Rebuilding the Oroville Dam Spillways

How do you rebuild one of the biggest spillways in the world after a catastrophic failure with the next flood season right around the corner?

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Practical Engineering is a YouTube channel about infrastructure and the human-made world around us. It is hosted, written, and produced by Grady Hillhouse. We have new videos posted regularly, so please subscribe for updates. If you enjoyed the video, hit that ‘like’ button, give us a comment, or watch another of our videos!

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This is not engineering advice. Everything here is for informational and entertainment purposes only. Contact an engineer licensed to practice in your area if you need professional advice or services. All non-licensed clips used for fair use commentary, criticism, and educational purposes.

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Stock video and imagery provided by Getty Images.
Tonic and Energy by Elexive is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License
Producer/Writer/Host: Grady Hillhouse
Editor/Production Assistant: Wesley Crump
Script Editor: Ralph Crewe

[valasaur]

As someone living directly below the dam, near downtown Oroville, Juan Brown's coverage was phenomenal and helped me to feel better about the project even as I could hear the clanging and clattering of the machinery during the night.

[ukemike]

When talking about cleaning the bedrock of all loose dust and debris, you failed to mention that the bedrock is ultramafic rock that contains ASBESTOS! In the video look for the bluish rocks, that's the stuff. Those workers doing cleaning in the areas with the blue rocks were doing the work in hazmat suits and respirators in the summer. The surface temperatures where they were working were well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit! We owe each of those workers a debt of gratitude for doing such hard work in brutal conditions. They are real heros.

[technodruid]

What a great story of engineering. It shows that despite never having the perfect solution to a problem, we can always build better, safer, and more efficiently, a structure that will outlast its predecessor

[lucas_the_mad]

The amount of quality drone footage is truly historic. Everything from the failure even is documented.

[randr]

Juan Brown is the man. I remember watching his coverage of this as it was developing. He rented a dirt bike and a cabin and rode his ass to the site daily to document the damage as it was happening. Props to him for traveling far from his home to cover something that was of public interest to people he didn't even know.

[charlescoult]

11:50 - that clip of the workers using shop-vacs to prepare the rock is absolutely hilarious but also a testament to how meticulous they were in their work. Absolutely awesome 👍

[vinny]

An almost incomprehensible project. To think there were literally people vacuuming the massive hillside to prep it. It's like cutting grass with scissors.

Just incredible.

[blancolirio]

Excellent recap Grady!
This was a story that launched a whole new career for me here on YouTube.
The Oroville story continues today as we hope for enough rain/snow to recharge the desperately low reservoir, re-start the Hyatt Powerplant, re-evaluate our water priorities in CA. and approve the new Sites Reservoir.
Thanks Grady
“See ya Here!” Juan Browne

[angelaa]

Proud to say I worked for this contractor through the duration of this project. Kiewit’s safety culture is unmatched and is always at the forefront of any project. As the motto goes “Safety Always” 👷🏻‍♂️

[IanZainea]

On time and no injuries. Damn well run project, especially given especially given the constraints they were under. And mad props to all the workers who made this possible and kept themselves and their brothers and sisters safe!

[tsweat]

I was an engineering student at Utah State University when they created the model of the spillway. It was really cool. We got to take a tour of the facility and see them test the model. It was really impressive to see it in action and only reinforced my decision to want to be a civil engineer.

[BurtyHaxx]

you cant appreciate the sheer size of the project until you see people stood next to the damaged spill way. watching those excavators clear the river, massive project and a small window of opertunity, really impressive seeing the progress

[CasadeLindquist]

If you're ever feeling like your job is overwhelming, at least your boss didn't hand you a shop-vac and ask you to go vacuum 500, 000 square feet of hillside (11:48). That blew my mind!

[lulWut]

It genuinely warms my heart to see so many people come together to engineer, construct, and regulate such a massive project. These people are under appreciated heroes.

[supralapsarian]

Grady: I know you receive thousands of comments and it seems unlikely you will ever be able to read them all, but I just want to thank you for the consistently skilled, insightful and engaging content we are blessed to enjoy because of your commitment to excellence. Not everyone knows how much work is involved in running a channel of this caliber; Those of us who do, do so in spades. Thank you.

[robmurphy]

Hey Grady, would love to see a video on geotechicinal drilling. There's not a lot of good information out there besides what's passed down from driller to driler.. the only commonly available book I've found on the subject is "Basic Procedures of Soil Sampling & Core Drilling" by William Acker (I've actually had the opportunity to meet the man and him and his family have decades of knowledge). If you'd like me to reach out to you with any additional information from a drillers perspective just let me know. I'm a 3rd generation geotechicinal/diamond driller.

[juniordelarosa]

I was a labor working on the rebuilding of Oroville dam best job site in my life to date

[muneebqureshi]

I love revisit / updated videos it makes you realize civil engineering is constantly happening around you

[marktwain]

This is surely one of the most ambitious reconstruction projects ever attempted, in this country or anywhere else. The coordination of so many elements from design to pouring concrete is beyond comprehension. This is what makes America great: we are humbled by the efforts of so many to repair and restore this facility.

[toddmatteson]

This was incredible. The negligence which led to the original disaster was nigh unspeakable, but the ingenuity and dedication in the redesign and rebuild was astoundingly heartwarming. I couldn't help but think of how proud my father in law is to be a part of all the jobs he does (it's honestly adorable, he always takes pictures and has to show EVERYONE, it's like a little kid), but I think now I'm really proud of him too. This story was inspiring, I've never cried at a construction project before, but I think there's something really special about the people of the engineering and construction team that was able to pull this off. Bravo! Bravo!