Evacuation order lifted near Oroville Dam

The Oroville Dam emergency spillway on Monday.
(Image credit: Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images)

Officials in Northern California have lifted an evacuation order for residents living in communities below the Oroville Dam, but warn that they must remain "vigilant and prepared" as "conditions can rapidly change."

The Butte County Sheriff's Office reduced the evacuation order to an evacuation warning at 1 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, allowing the 188,000 people who left on Sunday to return to their homes. The Oroville Dam is the tallest dam in the United States, and last week, workers discovered that the primary spillway, which allows a controlled release of water from the dam, had developed a giant hole. After switching to the emergency spillway, it was determined that spillway is eroding, which raises the risk of the dam collapsing, and authorities quickly ordered that residents nearby evacuate.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.