Of chicago and the south side cultural sent, thank you for having us. [ applause ] thanks for joining us tonight, happy friday. Nice to have you with us. Look at this awesome picture from 1968. I love every single thing about this picture. This is the Central Middle School band from orville, california. This is the majorettes part of the band and they are marching through downtown orville, california, on may 1, 1968. This picture is perfec and this picture the property of the California Department of Water Resources. The reason the California Department of Water Resources had a photographer on site taking pictures that day of the majorettes in orville is because that day the governor of california and his wife came too orville, california, to tour a really big awesome new piece of Water Structure the california
governor at the time was Ronald Reagan. He and his wife nancy went to orville for the dedication of the brand new orville dam. It looks kind of fun. They got to go inside the dam, see in the white sneakers with the super cute hair cut . Thats ron, jr. , he got to go along with an unnamed friend. Looks like they were having a good time. Looks like a cool visit. Ronald reagan made a speech. You can see next to him while he was giving the speech they had the big cooler of water. Just in case. There had been a big parade downtown to welcome to governor and dignitaries. They had not just the majorettes from the middle school, they had the high school band, too. Look how many people were there. Look at that. Thousands of people turned out for the dedication of the oroville dam. I think we have one picture of the crowd in color as well. Look at that. Who are the ladies in green . What was their role in the dedication . You look at photos like that it makes you realize being a governor has its ups and down. At the one hand you get to see stuff, take your family and go on cool behindthescenes tours, the local bands will come out to meet you when you do something. Then theres the little indignities, right . This, for example, is what they gave Ronald Reagan as his soenirrom that day at the dedication. I know it kind of looks like a snow globe or a polished piece of granite or something. What that actually is is a ball of dirt. Specifically it is dirt from this moment in history. Ronald reagan was there in 1968 for the Opening Ceremony of the oroville dam but this was the
moment they ceremonially broke ground on the construction. This was 1957. This was a previous governor of california, goodwin knight. Everybody called him goodie knight, as in good night. Hes got a shovel full of dirt there. Somebody at the Ground Breaking had the foresight to save that exact shovelful of dirt they dumped it into a bag, saved it for the day the dam would be complete and up and running. They could have saved a little of it but they saved a lot of it. They saved a giant amount of dirt from that shovelful and gave it to Ronald Reagan. They sent Ronald Reagan back to the Governors Mansion that day with a giant jar of a previous governors dirt. Thanks for visiting, mr. Governor, give it pride of place somewhere. Like if you moved into a new apartment and the Landlord Triumphantly handed you the vacuum bag from the old tenant. Heres the original dirt from the former occupants of these rooms. Congratulations. Pride of place. But the oroville dam, they dedicated in the 1968. Its a big deal. Its huge, its taller than hoover dam. Its the tallest dam in the United States. Its 770 feet tall. It was completed in 1968, took them almost a decade to build. Its one of those unimaginably large things we have made. You can see here the giant reservoir created when they built the dam, Lake Oroville one of the two biggest reservoirs in the state of california. And that reservoir, Lake Oroville, its the central thing in the grand plan that made california work as a state with a Huge Population and big cities and tons of irrigated formland. This is the centerpiece of the
whole system in california that moves water from the northern part of the state the Sierra Nevada into the Central Valley to irrigate the most productive farmland in the country and further down to the cities and Population Centers in Southern California, Lake Oroville is massive. It is made possible because the oroville dam is massive, tallest dam in the country. Now, in terms of sort of how its situated, this gives you a good view, i think. You see below the dam is the Feather River. The Feather River, big river, flows into i think the Sacramento River which ultimately flows into the San Francisco bay at the end of the day. And what they do is they can release water from that giant reservoir into the Feather River. They can do in the a few different ways. One of the things theyve got is a power plant at the base of the dam so they release water at great force to fire that hydroelectric power plant. They can release water through tunnels at the base of the dam, they had a drama with that a couple years ago. They were trying to open up the tunnels to let water through to the Feather River and something went wrong and there was a Giant Suction failure with the opening and closing of the valves and two workers almost got stucked downstream and they had to hold on to some broken piece of railing they were able to grab
