California Storms Response & Recovery Teamwork
Channel: Cal OES
Date: 17/02/2017

As California continues a massive recovery effort from the damaging impacts of storms in December and January, and with the recently authorized resources from FEMA, activity has is picked up the pace at Cal OES headquarters. The Lake Oroville Emergency Spillway incident is just one in a series of major weather-related issues being coordinated out of the State's Emergency Operations Center in Sacramento. It's critical local, state, federal and non-governmental partners are working together to ensure the readiness for all possibilities. Shawn Boyd has the very latest information in this Cal OES In-depth report. 
 
“We don’t want to be caught flat footed,” said Cal OES director Mark Ghilarducci. “California is very much oriented about public safety and making sure we are as prepared as possible.”
 
“We are locked at the hip,” Tim Scranton, the FEMA Federal Coordinating Officer, continued.
 
Scranton says their focus is maintaining situational awareness and supporting the state.
 
“One of the key factors I need everybody to understand is we don’t come in and take over. We come in and support. So, whatever logistical supplies the state needs any type of organizational structure, personnel what have you, we’re here to support and supply that.”
 
Last weekend, water in the Oroville Reservoir was rising rapidly, eventually coming over the emergency spillway, causing severe erosion and concern for the state and dam operators.
 
“We were monitoring the storms and the situation in Oroville as it was developing,” 1533”and then Sunday when we learned there was a potential issue with the dam itself we started deploying assets…”1539
 
The California Department of Water Resources is also here, setting up a resource center and giving quick access to accurate, reliable information and subject matter experts. A contingent of emergency managers led by Ghilarducci as well as CALFIRE Director Ken Pimlott, California National Guard Adjutant General David Baldwin and Department of Water Resources Acting Director Bill Croyle met with local officials in Oroville on Wednesday.
 
“We received some really great briefings assurances between us and the County of Butte that we were one team one fight,” Ghilarducci said with confidence. “That the sheriff and DWR folks there had everything they needed and then to reaffirm what the plan was moving forward.”
 
Work continues with 95 contractors laboring by air and land, dropping rock and concrete into the gaps to fill the voids caused by water escaping the controlled spillway.
Drier weather has allowed DWR to reduce water releases from 100,000 cubic feet per second. Beginning at 9AM Thursday, they dropped rates by 5000cfs every two hours and will that hold once they hit 80,000cfs. That decision considers the heavy rain that’s expected to drop over the next several days. Cal OES, FEMA and the Unified Coordinating Group continue to closely watch developments at Oroville Dam and to support DWR. They’re also working to prepare contingency plans for those impending storms statewide.
 
“We have enough food and water and supplies for 25,000 people for 5 days, it’s already prepositioned, ready to go,” said Scranton. “And that’s not including what the red cross and other agencies have provided.”
 
Ghilarducci said “that’s prepositioning resources, making sure we have the right equipment and the right people and the right items in the right place so that we can minimize the time frame it takes to get them in place once we need them.”
 
For more up-to-date information on efforts in Butte County… be sure to go to http://caloes.ca.gov/ and click on the Oroville spillway emergency banner for access to our Oroville spillway incident resource page.