Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Colorado River (54 page)

Julie's eyes locked onto both ends of where the
Glen
Canyon
Bridge
had been the day before. The highway abruptly ended on both sides. It looked like an optical illusion for a road to just end like that.

Paul led them to the far right of the barrier so they could see better around the visitor center, which was partially obscuring their view of the dam.
Like Julie had seen the night before, jagged concrete protruded from the sandstone walls where the dam had been.
The water had dropped substantially since she and Greg had almost been sucked over the dam. Julie could see that the water flow had also decreased from the night before.

She looked upstream and saw the wet vertical rock canyons. She tried to imagine what
Lake
Powell
must look like upstream. The large bodies of water like
Padre
Bay
must be empty. She couldn't believe it.
Lake
Powell
was gone, replaced by a narrow winding river.

CHAPTER 33

12:10 p.m. - South of Parker Dam, California/Arizona

The helicopter followed the
Colorado River
downstream from the dam as it wound gracefully through jagged rock canyons. The river was lined with mobile homes, cabins, and houses, leaving almost no gaps. The few small spaces were filled with trees and other green vegetation. The river bottoms contrasted dramatically with the dry barren mountains just a hundred feet away.

The increased flow from all five spillways had upset the serenity. Many of the homes that bordered the river were partially underwater. Only a mile downstream from the dam, the river had torn out a row of mobile homes and piled them in a small park. Grant could still see the tops of a playground. From the air it was obvious the water flowed out of its banks, swirling around homes, through back yards, and even down a small street, the road only identifiable by the protruding mailboxes.

Normally the
river ran turquoise and clean
below the dam, but today was different. Garbage, papers, trashcans, clothes, and whatever else the river had encountered littered the surface of the water. In one place Grant saw something incredibly large rolling in the water downstream briefly before it sunk. Only afterwards did he realize it had been a car, a Volkswagen Beetle. It took a moment for his mind to assimilate it. Farther downstream, he saw two mobile homes in the middle of the river.

Grant saw many residents, standing, huddled together in groups at higher elevations on the shores. They all acted the same, standing stationary like zombies, staring at the destruction of their lives and property. At least they'd had the presence to hike a few feet up the hill and save themselves.

Grant heard a scream in his headphones.

"It's a body!" Shauna said, pointing ahead to the left of the chopper.

The corpse floated face down still fully clothed. The long-sleeved flannel shirt and the worn denims were still identifiable. The hair, which was either
white,
or more likely gray, gave Grant the impression that the unlucky victim was an old man.

Grant knew there were two types of drowning cases. One group resisted taking the water into their lungs until the very end, the carbon dioxide building up and increasing their panic level until they finally lost consciousness. When divers found this type of body, they were tense with eyes wide open and teeth clenched. The other type sucked in the water and tried to
breath
it. In these cases the panic was replaced with a calmness or state of well-being right before they died. These bodies were found relaxed with eyes closed, and sometimes with smiles on their faces.

Grant had read a study on the two types of drowning, where the hypothesis was verified by interviewing survivors, people who had drowned and were later revived. The ones that
respired
the water described the calmness that followed. More than one had used the words "this isn't that bad" in their descriptions.

Hopefully the old man floating face down on the
Colorado River
had ultimately breathed in the water. The fact that he was still floating was not a good sign. It could mean there was still air in his lungs.

He heard sniffling in the headphones as they passed over the body and flew downstream. He didn't have to look back to see that Shauna was crying. He wanted to say something to reassure her like "don't worry, everything will be all right." But that wasn't true, was it?
Especially for the old man.
He couldn't think of anything to say, so he said nothing. Although Grant knew many had died on the
Colorado River
over the last two days, it was the first he or Shauna had witnessed.

Up ahead the river widened. A dam was barely visible downstream - Headgate Rock Dam. Headgate Rock was only fourteen miles below Parker Dam. The resulting reservoir,
Lake
Moovalya
, was even smaller than he expected. In fact, it hardly seemed like a lake at all.

Only one hotel, the Bluewater Casino, had been built on the banks of the lake. Since the casino sat on the
Arizona
side of the river, Grant knew it had to be owned by the Indians. In fact, that explained why it was the only structure on the lower part of the lake. The land was probably part of the Colorado River Indian reservation.

The hotel was huge with walls of glass facing the lake. A medium-sized marina extended from the hotel. On the river's edge sat a small shack with a bar right on the river. However, all was not right with the Bluewater Casino. The jetty supporting the bar was underwater, only visible from the helicopter. Two men sloshed through waste-deep water with armfuls of bottles from the bar. The docks in the marina floated and were safe, but the base of the hotel and the dockside sidewalks were underwater.

On his right Grant could see where the highway bordering the west side of the lake now ran right down into the water. Stranded cars had stopped and their drivers stood next to them. No boats could be seen on the small lake.

"Now I know why they call it Headgate Rock Dam," said Lloyd.

Grant nodded in agreement. In the middle of the river channel, just past the Bluewater Casino, was a large black rock formation, obviously Headgate Rock. On the west side of the rock, stretching to the
California
shore,
was an earth dike, topped with dark red and black rocks. On the east side, slightly downstream from Headgate Rock, was the concrete waterworks including seven square spillways. A smaller earth fill dike connected the concrete structure to the big rock. Like Parker, this dam had a large square concrete structure above each square spillway to pull the head gates up into. Unlike Parker, the head gates were already up all the way.

