Areas near Sacramento evacuated as Oroville spillway collapse feared
How difficult would this really be to fix?<p>I imagine the most straightforward way to patch a hole, at least for a short period, is to use the water pressure to your advantage and inject objects to plug the hole from the dam side. Perhaps a thick metal plate lowered onto the main breach, and then malleable plastics/rubbers to slow seepage around the plate. Could probably push a hotfix out to master in a few days, for far less than 100 million dollars.<p>Disclaimer: I haven't found any details on the design of the emergency spillway and the suspected damage, so this is speculation.