on to. Its a good reminder this is like a big piece of infrastructure, a lot of water, a very, very powerful thing. But in terms of the way it fits together, theres a couple ways they can get water from the reservoir to the Feather River below. They can move it through power plant. If they want to move water out of the reservoir down into the river, they use this big gutter. They use this big Concrete Spillway. Looks kind of like a luge track or something, right . Like a cross between an onramp and a ski jump. But its a big Concrete Spillway and it does exactly what it looks like it does. It takes water off the top of the reservoir and can shoot it down that gutter into the Feather River and its really big. Its about a mile long. Its maid of concrete, a key
part of this huge piece of american infrastructure. This is what it looks like in normal times when its dry, when theyre not using the spillway. This is what it looks like in normal times when its on, when they are putting water down that spillway, very dramatic, right . But on tuesday afternoon this week, this is what it looks like again, normal times, tuesday afternoon this week something went wrong at the oroville dam and instead of the spillway looking like this, like it always does, like it has since ronnie and nancy reagan opened that up in 1968, for the First Time Ever this tuesday it did not look like that. Instead it looked like oh, wait, thats not right. Thats not what thats supposed to look like. That was tuesday afternoon. See it shooting out the side there . Yeah. Tuesday afternoon they realized something was going very wrong on that spillway. Water shooting out, scouring down that hillside, the water not confined to the gutter, Whats Going On . They shut it off to have a look and what they saw is oh, this is what it looked like. This was tuesday of this week. See the giant hole there . Thats a problem, basically a giant sinkhole opened up in the middle of this that spillway. Every second theyre going to put more water down that sluice it will erode that sinkhole more and more so they shut off the water initially. Heres the thing, though, they cant keep that water shut off because even though that giant hole has opened up in that spillway, they actually have to run water down that spillway right now. They cant stop. Because like oroville at the top, its full . As of today it was 98 capacity. California is not having a rainy season this year, they are having a Monsoon Season and, oh, yeah, lets see what that means for the drought. I know, Big Questions about overall climate and weather and californias drought and all that stuff. But for the immediate problem at hand, if they can no longer run water down that spillway because the spillway is busted, if they can no longer run water down that spillway to relieve the pressure in the lake, if the
lake fills up and overfills and overtops that dam, if that happens, The Water Doesnt Run Down the tidy little purpose built Concrete Shute into the Feather River below, if it overtops the dam, instead for the first time in the history of this dam, where the water goes is what they call down the Emergency Spillway which is not really a spillway at all, it just means the water just comes down the hill. And if all that water runs down the hill at force it will at some point bring the hillside down with it into the Feather River and eventually into the Sacramento River and into the delta and out to the San Francisco bay. Theres the possibility that an uncontrolled flow could flood downstream towns all along the way. So this is a heck of a choice, right . You either shut down the water down that spillway, let the Dam Get Overtopped and run instead down the hillside all the way downstream and see what happens to california or you keep thundering water down that
broken Sinkhole Concrete Gutter and see how long it holds. It started off as a 300 foot long gash, its kept on spreading and spreading, look. They say presumably it will split down to the bed rook. But what are you going to do . They have to keep Running Water down that thing. They dont have a choice so theyre running the destroyed spillway. Theyre running it to complete failure. Hope for the best, the best option. Pray for dry days. This happened to be the Drinking Water source for more than 20 Million People in the state of california. Now, the dam itself, they say the dam itself is safe. The dam they say is built into bedrock, even if that whole hillside gets scoured out, continues to get blown apart, they say the dam will hold, theyre confident of that, thats good, because its almost an 800 foot tall dam, tallest
dam in the country. But i feel like grasp ago story like this is almost a test of perspective, a test of whether or not you can appreciate the size of large objects in the news. My dad, my dear old dad, worked in the California Water system for years in various capacities and hes been texting and emailing me about this all week so ive been looking at News Coverage all week, looking at pictures on the California Department of Water Resources web site all week and i could tell when i saw the pictures of the spillway something dramatic was wrong. I will confess to you, dad, i will confess to you right now, i do not truly appreciate what a
