred – on Clinton for losing, you are a fucking moron that can “drop-kick” yourself and “fuck off” because you will continue to lose, as Clinton did vs. both Obama and Trump.