The Yellowstone Conundrum (8 page)

Western Area Power Administration

Upper Great Plains Region

Watertown, South Dakota

  “Jake!  Jake!” shouted Leslie Joe Abrams. As all hell was breaking loose in Portland, Leslie and his partner Jerry Stockton had felt the massive Yellowstone earthquake, even though it was 850 miles away. 

 
Connecting WAPA Upper Great Plains and the Bonneville Power Administration were two sets of 500kw transmission ties, dedicated solely to connecting the Northwest with Midwest. One set of transmission ties was located near the town of Townsend just east of Helena and connected to the western portal near Lookout Pass on the Montana-Idaho border. The other set of towers connected Townsend to the eastern portal of Colstrip, a little berg in the middle of nowhere Montana. Although owned by different power companies, the pair of lines was generally referred to as the Montana Intertie; they allowed the transfer of electricity from the Pacific Northwest, through the upper mid-west plains states, and delivered to eastern utility companies.

Photos by James Chalmers

 
Outside Leslie Joe’s office it was ten degrees above zero and a bright morning sun.  Inside, it was raining sweat.

 
“What happened to the Intertie?” shouted Abrams.

 
His partner Jerry Stockton pointed to the map.

 
“Shit,” Leslie Joe said simply. On the big map the transmission ties connecting to Bonneville Power were two long red lines of lights, at first blinking slowly, and now blinking quickly, meaning eminent damage. In fact, the damage had already been done by the massive earthquake.

 
“I can’t see it!” shouted Jake Beatty on the BPA line.

“The Intertie is out!”

  Unbeknownst to both Jake Beatty and Leslie Joe Abrams, a 185-foot “self-supporting” transmission tower in the desert east of Townsend, Montana had reacted to the violent shaking of the earth and, like the Space Center in Seattle, had snapped the top third of its tower smack off, effectively shutting down the transmission of electricity across the Rocky Mountains.

 
“Leslie, I’m shutting it down!  Immediately!  Good bye, my friend.”

In Portland Jake Beatty pushed the buttons that closed the Montana Intertie.  Neither Jake nor Leslie was out of the woods.

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power

111 North Hope Street

Los Angeles, California

  The 12-story pancake-like building that housed the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power was busy as usual.  The first shift people were already starting to gather in the cafeteria, ready to replace the third shift zombies, who would leave the darkness of the building and enter the ethereal world of morning in LA.

 
Unlike other Power Control Centers, the map on the wall consisted of LA County, with long distance lines to the outside; Mohave, Phoenix, Hoover, PG&E (the enemy) and San Diego. It was assumed that everyone in the outside world knew it to be a fact that the entire power grid in the Western United States was designed to feed electricity into the blenders and laptops of Los Angeles and Orange Counties in California.

 
At 6:40 PST, with the first-shift folk still lounging in the cafeteria, the shit hit the fan.

 
A very tired Sharon Evans, hating every minute of her third-shift “promotion” to shift supervisor along with its complete degradation of life-style, impossible rush-hour drive home at 7:30am, noticed a double-blinking of the Oregon-California Intertie light at the upper right-hand corner of her large map of LA and Orange Counties. Unlike “white lights lead to red lights” blinking lights on the electrical grid panel meant nothing but bad news.

 
Sharon, 48, built; no, stacked like a brick shithouse, and made the most of it, made a phone connection to BPA, only to hear the equivalent of the scene where the Enterprise comes out of warp and into the attack on Vulcan; people were yelling, equipment beeping, other sounds in the background.

 
“Jake, what the fuck is going on!” she shouted, drawing attention near her workstation from others, including her shift-mate Dave Higgins, 38, balding, on his second marriage, from Encino.

 
“Earthquake! The Montana Intertie is down!  Seattle and Portland are fucked!”

  ‘
Fucked’ wasn’t normally a word used on the day-to-day circuits because all conversations were taped “for performance reasons.”

 
“Richland is off-line; dams on the Snake River are out.”

 
“What aren’t you telling me, Jake?” asked Sharon.

 
“I’m going to have to cut the Mohave Intertie,“ the Power Control Specialist from Portland replied.

 
“You can’t do that, Jake!  You know that.”

 
Sharon began snapping her fingers and waving her hands to the crew that was getting ready to leave for the morning.

