OROVILLE, Calif.—Water levels dropped Monday at California’s Lake Oroville, stopping water from spilling over a massive dam’s potentially hazardous emergency spillway after authorities ordered the evacuation of nearly 200,000 people from towns lying below the lake.
California Department of Water Resources officials were preparing to inspect an erosion scar on the spillway at the Oroville Dam, the nation’s largest.
Authorities ordered the evacuations Sunday for people living below the lake after authorities warned that failure of the emergency spillway could send a 30-foot wall of water into the communities.
“We grabbed our dog and headed to higher ground—away from the river,” said Kimberly Cumings, who moved with her husband Patrick and 3-year-old daughter to Oroville from Fresno a month ago because of a new job. They were eating at a restaurant when the evacuation order came.
A driver with a large vehicle and three children of her own gave them a ride to the Red Cross evacuation center at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds in Chico.
“You can’t take a chance with the baby,” Patrick Cumings said of their decision to flee.
