Publication: N.Y. Times

UCLA Expert: Daniel Swain: Assistant Researcher and Climate Specialist, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability

Synopsis: If it had to be taken out of service, a serious rainstorm, like the one that had been falling on Northern California for days, could cause the Oroville Dam, 60 miles north of Sacramento,  — the tallest in the United States — to fail.

UCLA News: “We still haven’t severely tested California’s primary flood-control structures,” Swain said. The emergency spillway at Oroville, for example, was operating at about 3 percent of its capacity when Honea ordered the evacuation. “If we had an even marginally bigger event on the weather front that year,” Swain says, “it would have been significantly worse.”

Read more at  N.Y. Times.