I'm in the process of organizing my image files and I came across this one, a scanned image dating to the the early 1990s.
At this time my husband was working at a hydroelectric plant in the Owens Valley on the Eastern front of the Sierra Nevada. To operate the power plant water is sent through a very large pipe, called a penstock, to a turbine that in turn turns a generator producing electricity.
On the night in question Hubby was at the power plant and I was home, soaking away the cares of the day in a hot bathtub. Suddenly there was a loud "BOOM" followed by a sound I could only describe as like a giant creature was tearing apart the aluminum shed in the yard. This was followed by the sound of rushing water. Now, the housing at the power plant was in a narrow gorge, downstream from a dam holding back a large reservoir. To say all of this was alarming is an understatement.
So I got out of the tub and headed over to the plant, picking my way through mud and debris to find out what was happening and see if I should evacuate. It was dark, our access road was washed out but I was assured that there was no danger and we would have to wait until morning to asses the situation.
So, what had happened? The "BOOM", that was a water hammer caused by the abrupt opening and closing of a value at the plant, it blew out this section of pipe. The sound of crumpling metal? Well, have you ever held a finger over the end of a straw and sucked on it and had it collapse? That is what had happened to the penstock. When the water rushed out a vacuum was created up above a place where the pipe narrowed called a venturi.
The company quickly repaired our access road and meanwhile the residents could use a road normally used only for official business. Repairing the penstock took a lot longer. I don't recall the distance of pipe that was damaged but I think it was over a mile and this happened at the end of the first gulf war where this large heavy gauge pipe was needed to repair the oilfields. It wasn't just the generation of electricity that was at stake, this was a major source of water for the city of Los Angeles!
A temporary work around was found to continue sending water downstream and a source was eventually found for the pipe. Men worked long hours to repair the damage but they got the job done surprisingly quickly.
Going through old files can be a walk down memory lane. This was my world many years ago, a place where I could hike and ride bicycles and have an occasional adventure.
Find more views of the world and maybe more stories at Our World, Tuesday.
7 comments:
The conversion of potential energy to kinetic energy is a scary thing. This was something new to me. Thanks for the education.
Very informative post ~ not sure I would want to experience it ~ Glad Godzilla is under control now ~
Happy Day to you,
A ShutterBug Explores,
aka (A Creative Harbor)
Informative post.
Hello, the loud boom would have scared me. I would not want to loose electricity or water, both are very important. Happy Tuesday, enjoy your day and the week ahead.
Nice to see you back on the meme circuit.
Worth a Thousand Words
What a story -- more fun to remember than to experience at the time. Thank goodness for the workers who stepped up and did their part. I always enjoy good stories from friends about their lives before I knew them.. did not know about what Jules did for work (though I remember a post about how you met, so maybe I knew but had forgotten (which is highly possible)..... And isn't blogging an interesting thing -- on checking this comment for auto-correct typos, I realize that I talked about knowing friends just as if we were next door neighbors. I definitely do feel like that about certain special blog friends!
Cool photo, it can be a walk down memory lane but pretty boring. I'm trying to get all the photos off my computer and on to thumb drives and removable hard drives. Very tedious stuff.
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