- Flood of 1997 -
Articles from Appeal-Democrat
“Bring some common sense into our environmental laws in the future so this does not happen again.”
Summary of article in the Appeal-Democrat on January 6, 1997, p. A1:
As Representative Wally Herger (R-Marysville) surveyed the damage from the Country Clug Road levee break, he said, “It’s overwhelming...it makes you sick to your stomach.” Herger believes the disaster didn’t have to happen and blames burdensome environmental regulations for slowing levee repairs. A pond dug upstream of Country Club Road is believed to possibly have undermined the levee. This pond was part of an environmental mitigation area required in the $30 million worth of Yuba-Sutter levee repairs from the 1986 flood. The repairs haven’t been completed yet. The Army Corps of Engineers estimated it will cost $10 million to fix the 1,600-foot-long breach in the Country Club Road levee.
Herger said a contract to repair levees along Country Club Road was supposed to be awarded this spring but should have been completed five years ago. The congressman said he hoped the 1997 flood “will bring some common sense into our environmental laws in the future so this does not happen again.”
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- Flood of 1997 -
“Most of our failures have been from boils - water seeping beneath the levees, not overtopping.”
Summary of article in the Appeal-Democrat on January 7, 1997, p. C4:
The levee failures since the New Year’s storm have been caused by water leaking beneath the structures or flowing over them, not by an initial failure of the levee structure itself, state water officials said. “It’s not that we haven’t built levees high enough,” said John Hooper, an engineer and hydrologist with the state Department of Water Resources. “Most of our failures have been from boils - water seeping beneath the levees, not overtopping.”
Water can also seep through tunnels created by burrowing animals such as ground squirrels or muskrats. As the water pressure increases, it percolates to the surface on the dry side of the levee as a boil. If boils are not quickly plugged, they can erode material from within the levee, causing the sections above to sink, which allows floodwaters to flow over the levee crest and erode the surface on the land side.
Construction of major federal flood control projects on the Sacramento River system took place in the 1920s and 1930s when hundreds of miles of levees were built and huge bypasses were constructed parallel to the river as safety valves to relieve floodwater pressure on the main channels.
“It’s fairly easy to make a levee relatively impervious to water seeping through,” Hooper said. “the biggest problem is the material you build the levee on is not as impervious as the levee itself.”
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- Flood of 1997 -
“It was like somebody took an 8-inch water cannon and it just opened up.”
Summary of article in the Appeal-Democrat on January 11, 1997, p. C1:
Linda Fire Department volunteer Gary McCoubrey recalled arriving at the levee at Country Club Road just before 8 p.m. Thursday January 2, probably 15 or 20 minutes before the Feather River broke through. Two inmate crews in four rows, about 25 to 30 in all, were stacking sandbags around a boil at the levee bottom. After the generator in the pickup failed, the men worked under the headlights of the few trucks parked near the levee. As McCoubrey worked on the generator, about 15 feet from the boil, he saw water explode from the base of the levee, spraying water into an orchard 20 feet away. The inmates scattered and McCoubrey recalled hearing their panicked screams. Then he shined a halogen light in the direction of the break. “Probably the scariest moment of my life,” he said. “All I could hear was guys saying get out of here. It was like somebody took an 8-inch water cannon and it just opened up. The sound, I can still hear it today. The sound was just horrendous.”
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- Flood of 1997 -
“It’s public knowledge that with any kind of event like this you will have a potential flooding situation.”
Summary of article in the Appeal-Democrat on January 7, 1997, p. D1:
Phil Lee probably knows more about Yuba-Sutter levees than anybody, but he doesn’t know what caused the levee failure at Country Club Road. “We’re not sure what kind of failure (occurred) and what the mechanism was for failure,” Lee said. “We’re still waiting for the forensic information. We’re going to be looking at reviewing the Marysville-Yuba City reconstruction project.”
Until recently, Lee was the Army Corps of Engineers’ project manager for levee repair work in Yuba and Sutter counties stemming from the 1986 flood. A contract was awarded a few months ago for work in Reclamation District 784, but an unsuccessful bidder protested, halting work until the complaint is resolved.
Studies of levees in RD 784 showed they offer less than a 100-year level of flood protection in many areas. “The levees here are less than 100 years,” Lee said. “It’s public knowledge that with any kind of event like this you will have a potential flooding situation.”
Water Agency officials for years have pushed for another dam to control the Yuba River, but the Army Corps was opposed. “It was considered and the high cost made it economically infeasible,” Lee said. But Donn Wilson, Yuba County Water Agency engineer-administrator blamed environmentalists who “have got the feds so scared they’re not looking at the real solutions. They won’t even look at upstream storage.” So with no new dams in sight, it’s up to levees to hold back the inland sea.
“There’s a risk living in this area. That’s all I can say,” Lee said. “The locals have to accept it. The Corps is trying its best to locate every weak link in the system.”
Lee denied a claim that a pond just upstream of the Country Club Road break had allowed water to undermine the levee. The pond was part of an 80-acre environmental mitigation area created to make up for the loss of elderberry bushes and other wildlife habitat that will occur when the ‘86 levee repair work is done. “We addressed that issue,” Lee said. “We did some geotechnical borings and analysis, and we made the determination that the pond itself is located sufficiently far enough from the levee that it would not have any detrimental effect to the levee.”
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- Flood of 1997 -
“It always takes a major disaster to get something done.”
Summary of article in the Appeal-Democrat on January 7, 1997, p. A4:
With a lawsuit from the 1986 flood still pending, Danna and Danna Inc. may file a new suit over the latest flooding. The suit likely would include at least Reclamation District 784, which is responsible for the levee that broke at Country Club Road, and the Army Corps of Engineers. Angelo Danna said both knew there were problems with the levees separating Arboga from the Feather River, but failed to take action on time. “There’s things the levee district knew about and the Army Corps of Engineers knew about. I think they drug their feet too long,” he said.
While long-awaited work on the levees was scheduled for the spring, “that’s just one year too long in my opinion,” Danna said. Danna said he and other people helping patrol the levee had seen seepage and believed there was a problem at the spot the levee broke hours before it gave out, but nothing was done. Danna also said it was foolish for the district to run heavy equipment on the levee.
While the levee system was weak, however, other problems contributed to the levee failure, according to Danna. The riverbed, he said, is higher than it was ten years ago because it’s so difficult to remove silt and gravel from the river.
“It always takes a major disaster to get something done,” he said. “I hope it does soemthing this time.”
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