 
“Call Phoenix! Now! Hurry! God! We’re going to go down!” which was directed to her mate Dave Higgins, who was instantly alert.

 
“Ben or Jeremy; now, quickly!” urged Sharon.

Western Area Power Administration

Desert Southwest Region

Phoenix, Arizon
a

 
Ben Whitehorse picked up Sharon’s line on the first ring, just as he noticed unusual activity between Colorado and points north on his big map. Then the double red lines between Hoover to Mohave began to blink, indicating automatic re-routing was taking place; Hoover’s dick being sucked while Mohave was taking a break.

 
“Wait a minute. What’s happening here?” Ben slapped his desk hard enough for his partner Jeremy Dickson to wake up. 

 
The automated system was working without human intervention. Power was sapping out of the Oregon Intertie.  Why? His map didn’t show the other regions; otherwise he would have seen what was happening in Montana. Because of computer programming, LA was to get power from Hoover Dam directly and from Glen Canyon Dam via Phoenix.

 
The inmates were in charge of the prison.

  “No! You’re going to suck us dry.
Can’t do it!” shouted Ben Whitehorse.

 
“Have to have it, Ben!” answered Sharon, shouting.  “We’re going to go down like dominos. We have buys from BPA. Jake is shutting us down! Those cocksuckers at PG&E won’t budge!” which referred to the competing Pacific Gas and Electric Company in nearby San Francisco.

 
Ben and Jeremy looked at the cascading map. It would take hours for Glen Canyon to ramp up. Meanwhile the system was being drawn dry from the north (Colorado) and from the west (California). 

 
No way was he going to let Phoenix be plundered by juicers in Orange County.

 
“I see what’s happening, Sharon. BPA is trying to save what it can. The Montana Intertie is down; WAPA Upper Plains is shutting off the NW in order to protect itself.  Colorado appears to be fucked, but we’re not going to be in the same condition,” replied Ben Whitehorse.

 
“What do you mean, Ben?” Sharon’s voice was shrill.

 
“You need to shed load, Sharon! I mean, you need to shed load starting NOW!”

 
“Ben, you can’t—“

 
“In ten..nine..eight..goodbye, Sharon—“

 
Goodbye, California
.

Glasgow, Montana

  At 6:40 MST Robert O’Brien, 52, Undersecretary of the Bureau of Land Management, Department of the Interior, stepped out of the Campbell Lodge in Glasgow, Montana,
clean, comfortable and connected
their motto, and into the -5 degree early morning. On the road after a McDonald’s breakfast, complete with piping hot coffee, now not so hot to burn the roof of your mouth, your esophagus and your fucking left nut, but close.

 
The two-day update session in the regional office in Billings concluded yesterday afternoon and had gone well.  Changing his plans, Robert decided that since there was good weather in the forecast that he’d “do the circuit”, visit the six hydroelectric facilities along the Missouri River; talk to the workers, hear their gripes, their concerns, talk to management; in other words, to do what upper management was supposed to be doing.  

 
He’d start with the Fort Peck Dam in Montana, then east to Garrison Dam in North Dakota, the Oahe Dam near Pierre, South Dakota, nearby Big Bend Dam, the Fort Randall Dam on the South Dakota/Nebraska border and the Gavins Point Dam, further downstream; then take a flight back to Washington from Omaha. Fort Peck Dam had been “his” dam ten years ago, before he’d been promoted to Regional Administrator in Billings, then to DOI in Washington, finally to Undersecretary of the Bureau two years ago. It was life on the fast track. If the current administration won another term, Robert was in line to be Secretary of the Interior.

 
From Glasgow he drove ten minutes into the relentless morning sun to an intersection with a county road that led straight south from nowhere, then further into the middle of nowhere. He turned right and followed the single sign that read “Fort Peck Dam, 35 miles”. The 35 miles to the lake crossed some of the most desolate miles in the lower US.

 
At 7:20 the two-lane road began to vibrate, first up-and-down, then left-and-right. 

 
“Whoa!” he shouted, snapping to attention as his rental Ford Explorer started to do the boogie. This was immediately followed by
shit shit shit shit
as the earthquake refused to stop. Robert could do nothing but steer, like he was in a dodge-em at the county fair.

 
Holy shit! Jesus buddy!
The Explorer spin off the road did a neat 360 and somehow ended up sort-of headed in the same direction he was originally heading. The GPS lady on his car sounded like she had a corncob up her ass, changing directions so fast that she sounded more like Daffy Duck.  