Lloyd's voice was in the headphones. "Where do you want me to put us?"

"When we get closer, slow down a little, get a little lower,
then
fly across the downstream side of it. It looks like the water hasn't breached yet. We're going to be just in time to see this fiasco." Grant wondered why it hadn't breached yet. He'd expected the water to be high enough already.

Without looking back, Grant spoke into the headphones. "Shauna, didn't we expect the dam to be getting topped by now?"

"Yeah, but only a few minutes ago."
As she spoke, the helicopter flew over the crest of the dam.

Grant had meant to look down, check out the spillways, and assess the dam itself, but something else had caught his eye. Immediately below Headgate Rock Dam, right in the river bottoms on the
Arizona
side, was a whole community of mobile homes. They were packed together like sardines, stretching all the way down toward a railroad bridge about a mile downstream. They would be obliterated when the dam let go. It was unavoidable and he knew it. He didn't see any people walking around. Hopefully they had cleared out. If not, there would be many more floating bodies.

When he finally looked down, the spillways were blasting. "Wow, look at 'em. No wonder it hasn't breached yet. They're dumping a ton of water. They must have lowered the lake to get ready." He turned and looked over his shoulder at Shauna. "What's the exact capacity of those spillways?"

"Originally they were designed for 200,000 cubic feet per second, but when they modified the dam to generate electricity, they actually built the water works into a couple of the spillways. That reduced their total capacity to around a 140,000."

Grant considered the numbers. Headgate Rock could handle a 140,000, and almost 500,000
was
headed for it. It did not take a genius to understand that Headgate Rock Dam was not going to survive.

"Hey, should those guys be standing down there?" Grant recognized the FBI agent's voice in the headphones. He turned and saw her point off to what was now their right side, as the helicopter had turned and now faced upstream.

Lloyd pivoted the helicopter slightly and Grant saw that a pickup had driven down the steep road and parked in the small parking lot near the generation plant. Three men stood by the truck looking up at the dam. One of them wore a yellow hard hat. The truck was close enough for Grant to make out BIA on the truck door, for Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Shauna answered. "No, they shouldn't be there. If the dam breaks on that side, they won't stand a chance."

Grant heard the pilot's voice. "How much time do we have?"

"It can't be long. Let's fly back over the crest and see if we can see any low points."

The helicopter tilted forward and dropped toward the dam.

"Look on the left side of the spillways," yelled Shauna, a little too loud for the headphones.

Grant saw a small stream of water was now running over the top of the cement.

"It's on both sides now," said Agent Williams.

"Does that mean the concrete part of the dam is what's going to fail?" asked Lloyd, somewhat unsure of himself.

Grant shook his head. "No, the dikes are way softer. The water's going to carve into that gravel right next to the concrete. They would have been much better off if they had listened to us, and broken the dike themselves. Now it looks like it's going to break right next to the concrete."

"Is that bad?"

"It might be. Remember this flood will last for two months. With all that water flowing right next to the structure, it'll definitely damage it."

"Look," Shauna said. "It's starting to carve into the banks. Look how dirty the water's getting."

Grant saw that the volume of water had increased substantially over the top of the concrete. He remembered the truck and the three men. "We better get back and tell those guys to get outta there." He looked over at the pilot. "You got a PA in this thing?"

"Sure thing."

The helicopter banked hard and flew back toward the truck. Grant saw that the men hadn't stayed put, but had walked closer to the dam. As Lloyd maneuvered the helicopter lower, the rotors blew toward the men, making them put their arms in front of their faces.

Lloyd flipped a switch and gave Grant
a quick
thumbs up, before grabbing back onto the controls. At first Grant didn't know what to do, expecting a hand-held mic. He looked over at Lloyd, confused.

"Just speak," said the pilot, and Grant heard Lloyd's voice from the outside as well as through the headphones.

Grant tried to remember what he needed to say. "People, the dam is about to break."

None of them seemed to be looking as they shielded their eyes from the turbulence.

"Please, hurry back to your truck and get clear of the area!"

Incredibly, one of the three men, the one in the hard hat, waved the helicopter aside. They weren't moving. Grant looked over at Lloyd and the pilot shrugged. The man continued motioning for the helicopter to move.

Lloyd flipped the PA switch off. "What do you want me to do?"

Grant was angry. "We warned them. What else can we do?"

Lloyd immediately lifted the helicopter out of their way. Grant wondered if the man was the moron Shauna had talked to on the phone at the Bureau of Indian Affairs. That guy was an idiot. She had tried everything to reason with him. But the guy wouldn't budge. He kept telling Shauna there wasn't any way he was going to intentionally break his own dam. Deep down, Shauna didn't think the guy actually believed Headgate Rock Dam would fail. He had chosen to not believe it, as if that would prevent the whole tragedy from happening.

As soon as Lloyd had moved the chopper out of their way the men continued walking toward the concrete structure.

"Look, there are two more guys over by the spillways," Agent Williams said.

Sure enough, two men stood next to the spillways. Grant wondered if they had been inside the structure a few minutes before.

Lloyd moved the helicopter higher and back toward the concrete structure. Looking up where the breach first occurred, Grant saw that over five feet of water was pouring over the top of the structure, both edges being noticeably dirty water. He wondered if the five idiots below had noticed the breach.