It was interesting during the start of the recent flood event to see the “below HHD” gauge at HHD go from something like 7000cfs to about 80cfs in a matter of hours.  My guess is they miscalculated the potential side flow caused by the warm rains and wind on the low elevation snow, and had to slam the dam shut to keep the river within the confines of the valley levees.  With HHD releasing the 80cfs, the river was still cranking at Auburn.  This was short lived, but I’m sure there were a few tense moments as the inflow to HH reservoir approached 30K and the reservoir level rocketed up.  The lowland inflow then subsided, and they cranked up the outflow from the dam to release pressure.  At some point they discovered a “sink-hole” in (I believe) the face of the dam.  I've heard that an indicator placed in the water on the reservoir side transfered "quite rapidly" to the downstream side of the dam, which is not what you want to hear if you are a hydro engineer with the ACE.  Not sure if the sink hole was caused by the drastic fluctuation in discharge and resulting rapid rise of the reservoir level, but due to this newly discovered “oops”, they kept the outflow cranked up long after inflow discharge had subsided in an effort to drop reservoir levels and keep the size of the sink-hole from propagating.  As a rule of thumb, if you live or work in the historic flood plain (think Auburn, Kent, etc) like I do, it would be a good idea to keep an eye on the weather.  Until they fix the problem at the dam, outflow will pretty much mimic inflow, and the valley levees are only engineered for 10K or so cfs…