 
“Recalculating.”

 
Shut up.

 
Robert turned the ignition off and opened the door.   What should have been no noise but the wind whistling across the sagebrush, instead was a deep rumble. It was hard to tell from where or where it was headed. In the distance he saw a herd of elk, terrified and headed anyplace but where they were. The sunlight from the east lit a cottonwood bunch that hadn’t surrendered its leaves from the previous season; with the violent shaking of the ground, the cottonwoods seemed to explode. 

 
Why did I take that job in DC?
 

  But, he knew the reason.
Dr. Nancy was his love and his entire life. That sweet woman was the reason he existed on earth. She had said it was OK; that they’d see each other soon and
I love you, darlin’; we’ll live apart for a while, ‘til I catch up with you in D.C.; besides, that’s why they make airplanes. Everything will be all right. 

 
Maybe it would be all right, but not right now.  Something terrible had happened. Robert listened for a few minutes. The ground shook softly now.
Rumble rumble rumble
.  The elk were gone. What happened to the road? Robert headed toward the road, maybe thirty feet away; the YOU’VE LEFT THE FUCKING DOOR OPEN sound from his car was annoying even the sagebrush.

  Robert was amazed.
The road was split asunder as the Bible said.
Asunder
was one of those great Bible words.  The trembling started to stop, like listening to the advancing thunderstorms and saying
it’s a little less like the end of the earth than it used to be a minute ago.

 
Mission oriented, Robert went back to the rental car with the GPS lady with a corncob up her ass and tried to make a call on his cell phone, which had slipped into the coffee holder between the seats. 

 
beep beep beep
like little bo fucking peep went the phone.

 
All circuits busy.

 
You’re six miles past West Jeezbutt. What do you think you’re going to get?

 
Robert turned back to the car but he stopped just as he was to get back into the driver’s seat. What’s that? He asked himself. I’ve never seen
that
before. In the far distance a black cloud rose from the horizon into the blue sky of the morning in the southwest. Robert O’Brien wasn’t a dodo. He wasn’t born yesterday or the day before yesterday; massive earthquakes. Cell phones were out; the road split asunder. Something is happening at Yellowstone.

 
Oh shit
was all Robert could mouth. Back in the car he was pleased then engine turned over.
Yes, it’s back on.  Yes, I have ¾ of a tank of gas.  Can I get back to the (highway?).
  He slipped the Explorer into 4x4, slowly got traction, dodged several tumbleweeds and came back to the broken pavement. Ahead in the distance was the huge 134-mile expanse of Fort Peck Lake.

 
Robert steered the Explorer south on the county highway.  He could feel the ground still trembling. The sausage egg McMuffin was doing flip-flops in his stomach. He tried the radio. He let it search two cycles on AM, then FM without a hit. The Explorer’s GPS screen was blank; at least he wouldn’t have to listen to that annoying woman again. Ten years ago he’d been the Power Control Manager as part of his fast-track management training, a government program that spotted good managers and got them assigned to jobs that emphasized both the importance of the bureau they worked for and the problems they encounter.

 
Robert knew the roads in Eastern Montana were like driving on packed ice, even in the summertime. All it took was a slick of rain and the relentless wind did the rest.  When it rained roads were difficult even to walk across, much less drive 60 mph; in fact, 40-45 was about tops for speed.

 
The dam itself, completed in 1943, was the largest earthen dam in the world and at one point was more than a mile wide. Four huge tunnels, 24 feet in diameter constructed of steel with three feet of concrete on the inside, connected the two sides of the dam. Two of the tunnels passed through the twin powerhouses downstream on the Missouri River side, while the other two allowed water to pass directly through the dam from Fort Peck Lake to the Missouri. In the power plants the water turned turbines which magically transformed the energy of falling water into electricity.

Ft. Peck Dam looking from the southeast; photo from the US Army Corps of Engineers; Robert O’Brien escapes to the bottom of the photo.

 
Are we OK?
  Robert thought, then glanced to the black blob in the far horizon to the west.
Probably not
was his realistic evaluation.
I need to call Nancy. She’ll be worrying.
Phones weren’t working. GPS wasn’t working.  Radio wasn’t working. 

 
We’re probably not OK.
He deduced.