January 14, 2005
USA Today
CORONA, Calif. (AP) — Rainwater building up behind a Riverside County dam prompted authorities to order more than 800 homes evacuated as a precaution early Friday.
A police spokesman said he believed there was a small leak in the Prado Dam, but a spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which operates and oversees the dam, disputed that.
"We're releasing water," said Fred-Otto Egeler, spokesman for the Los Angeles district of the Corps of Engineers. "It's being retained behind the dam and we're making normal releases at this moment."
Officers were evacuating about 330 mobile homes and 500 other homes east of the dam, Police Sgt. Jerry Rodriguez said. The area is about 50 miles east-southeast of downtown Los Angeles.
Water was rising behind the dam and "the dam is not able to support it, so for precautionary reasons we're evacuating the homes. ... My understanding is there's a leak in the dam," he said.
Meanwhile, to the north, rescuers flew in food and medical supplies Thursday to more than 100 people trapped in a small Angeles National Forest mountain community by a storm-swollen river that washed out three bridges.
The raging San Gabriel River cut off ground access to the approximately 135 permanent residents of Follows Camp, in the forest about 30 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles.
"We're completely separated from the rest of the world," said Lt. Tim Dowling of the Follows Camp Volunteer Fire Department. The flooding washed out half of the community's fire equipment, including a fire engine that fell into the river.
Besides flying in food and medical supplies, the rescuers also flew out a heart patient needing special medication and a 10-year-old boy who had been visiting friends when he was trapped in the camp.
The series of storms that pummeled the state eased up earlier in the week, but Californians were still dealing with the aftermath. In all, 28 deaths were blamed on the storms, including 10 killed in Ventura County's La Conchita when a mudslide buried part of the coastal community.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-01-14-calif-dam_x.htm