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Naumes employees evacuated in Oroville Dam scare Jason Newton, of the Department of Water Resources, takes a picture of water going over the emergency spillway Saturday at Oroville Dam in Oroville, Calif. Naumes employees were among those evacuated Sunday after an emergency spillway severely eroded. [AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli] Monday Feb 13, 2017 at 10:20 AM Feb 13, 2017 at 10:21 AM By Greg Stiles for the Tidings Naumes Inc. employees were among the nearly 200,000 people who fled the Feather drainage below the Oroville Dam Sunday. The Medford-based agriculture firm operates a cold storage and packing plant outside Marysville, just off Highway 70, a quarter-mile east of the Feather River. "Our facility is shut down and locked down and our employees are either in hotels or with friends," Laura Naumes said Monday morning. The emergency slipway off the Oroville Dam was the second to fail in a matter of days, after the dam's primary slipway developed a 200-foot-long, 30-foot-deep hole last week. The dam itself was not damaged. Should the emergency slipway collapse, however, it could unleash a wall of water down the valley. Naumes had 2,000 acres under production until five years ago when it sold much of its farmland to concentrate on its storage and packing operations. The company also operates an 864-kilowatt solar system that powers much of the plant. The 120,000-square-foot cold storage building and 101,000-square-foot packing and warehouse were built following a 2010 fire that destroyed previous facilities. "We've been monitoring the situation all week," Naumes said. "We knew Oroville was full and there's a large snowpack. Luckily, the water is receding at the dam and not spilling at the moment. The concern is that we've made it through this wave. But with the snowpack and runoff, were not sure what it's going to mean going forward." The Naumes New England Orchard facility, 260 miles south of the Rogue Valley, employs about a dozen people, expanding to 15 during peak season. Although the solar panels are perched on the plant and warehouse roof, the converters are on the ground. "What worries us is when we bring things back online, the converters are very expensive," Naumes said. Presently the plant is storing grape vine stock, nursery trees, kiwi plants and strawberry plant starters. "Because of the time of year, there aren't a lot of packed pears there right now, which is good for us," she said. Yuba County is primarily agriculture land with a smattering of smaller communities. Yuba City, population 66,000, the largest town in the vicinity, is in neighboring Sutter County. "It's only 40 miles to Sacramento, but it took hours to get there because of all the gridlock," she said. "We've been through two floods in the past, but since the last one about 15 years ago, they've built a new 100-year levy. We'll see how well that holds." — Reach reporter Greg Stiles at 541-776-4463 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @GregMTBusiness.