 A record-breaking winter in California, whether you're talking about the snow or rain, all that precipitation resulted in flood-impacted neighborhoods in the north and the south. We're doing everything we can to support the effort to shore up that emergency spillway. But what got much of the attention, and deservedly so, was the drama unfolding in Oroville at the nation's tallest dam. On February 7th, the Department of Water Resources crews discovered a hole in the dam's controlled spillway, and it was massive, 250 feet long, 170 feet wide, and as much as 50 feet deep. The anomaly quickly channeled the flow over the spillway's edge. That diversion immediately gouged a gorge in the land alongside the spillway, taking rock and trees that stood for decades there along with it. And on February 12th, releases over the top of the emergency spillway began undermining its integrity. We're talking tens of thousands of people in the area now being told, not asked, told to get out to evacuate. Airing on the side of caution, Butte County Sheriff Cory Honi ordered the city of Oroville and communities downstream to evacuate. Now, unfortunately, many people have been stuck in traffic for hours. Agencies, local and state, now had to do what they do best. The CHP kept order on roads and highways during and after the evacuation. Rain ravaged many of the area's roads, as did the constant travel by heavy trucks hauling rock and boulders the size of small cars. Caltrans left into action, constantly filling potholes and repairing heavily damaged highways, keeping routes to and from the dam open and passable. They faced the same challenges on highways around the state, like Highway 50 heading to Lake Tahoe, where massive mudslides made travel impossible. Elsewhere, teams from the California Conservation Corps worked to save property and quite possibly lives sandbagging boils along levees in Mantica. It was just one of their mini missions. All the while, work to fortify the emergency spillway came by air and ground, gravel filled gaps and canyons, and concrete filled voids and added reinforcement. Below the dam, contractors built barges destined to move heavy equipment below the spillway. March 1st, flows at the controlled spillway are brought to zero. That gives engineers an opportunity to inspect the damage and plan repairs. It also gives barges and excavators the ability to dig at the toe of the controlled spillway, removing tons of debris deposited by the erosion. Critical aerial support for incident commanders came by way of Cal Guard, and Governor Edmond G. Brown got his own tour of the damage in Oroville, receiving detailed reports from DWR and Cal OES. Now the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, has joined Cal OES at Mather to help coordinate all recovery efforts moving forward. With our combined forces, we will determine priorities and meet them head on over the next weeks and months. Reporting for OES News, I'm Shawn Boyd, in Oroville.