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Comment by ransom1538 | Hacker News Reader

Oroville dam feeds into the Feather river, the Folsom dam feeds into the American river. Here is the kicker: both the American and Feather feed the Sacramento river - a major bottle neck.

Folsom dam has turned on the spill at insane rates the past few days. I wish people living in Sacramento county (my parents) would take things more seriously.

https://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/queryDaily?s=FOL&d=13-Fe...

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Sacramento will inevitably be destroyed without warning when an earthquake strikes Folsom. Folsom dam is basically a trade where Sacramento gains temporary flood relief in exchange for a certainty of being wiped out by the instrument of that relief. There is a strong economic argument that this makes good sense.

There are no major faults in that area, however. Folsom is on very seismically-stable ground.

Well first of all Folsom has little to no seismic activity nor does Sacramento. If an earthquake hit Folsom hard enough to impact the dam Im pretty sure the bay area would be eviscerated. But if the dam was to falter, the water would actually just go into Lake Natoma and sit behind Nimbus dam rather than turning Sacramento into a lake. Even if both dams failed fully or partially, Sacramento levies would experience an increase in flow and volume. You could presumably have a breach in the levies in one or more places but one thing to know is that much of the levies that surround downtown Sacramento are rated at 500 year partly due to the capitol being in Sacramento.

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