Judy got an excited look on her face. "You've never seen it this high, right? So if this experimental dump lasts for a few days, does that mean we're going to have the best white water you have ever done Keller?"
All eyes were on Keller.
"Yeah, I guess so. This is higher than I've ever seen it." He shrugged. "It'll definitely make for good whitewater, but right now we need to find a campsite."
David wasn't good at reading Keller, but he didn't need to read minds to see that Keller was nervous.
Back inside the visitor center, Grant, Fred, and Shauna sat over by the large windows looking over the canyon. They could hear the governor talking on his cell phone. Shauna stood, and asked Fred where the restrooms were. He motioned down the hall. Fred and Grant waited in silence for a moment before Grant spoke.
"What's going on at Davis and Parker Dams?"
Fred looked nervous. "Not enough. I told them what you told me, to open everything, but they wouldn't hear it. They wanted more time."
Grant looked pleadingly at Fred. "Look, I've never been to Davis, so I'm not too familiar with it. What's the flow capacity of its spillways?"
Fred looked at his watch, as it if the answer were inscribed on it, then looked back up "I'm not exactly sure, but I think Davis can handle around the same as Hoover, 75,000 cubic feet per second through the water works and another 400,000 through the spillways."
Grant furrowed his brows. "That's not enough." He hesitated for a moment. "It won't be able to keep up. It needs to be more than Hoover. When water starts going over the top of Hoover, Davis won't be able to dump fast enough. Lake Mojave's water level is going to rise like crazy."
Fred held out his hands. "What can we do about that?"
"Well there's going to be some flooding on the banks. The water will definitely go over the dam. We'll just have to hope she holds."
Fred got a terrified look on his face. He spoke so softly that Grant barely understood. "Davis is a landfill."
"What?" That didn't jive with what Grant remembered. "I've never been there, but I've seen pictures of the structure. I thought ―"
Fred shook his head. "It's definitely a landfill. The water works are concrete, and so are the spillways, but the levy creating the dam is rock and dirt. It definitely can't be breached. Overtopping would break it in five minutes. It'd drain Lake Mojave."
Grant remembered an aerial picture, taken at night, of Davis Dam and the Casinos downstream. The concrete waterworks were off to the side of the earth dam. "Damn! What about Parker downstream, it's definitely concrete, right?" Grant remembered Parker Dam. Parker was a semi-circle shaped concrete arch dam wedged into a tight canyon.
Fred nodded. "Parker is concrete, not a landfill."
"That's good, but it probably doesn't matter. It wouldn't hold if Davis busted upstream, and Lake Mojave drained into Lake Havasu. Would it?"
Fred rubbed his eyes. "Lake Mojave is almost three times bigger than Lake Havasu. The flood would definitely bust Parker."
Grant sat back in the chair and looked up at the ceiling. According to simple math, Davis Dam could not keep up with the water coming out of Hoover, even if only a foot of water went over the top of Hoover Dam. The water flow would overwhelm the output capacity of Davis Dam. He slowly looked up at Fred and held out his hands. "We can't save Davis, can we?"
Fred shook his head. He had obviously come to the same conclusion.
Grant slouched back into his chair. "How big is Lake Mojave?" Grant's voice was lifeless.
"Just over a half a trillion gallons. A little over five percent the size of Lake Mead."
"And Lake Havasu is only a third of that?"
Fred answered without hesitation. "Yeah, only a couple hundred billion gallons."
Grant thought it over. "Well according to the report from the Bureau, the water probably won't breach Hoover until tomorrow morning. Figure a couple more hours after that before Lake Mojave rises high enough to bust Davis. I'd say by noon tomorrow, we're looking at the second biggest flood in North America since the ice age."
Fred stared at Grant with a confused look. "What's the biggest?"
Grant pointed out at Lake Mead. "The one that's already headed our way from Glen Canyon."
Fred's eyes glazed over. "Oh yeah. I forgot about that one."
Grant sat up. "Hang on." He stood and looked downstream as if he could see all the way to Davis Dam. "If Davis is going to collapse anyway, why don't we turn it loose early, before the water gets down here?"
Fred wasn't following. "What do you mean?"
"We could get a couple bulldozers up on the dike and dig a little trench. All we'd have to do is get it started. The water would finish it"
Fred caught up. "You mean bust Davis ourselves? Break open the dam? What good will that do?"
"It'll spread out the damage a little. The water we let go, will be a lot less than Lake Mojave tomorrow at noon when it's ready to overflow."
Fred waved his hands back and forth. "I don't see what difference it'll make. It's still going to flood all the houses in Laughlin and Bullhead City, and bust through Parker Dam. Plus it'll leave even less time to evacuate the area."
Grant couldn't deny Fred's logic. "Is there anyway to drain Havasu at the same time? I wonder if we can blow Parker Dam and drain some of the water out of Havasu before we bust Davis?"
Fred didn't respond. He looked around as if he was afraid somebody else was listening.
Grant got back to basics. "Look, let's go get the governor and at least get him to make the calls to get Davis and Parker to open the gates.
Fred held his hands out in front of him. "You're not going to say anything about busting the other two dams yet are you?"
Grant shook his head. "No, we'll wait to bring that up until after we get the gates open."
Fred stood and they both went to find the governor.
Julie stopped to wait. Paul set down his armload of blankets on a clean rock. Erika sat down on a muddy rock, too tired to worry about getting dirty. Erika had been limping slightly and she showed Julie what was going to be an awful bruise on her hip from her leap from the houseboat. They waited for Max and Darlene. Darlene was traveling very slowly and was holding the group up.
Julie guessed they had started hiking down from the remains of the houseboat more than a half hour before. Julie's ankles and feet were aching even with the tennis shoes. She was also thirsty, and hungry. She realized now, that they should have searched through the remains of the houseboat for some food. Too bad she had not thought of that until it was too late.
As soon as Darlene and Max reached them, Paul started walking again. "Let's keep moving."
Julie helped Erika up. She had mud on her legs from the rock. As they walked Julie thought about brushing it off, but decided to ignore it. She was too tired to care and felt sure that Erika felt the same. Darlene and Max followed behind.
After they walked for a few minutes, Paul stopped and turned around, facing the girls. "Is this the section where Greg dropped us off?"
Julie looked around. "I don't think so. It looks completely different."
Erika nodded. "Yeah, it is. It just looks different because all this was underwater." She pointed at some rocks. "See, that's the ridge over there we walked along after we got out of the boat."
Julie stared for a moment before her eyes confirmed it. "Wow. Good thing we didn't leave the boat here like I wanted to, huh?" She managed a small smile. There were only a couple pools left with trapped water, none very large. The pool she and Erika had swum through was empty.