Go On a Dam Tour of Hoover Dam
Excerpt from Diva Las Vegas part of the Teresa the Traveler series of books.
I woke up at 7am and walked to Bally’s to meet my tour bus at the valet entrance on Flamingo road. A small “Pope Mobile” stopped and a cheerful lady around my age walked out and asked if I was Teresa Cline. That was my first encounter with stand up comedian Joni MacLaine.
Thanks to Joni, the 45-minute drive from Las Vegas to Hoover Dam flew by. She entertained us with a combination of stand up comedy and historical information. Little did I know that the tour I booked was with a company called Comedy on Deck. This company provides high-end tours to Hoover Dam, The Grand Canyon, Red Rock Canyon and the Las Vegas Strip. They have the reputation of being one of the best tour companies in Las Vegas utilizing stand up comedians and field experts as their guides.
By the time we reached the dam I felt like I was on a tour with a group of my best friends. Joni had a unique way of bringing people together with her quirky sense of humour. Our group came from all over the world. We had a guy from Romania with his wife from the Philippines, a couple from Australia and some people from different parts of the US and me representing Canada.
My heart began to pound when the dam came into view. I had watched a number of documentaries and read countless books about the construction of what at one time considered the 8th wonder of the world. As we drove across the dam, Joni pointed out the Arizona and Nevada spillways – concrete-lined open channels about 650 feet long and 150 feet wide and 170 feet deep on each canyon wall. The spillways are a safety feature acting much the same as the overflow drain on a bathtub. If the water levels in Lake Mead were to rise too high the water would flow out the spillways into the river rather than spill over the dam causing damage to the structure. They have only been used 3 times; once in 1941 for testing, then once in 1983 and 1999 when heavy precipitation filled the lake.
When we got to the Arizona side we stopped at a viewing area so we could take pictures of the four intake towers. These towers are both beautiful and functional. Each is a hollow concrete cylinder with an internal diameter of 29 ft 8 inches. They control the flow of water for the production of electricity, supply of downstream water requirements and regulation of reservoir levels. Did I mention that the dam is located right on the boarder of Arizona and Nevada? There is a state line right in the middle of the dam – if you stand with one foot on each side you will be standing in two different states in two different time zones.
We drove back across the dam, got off the bus and walked to the center of the structure and as we looked over the edge of the huge concrete wall Joni regaled us with stories of the brave men who built the dam. Since it was during the depression, there was no shortage of men applying for dam jobs. Regular labourers were paid $4 a day, the guys who scaled the canyon walls to insert explosives made $5.75 and those who went into the caves after the explosions to see if it was safe to enter got $8.
I woke up at 7am and walked to Bally’s to meet my tour bus at the valet entrance on Flamingo road. A small “Pope Mobile” stopped and a cheerful lady around my age walked out and asked if I was Teresa Cline. That was my first encounter with stand up comedian Joni MacLaine.
Thanks to Joni, the 45-minute drive from Las Vegas to Hoover Dam flew by. She entertained us with a combination of stand up comedy and historical information. Little did I know that the tour I booked was with a company called Comedy on Deck. This company provides high-end tours to Hoover Dam, The Grand Canyon, Red Rock Canyon and the Las Vegas Strip. They have the reputation of being one of the best tour companies in Las Vegas utilizing stand up comedians and field experts as their guides.
By the time we reached the dam I felt like I was on a tour with a group of my best friends. Joni had a unique way of bringing people together with her quirky sense of humour. Our group came from all over the world. We had a guy from Romania with his wife from the Philippines, a couple from Australia and some people from different parts of the US and me representing Canada.
My heart began to pound when the dam came into view. I had watched a number of documentaries and read countless books about the construction of what at one time considered the 8th wonder of the world. As we drove across the dam, Joni pointed out the Arizona and Nevada spillways – concrete-lined open channels about 650 feet long and 150 feet wide and 170 feet deep on each canyon wall. The spillways are a safety feature acting much the same as the overflow drain on a bathtub. If the water levels in Lake Mead were to rise too high the water would flow out the spillways into the river rather than spill over the dam causing damage to the structure. They have only been used 3 times; once in 1941 for testing, then once in 1983 and 1999 when heavy precipitation filled the lake.
When we got to the Arizona side we stopped at a viewing area so we could take pictures of the four intake towers. These towers are both beautiful and functional. Each is a hollow concrete cylinder with an internal diameter of 29 ft 8 inches. They control the flow of water for the production of electricity, supply of downstream water requirements and regulation of reservoir levels. Did I mention that the dam is located right on the boarder of Arizona and Nevada? There is a state line right in the middle of the dam – if you stand with one foot on each side you will be standing in two different states in two different time zones.
We drove back across the dam, got off the bus and walked to the center of the structure and as we looked over the edge of the huge concrete wall Joni regaled us with stories of the brave men who built the dam. Since it was during the depression, there was no shortage of men applying for dam jobs. Regular labourers were paid $4 a day, the guys who scaled the canyon walls to insert explosives made $5.75 and those who went into the caves after the explosions to see if it was safe to enter got $8.
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The years when the dam was built were some of the hottest in the history of the area and many of the men suffered from heat stroke and dehydration because they were not allowed to drink water until their break times. Fortunately the brainiacs in charge eventually realized this was a bad policy and arranged for water to be readily available throughout the day.
There were 112 deaths officially associated with the construction of the dam. That was probably considered good by the standards of the day but would be completely unacceptable by today’s safety standards. A popular dam story states that the first man to die during construction was a surveyor who drowned while looking for an ideal spot to build and exactly 13 years later his son was the last person to die during construction. I have no idea if this is true or just urban legend but I do know that contrary to popular belief, there are no bodies buried in the dam concrete. Each 8-yard bucket of concrete only raised the level about 2 feet – not quite enough to bury someone. However, there was an accident where 100 tons of wet concrete slid like lava down the central slot of the dam sweeping a worker to his death. No one knows the true number of deaths associated with the construction of the dam because many deaths such as heat stroke and heart failure were not considered dam deaths. In fact many men who were in the tunnels after the explosions died of carbon monoxide poisoning but were diagnosed as having pneumonia and their deaths were ruled as having nothing to do with construction. Joni told us that even after construction was complete the dam still claimed more human lives due to a number of dam jumpers. Anytime you built a tall structure people inevitably want to jump off it. It is unknown how many dam deaths there have been as a result of dam jumpers but Joni told us she saw the police boats looking for a body during one of her dam tours. Apparently they built a dam fence hoping to deter the dam jumpers but they just climbed the dam fence. The next part of our dam tour took place inside the dam powerhouse where the hydro-electricity is made. We took the dam elevator down the equivalent of 44-stories then walked a block down a dam tunnel to get to the dam plant – the U-shaped structure at the bottom of the dam. A different dam guide gave us a tour of the powerhouse. I was surprised to learn that the flow of water through the dam is determined by the demand for water downstream, not for power which is secondary but allows the dam to be self-sustaining. Water passes through the turbines at a speed of 137 km/h. Electrical energy in turn leaves the 3-phase 60–cycle, 82,500 KVA generator terminals at 16,500 volts. It must then pass through three 55,000 KVA single phase transformers where it is raised to 287,500 volts to be transmitted. For those of you who don’t understand all that electrical jargon let me simplify it for you. Water makes a big thing spin and electricity is magically created. It then travels to Las Vegas on those big wires (the ones birds often sit on) and is used to make huge neon signs on the strip light up so that when you are drunk and trying to stagger back to your hotel in the middle of the night you can see it from a mile away. When the tour was over we headed back to the bus to meet Joni so we could make our way to Boulder City for a visit. |
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