The Only One
Evan’s drone had managed to capture a very rare occurrence, within a very rare structure! This style of spillway was the only one found in the state, and there are only a handful more around the world! Other places where they exist include England, Japan, and Hong Kong. For the most part, these spillways work perfectly and never cause issues. However, there was one instance where disaster struck—one spillway wasn’t doing its job well enough.
Evacuations
Lake Oroville in Sacramento had its own spillway, built similarly to the one in Lake Berryessa. When heavy rains began to fall in the state, the spillway went into action. Unfortunately, the design of this spillway was slightly different than the one in California, and it wasn’t able to handle the water intake. Eventually, 18,000 people had to be evacuated from the area surrounding the dam, since flooding was imminent. The entire design had to be reevaluated for future heavy rainfalls.