literally big deal it was. What a large deal it was until i saw this one particular picture and at first glance it looks like the same old picture of that hole in the middle of the spillway until you realize that the tiny little yellow dot there is a full grown man and that shows you the scale of this thing. Thats people inside there. Thats how big that hole started out as. And thats okay, now i get it. Thats the massive size of the undertaking it is going to be to fix this thing when its over even if they somehow avoid catastrophic flooding or danger to the dam itself through this crisis. S Like In King Kong where you know youre dealing with a big ape, you know hes big, thats the pl of the movie, then you see him on the Empire State Building and youre like, oh thats how big he is so we will keep an eye on this tallest dam in the country and its travails through tonight and into the weekend. I feel like that is not just a story, its a bit of a news help. I feel like that lesson in watching the story about the dam in california, that story about is data that can make the difference between winning and losing. The microsoft cloud helps the pga tour turn countless points of data into insights that transform their business and will enhance the game for players and fans. The microsoft cloud turns information into insight. But when we brought our daughter home, that was it. Now i have nicoderm cq. The Nicoderm Cq Patch with unique extended release Technology Helps prevent your urge to smoke all day. Its the best thing that ever happened to me. Every great why needs a great how. Washington post story. At one level, i can appreciate this story looks like oh, ive heard something about this. The sinkhole is spreading a little further, right . Seems like an Incremental Development and the ongoing concerning news about the new administration and its ties to russia. Feels like an incremental little shift in something weve been watching for a long time. But if you can step back from this story, look at it fresh, array some news stories we understand for the purpose of gaining perspective on it, i think what this new development is about the National Security advisor is basically like an 800 foot tall dam thats about to be overtopped. This is not a little Marginal Development in a mediumsized story. This is like an, oh, my god, you cant run water down this thing, what do you mean we have no choice, shes gonna blow. We have congressman adam schiff from the House Intelligence Committee joining us live to give us his perspective on this story. He said if this new development, if this new report is true, theNational Security advisor must be fired. So he obviously thinks its a big deal. But let me break it down this way. Basic revolution is sort of simple and stubbing when you boil it down. Right after christmas this year when barack obama was still president the u. S. Government announced sanctions against russia in retaliation for them interfering in our president ial election. You might remember they took back that Waterfront Compound that had been used by russian intelligence in maryland and they kicked a bunch of Russian Diplomats out of the country immediately with no notice. At the time we expected real retaliation, a tit for tat reaction between either the soviet union and us and russia and us. So the Obama Admistration did their sanctions, kicked the diplomats out on the 28th Of December and we braced on the28th Of December to hear what russia was going to do in response. But they did nothing on the 28th. Then on the 29th there was this entire day in which they also did nothing and then when they did announce their response on the 30th, their response was were not going to respond the kremlin responded that it would be sad for the kids from the families of the diplomats to be in transit. He explained he wouldnt be doing it the forral retaliation, he would not expel american diplomats from russia. In fact, american diplomats and their families, their children in particular would be welcome at the kremlin to come to his Vladimir Putin christmas party. It was so weird. But heres where the Washington Post picks up the story putins muted response took white house officials by surprise. It triggered a search by u. S. Spy agencies for clues. One former senior u. S. Official tells the pos, something happened in those 24 hours between obamas announcement and putins response. Officials began poring over intelligence reports, intercepted communications and diplomatic cables. They found evidence that trump National Security adviser mike flynn and the Russian Ambassador to the United States had communicated by text and telephone around the time these sanctions were announced. Now, one of the nice things about this reporting is we get this kind of blunt admission that u. S. Intelligence and Law Enforcement agencies routinely monitor communications with Russian Diplomats. Okay. I mean, i guess we guessed that, but thats good to have blu