Report finds serious design, construction and maintenance defects at Oroville Dam emergency spillway

An ana­lys­is by a re­tired UC Berke­ley civil en­gin­eer­ing pro­fess­or found that design short­com­ings, con­struc­tion flaws and main­ten­ance er­rors caused the Oroville Dam emer­gency in Feb­ru­ary. It is the first ma­jor as­sess­ment of what caused the massive dam­age that forced the evac­u­ation of nearby Oroville and left the state with a re­pair bill likely to reach in­to the hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars.

Sources: Center for Catastrophic Risk Analysis, UC Berkeley