Chapter Twenty eight
After the earthquake had passed, Jim Hart, the Davis Dam Power Plant head engineer, stood beside the control room of the switch yard with his men. The yard sat on high ground next to the dam. He had ordered his men off the dam during the worst of the tremors. He cast an eye over the structure which was sixty miles south of the Hoover dam; everything looked okay.
“What do you reckon Jim?” Trey Wylde, an electrical engineer, asked his boss.
“I’m not sure, that was a hell of a quake.”
His cell phone chimed into life. “Yeah, hullo.”
“Jim, its Ron White at Western Control Phoenix here. Listen, for Christ’s sake, you gotta get away from there! The Hoovers damaged, Laughlin and Bullhead will hopefully be evacuated. Just get yourselves up to higher ground.”
As he stuffed his mobile in his trouser pocket, a violent aftershock hit the area and a large fracture appeared at both sides of the far end of the reservoir.
“Jesus Jim, look!” Trey shouted as other engineers joined them.
A wall of water surged along the lake toward the dam.
“God! It’s too late,” said Jim as water rushed over rock promontories and islands.
The men watched in horror as the wave crashed into the earth-fill part of the dam and ripped it apart. The Forebay Bridge, which spanned the channel at the power plant, was partially destroyed as the wave rushed toward the main part of the already weakened dam.
Water smashed against the concrete, but it held and the wave flowed over the top. An upturned yacht from a nearby marina crashed into the dam and was held there by the force of the water.
A few miles south of the dam people ran around the large, white cuboids that were the Laughlin casinos and gazed in terror at the torrent rushing toward them. Some stood transfixed still in shock by the earth tremors, which had damaged extensive parts of the city; others ran into the buildings and headed for the stairs.
A police car drove around telling people to head for higher ground oblivious to the little time left before the wave struck. Confusion reigned as cars with people trying to escape south blocked Casino Drive, the main drag. Other escapee’s took Highway 163 to higher ground.
Cars and coaches were pushed into one another as the deluge surged through the town. Boats on the river were ripped from their moorings and swept downstream. The Laughlin Bridge was swept away with only some twisted metal left protruding above the speeding water level. The casino towers stuck out of the water like groynes at a beach during high tide as the wave hit the centre of residential Bullhead city, which lay within a bend of the Colorado. The wall of water paid no heed to the path of the river however and swept over the city taking parts of buildings with it and upturning vehicles. Many shocked citizens were swept away in the deadly current.
Water, a vital life ingredient, swept children away from their mothers and husbands away from their wives all in a gushing hell. Victims screamed in horror and disbelief when pulled from their normal existence.
The flood lost intensity as it hit the agricultural land south of Bullhead city. By the time it flowed into Lake Havasu most of the energy had dissipated, but the surface level of the lake had, however, risen enough to flood downtown Lake Havasu City.
The earthquake had turned the lower Colorado between Lake Mead and Lake Havasu into one large lake, the cost: the submerged cities of Laughlin and Bullhead along with many other smaller communities in the area.
People stood on the tops of towers in Laughlin and Bullhead waving frantically as helicopters flew over the expanse of water, but the first aircraft were looking for people still alive in the water.
Families appeared on the rooftops of their homes that lay on higher ground. Many survivors stood or sat at the waters edge after swimming or wading out of the flood. Emergency teams from unaffected surrounding towns were doing what they could to reach them.
Jim Hart paced back and forth with his cell phone held to one ear desperately ringing his home in Bullhead City, but there was no answer.
“Shit, I ain’t ever seen anything like this!” Trey said as he turned from looking at the flood with tears in his eyes.
“We can’t stay here, people; our families need our help. I’m going to look for my folks!”
“Yeah, let’s go!” shouted another man.
So the seven engineers set off over rough terrain with heavy hearts.