This preceding weekend , hundreds of yard of people were evacuate in expectancy of a potential wasteweir failure at the Oroville dam . image from place show what the area in northern California calculate like during last year ’s drought , and how it appeared after a spate of intense rainwater , at the altitude of therecent breach scare .
The two images , captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2A satellite , were accept 40 days apart , and together tell a story of striking environmental change .
During the drought , vast tracts of endanger shoreline were seeable , including a good deal of islands just north of the 770 - foot ( 235 meter ) dam . But in former January , after heavy rains , the shorelines shrunk , and the island became submerged . search at the animation , the color of the water system come along lighter during the drouth , but much darker in January owe to sediment washed into the dam . The city of Oroville , home to 16,000 residents , can be seen at bottom left .
The image also show the primary and auxiliary spillways at the dekameter . The animation shows water gush down the primary spillway , which finally experienced a failure at its low grade . Because the auxiliary spill had never been used before , and due to the tremendous amount of urine spill into it , functionary reverence a total prostration of the dam system , resulting in theevacuation orderearlier this week . The Oroville dike is one of the 20 largest dams in the world , holding back the second largest reservoir in California .
alas , this crisis is n’t over yet . Officials are nowrushing to drain more water from the lake behind the dam as newfangled storms roll in . As many as three storm are expect next week , with the electric potential to drop as much as five inches of rain in sum .
Update : The fine tribe atDigitalGlobejust sent us some more pics taken at high resolution . The photos consider before the overflow were captured on August 23 , 2016 by the company ’s WorldView-2 planet , and the ones taken during the crisis were were taken by the troupe ’s unexampled satellite , WorldView-4 , on February 14 .
[ ESA ]
CaliforniaCalifornia droughtFloodsScience
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