Oroville: Nearly 200,000 people living below the tallest dam in the United States, near Oroville in Northern California, were urgently ordered to flee their homes on Sunday after a spillway appeared for a time to be in danger of imminent collapse.
Authorities issued the abrupt evacuation orders in the mid-afternoon, saying that a crumbling emergency spillway on the Lake Oroville Dam could give way and unleash raging floodwaters onto a string of rural communities along the Feather River. "Immediate evacuation from the low levels of Oroville and areas downstream is ordered," the Butte County sheriff said in a statement posted on social media.

"This is NOT A Drill." The California Department of Water Resources said on Twitter at about 4:30 p.m. PST (0030 GMT Monday) that the spillway next to the dam was "predicted to fail within the next hour." But several hours later the situation appeared less dire as the spillway remained standing.