Before everyone’s eyes, the drought suddenly came to a screeching halt when California started to experience a ton of rain. There were some things that benefited from all this rain, and the wine-producing Napa region that surrounded Lake Berryessa was one of them.
The vineyards took a pretty nasty hit during the drought, and they weren’t producing hardly at all. However, things at Lake Berryessa were a little different. There had been so much rain filling the lake that it reached its’ maximum capacity. This caused something amazing to happen, which caught the attention of locals and tourists alike.
Creating Berryessa
Lake Berryessa is essentially like a living creature. However, it breathes in water instead of air. The engineers who built the lake needed to ensure that the water didn’t flood and also make sure that the dam continued to run into the Putah Creek. The functioning of the local infrastructure depended on it.
The engineers needed to somehow work around the waterways. They needed to somehow create a funnel between Lake Berryessa and Putah Creek which was a difficult task. People didn’t always understand what it was exactly, and for good reason.
The Inevitable Drought
When the weather was normal in California, the water would tend to be low enough that no one had to ever really worry about flooding into the spillway. This seemed to be a trend for roughly a decade, due to a record-breaking drought. This, of course, caused the water levels to be much lower than normal.
The stone “bell-mouth”, which was the entrance to the funnel in the dam, was now able to be used by skateboarders to practice. But out of nowhere, something major happened, and it’s the mysterious thing Evan had discovered.
A Giant Drain
When the water of Lake Berryessa becomes 440 feet over sea level, the water floods the spillway funnel and suddenly disappears, coming out on the other side of the dam. On a smaller scale, it’s like what happens when you pull the drain out of your kitchen sink after washing dishes.
A giant hole appears out of nowhere in the lake. This hole measures 28 feet at the base and 75 feet across. That is pretty big! When the water passes through, it drops down more than 200 feet out of the lake. This raised a lot of questions, one of the most important being, how dangerous could this hole be to those who got close to it when it opened up?
An Intimidating View
When you first see it, it looks like something out of a movie. And in the movie, you would expect some thrilling moment where someone gets sucked into it and doesn’t make it out alive. However, the engineers who built this structure knew that it could be a liability, so they kept that in mind when constructing it.
They had built guard barriers in the water surrounding it so in an attempt to keep people away from it. An onlooker wouldn’t notice these barriers since they are in the water. Even though these barriers exist, it is known to have a deadly past. Although Evan Kilkus and his drone friend were able to capture some pretty amazing footage and photos, the risks just may surprise you.