Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What if California's dams fail?

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 75 posts

Re: What if California's dams fail?

#51

Post by ccooffee »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #48

The question isn't if but when. If you look at California's geologic record, it has suffered massive flooding every several hundred years AKA Ark storms. The majority of the Central Valley turns into an inland sea in these situations and the locations of many current cities would be underwater. USGS sediment research in the San Francisco Bay Area, Santa Barbara Basin, Sacramento Valley, and the Klamath Mountain regio…

What separates the Christmas Flood of 1964[0] from these ARK storms? The wikipedia page discusses 1964 as an "atmospheric river".

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_flood_of_1964

Re: What if California's dams fail?

#52

Post by jahav »

jgeada wrote: post #47
crote wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that for some accidents the liability is virtually limitless, so insuring it is impossible. Chernobyl is up to $850B already and it hasn't even been cleaned up yet! That's why governments often act as the "insurer of last resort": there is literally no other way to pay for it.

Shouldn’t that imply that if your project can have such accidents then it shouldn’t be built? Why are we allowing some entity to profit from the upside and lumber us all with the downside costs?

Llc stands for limited liability company.

Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.

Thw method to remove limit unlimited liability is at the core of our economical system.

We are allowing it, because it works remarkably well and makes us richer.

Re: What if California's dams fail?

#53

Post by bannedbybros »

cgb223 wrote: post #49
s1artibartfast wrote: post #48

The question isn't if but when. If you look at California's geologic record, it has suffered massive flooding every several hundred years AKA Ark storms. The majority of the Central Valley turns into an inland sea in these situations and the locations of many current cities would be underwater. USGS sediment research in the San Francisco Bay Area, Santa Barbara Basin, Sacramento Valley, and the Klamath Mountain regio…

Waiting for the big flood is kind of like waiting for the big earthquake, It’s either going to happen tomorrow or 200 years from now, and either way there’s nothing you can do about it except hope you die quickly

[dead]

Re: What if California's dams fail?

#55

Post by hondo77 »

indus wrote: post #23

Our family is bunch of armchair hydrologists. Every random few months we trek from Bay area to Oroville to count the bathtub rings and study the drought situation. Recently we trekked to see the newly formed Tulare Lake. FWIW, Tulare lake ain't evaporating for another 2 years. Imagine the same size storm repeats for 10+ years.

It's easier to imagine the drought conditions of recent years/decades repeating.

Re: What if California's dams fail?

#56

Post by dontreact »

cgb223 wrote: post #49
s1artibartfast wrote: post #48

The question isn't if but when. If you look at California's geologic record, it has suffered massive flooding every several hundred years AKA Ark storms. The majority of the Central Valley turns into an inland sea in these situations and the locations of many current cities would be underwater. USGS sediment research in the San Francisco Bay Area, Santa Barbara Basin, Sacramento Valley, and the Klamath Mountain regio…

Waiting for the big flood is kind of like waiting for the big earthquake, It’s either going to happen tomorrow or 200 years from now, and either way there’s nothing you can do about it except hope you die quickly

You could avoid living in a place likely to flood during a 100 year flood

Re: What if California's dams fail?

#57

Post by clsec »

ccooffee wrote: post #51
s1artibartfast wrote: post #48

The question isn't if but when. If you look at California's geologic record, it has suffered massive flooding every several hundred years AKA Ark storms. The majority of the Central Valley turns into an inland sea in these situations and the locations of many current cities would be underwater. USGS sediment research in the San Francisco Bay Area, Santa Barbara Basin, Sacramento Valley, and the Klamath Mountain regio…

What separates the Christmas Flood of 1964[0] from these ARK storms? The wikipedia page discusses 1964 as an "atmospheric river". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_flood_of_1964

I'm not sure but if you look at maps of both floods it seems that weather pattern in 1964 was a lot further north than the 1862 flood. Also, the wiki article for 1862 says that that was an El Nino year.

Re: What if California's dams fail?

#58

Post by uoaei »

ccooffee wrote: post #51
s1artibartfast wrote: post #48

The question isn't if but when. If you look at California's geologic record, it has suffered massive flooding every several hundred years AKA Ark storms. The majority of the Central Valley turns into an inland sea in these situations and the locations of many current cities would be underwater. USGS sediment research in the San Francisco Bay Area, Santa Barbara Basin, Sacramento Valley, and the Klamath Mountain regio…

What separates the Christmas Flood of 1964[0] from these ARK storms? The wikipedia page discusses 1964 as an "atmospheric river". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_flood_of_1964

Calling out the atmospheric river implies a cause of purely precipitation, whereas the other floods are likely caused by some unfortunate combination of snowmelt runoff and high-precipitation events.

Re: What if California's dams fail?

#59

Post by mistrial9 »

jahav wrote: post #52
jgeada wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn’t that imply that if your project can have such accidents then it shouldn’t be built? Why are we allowing some entity to profit from the upside and lumber us all with the downside costs?

Llc stands for limited liability company. Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. Thw method to remove limit unlimited liability is at the core of our economical system. We are allowing it, because it works remarkably well and makes us richer.

to describe that from another angle -- history is full of great violence, great chemical harm, great swindles and great despots "which worked remarkably well and makes us richer" .. Puritans and swamp-hunters have been pushed aside by New York attorneys and their masters of the day. And we allow all of that "because it works remarkably well and makes us richer" .. and I able to type this too.

Re: What if California's dams fail?

#60

Post by mistrial9 »

rightbyte wrote: post #37
grrdotcloud wrote: post #20

Funny thing no one talks about. Maybe theory. Probably not. The Sacramento river, if flooded by say the dam failure of Oroville, could reach Stockton. If that happens the city would be a foot or two underwater. Little does anyone know there are contingency plans to literally blow the levees along the river and flood the nearby (mostly) farming land.

> If that happens the city would be a foot or two underwater. Counting from a nominal roof top or street level?

watch any video of rescue efforts in modern built areas. Some multi-story buildings with the right structure are fine, people with two story houses sit on their roofs, meanwhile, most cars go for a ride in the direction of the flow.. etc.
Post reply on HN