That last one, Grand Coulee Dam, is the subject of this blog post. You see, that's the one I was working on when things went down at Columbine High School.
I could upload a whole bunch of stock photos of Grand Coulee Dam off the Internet, but that would take away from the reality, at least for me, of what an experience it was to be involved in a project like the one I was. So, here's one I took:
This thing is really big.....REALLY big!
For those who don't already know, Grand Coulee Dam is on the Columbia River in east-Central Washington State. This dam is one of the largest dams in North America.
My mantra when working on this project?
If large operational releases were to be made from, and/or failure of this structure were to occur, the consequences for downstream jurisdictions and municipalities would be catastrophic.
Why? Because eighteen counties in Washington and eleven counties in Oregon would be affected, along with multiple local, state, Federal, and Tribal organizations, several Public Utility Districts, and ten dams along the Columbia River all the way to its confluence with the Pacific Ocean.
But that's not why I'm writing this post. Nope. Not at all. This post is about the dam, itself, and the stuff I learned as things progressed.
For example, did you know dams are designed to leak? Believe it. They are. And they do....leak, that is.
Did you know dams like this are actually kind of hollow on the inside? Well, not really, but they do have tunnels all over on the inside called 'galleries'. They're there to allow for operations and maintenance of the structure. They're like a maze, sort of like long hallways with doorways on each side of passageways, passageways that end in stairwells that either go up or down, up toward daylight or down into the bowels of a seemingly endless maze of doorways and tunnels - getting lost is a very real possibility. Easy enough to do....getting lost, that is.....if you're not as familiar with the seemingly endless passageways as personnel from the facility are.
These passageways go all the way down to bedrock - the very bottom of the Columbia River, the river bottom - 550 feet below the crest of the dam above, and about 500 feet below the reservoir surface of the lake held back by this dam. Think about that for a second. 500 feet of water above where you're standing at the very bottom of the Columbia River if you're lucky enough, or stupid enough depending on one's personal perspective, to be able to descend all the way to the bottom. And the galleries down there leak a whole lot more than some of the galleries above.
When the Grand Coulee Project Office Rep I was working with offered to take a colleague and me down into the belly of this beast, my colleague jumped at the chance. I wasn't too sure I wanted to go on that trip, and that's what it was going to be. A trip. A multiple hours long trip, or hike if you want to call it that.
This guy told us stories about the building of this behemoth structure, stories like how the workers knew there were rumors aplenty that some who helped build this thing had been buried in the concrete as it was being poured. Knowing these rumors were rampant, these guys, having the sense of humor they did, would fill the fingers of their gloves with hot dogs, place the gloves up against the walls of the forms, and let concrete be poured over them. When the forms were removed, the gloves' indents, with fingers clearly showing, would be exposed into the gallery. Or, they'd do the same thing with their work boots, soles up against the walls of the forms. Only this time, the bottoms of the boots would show with the rest of the boots buried forever in the concrete. No one was actually buried, but over 80 men did die while building this structure.
But I digress.
My two friends finally convinced me to set aside my trepidation and to go on this hike with them. Against my better judgment, I donned the required hard hat (with lamps, by the way) and we began what would be a very long, very arduous, very claustrophobic trek down into the damp, dank, and, yes, very dark bowels of this man-made wonder.
The further down we went, the more arduous the journey became. The galleries got narrower. The leakage got more pronounced. We got wet...very wet. Being as tall as I am, I had to be careful not to bang my head on doorways as we went through them.
The only thought going through my head.....repeatedly, I might add.....was how in the HELL was our guide going to get us back out of this abyss?! I was lost. Very lost. So lost, if I'd been able to turn around in a panic and in an effort to retrace my steps back out, I have no doubt I'd still be there somewhere, screams for help going unheard, and finally going stark raving mad in the darkness until my pleas for help diminished into insane mewlings until the inevitable.....well, I guess I'm getting a little morbid here, huh?!
Fact is, it was claustrophobic, it was wet, it was dank, and it was dark. After we passed below a certain level, lighting was provided only by the lamps on our hard hats. Once, and once only, our guide asked us to switch off those lamps. Very, very slowly and reluctantly, my colleague and I complied. It seemed like as soon as the lights went out, sound went away with them. Panic began to set in. I couldn't see my own hand when I touched my own face! Absolute darkness! Thinking back on it, I don't really know if I'd have even been able to find the switch to my lamp if our guide hadn't turned on his lamp first.
There he stood with this shit eating grin on his face from ear to ear! Good one, Dude! Scared the crap outta me! Yes....yes, you did!
And then we were at the bottom. Water here was about two to three inches deep everywhere we walked. Leakage. Kept telling myself this was normal only half believing that myself. And then our guide told us we had about 500 feet of water above us. Yeah. 500 feet.....of water.....above us. Sure do hope the dam doesn't collapse! Hadn't in all those years of holding back 500 feet.....of water.....above us. I think it was at that exact moment in time, that very moment, I realized just how important the work I was doing actually was. If this dam were to fail, that 500 feet of water above us would cascade downstream. It would take out multiple dams in a domino effect. It would catastrophically flood whole towns. It hit home. It hit hard.
See, the thing is members of the general public don't get to go on tours like this. Sure, they get to see a few of the galleries. They get to see the power houses where the hydroelectricity is generated. But they don't get to go down into the belly of the beast, down to the river bottom, down to bedrock.
I'll remember this trek for the rest of my life. Obviously, our guide was able to find his way back out, and ours. Otherwise, I wouldn't be writing this story now. As with virtually any climb, the journey up was a LOT more arduous than the journey down.
The thing about those workers that built this structure? They found a way to share their humor while working in a very dangerous environment. The photos contain some of their graffiti. One even includes a painting of Alfred E. Neuman (Mad Magazine mascot in later years).
And, finally, this one. At the very bottom, visitors, however few they may be, are invited to share a bit of their own graffiti. My nickname, Ted, is visible almost in the center of this photo.
Grand Coulee Dam. DAMN, but that DAMN DAM is a DAMN BIG DAM!
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