The Emerald Mile by Fedarko Kevin

Author:Fedarko, Kevin [Fedarko, Kevin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2013-05-06T21:00:00+00:00

The fix had bought the dam’s operators some desperately needed time, but a host of new problems were now popping up all over the dam, the first of which started the moment they opened up the river outlets, the four steel tubes running through the interior of the dam that bypassed water around the power plant. Within hours, the outlets’ expansion joints were leaking, creating enough pressure to pop several manhole covers in the parking lot next to the machine shop and drive the concrete slab around them more than two inches into the air. A galvanized-metal shed where the maintenance crew stored their supplies also heaved upward and began to tilt. When the crew unbolted the manhole covers to see what might be causing this movement, a column of water came whooshing out like that from a fire hydrant lopped off by a runaway truck.

Gamble had no choice but to order the river-outlet works shut down so the couplings could be repaired, a job that would take two or three days. During that interval, the discharge they were sending through the dam would decrease by almost 30 percent. Now the reservoir would rise even faster.

Meanwhile, a number of people noted something even more disturbing than leaking couplings or heaving concrete: the dam itself appeared to be shaking. Many years later, people’s memories of this would conflict. Glen’s vibration monitors registered no unusual movement, but over the next several days, it was clear to everyone on site that something was being rattled. By now, they had been forced to resume sending a limited amount of water through the spillways, and the worsening cavitation—particularly in the east tunnel—was sending tremors through the sandstone. Those vibrations were especially noticeable in the lunchroom, which was tucked next to the machine shop and the #8 generator on the east side of the dam. During their breaks, the crews could hear an ominous rumbling and crackling, punctuated by an occasional hollow boom. One worker, who had served in Vietnam, would later liken this to the sound of distant artillery. Another would recall having to hold on to his sandwich to keep it from moving around on the lunch table. By the second week of June, the vibrations were causing the roll-up doors on the machine shop to shake so violently that they had to be braced with two-by-fours.

It was around this time that Gamble began growing concerned about his manpower. His crews were working double shifts, and although the majority of them seemed to be holding up well, a handful were getting jittery. The worst of this group was a welder in the mechanics crew who had taken to walking out onto the transformer deck, staring at the spillway portals, then wandering back inside the power plant and asking his coworkers if the dam might collapse.

Fearing that such anxiety could be infectious, Gamble ordered Dhieux to start assigning the nervous welder to tasks that would keep him indoors. This kind of behavior, Gamble knew, was

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.