Roland Blackwell looked around confused for a second, then glared at Grant. "When did you tell them the flood would arrive?"
Grant's mouth still hung open from being fired. He looked at his watch and tried to get his brain moving again. "Uh, in the next few hours, I think."
"You think?" the commissioner bellowed.
The governor raised his voice. "Commissioner Blackwell, we have two or three hours to high levels. What are your instructions? Do you wish me to halt construction on the dike we are building?"
Commissioner Roland Blackwell looked scared. "There's not enough time to make any intelligent — "
The governor raised his voice. "Do you want me to halt construction?"
Roland must have realized the hole he'd dug himself into. "I need to confer with my team for a few minutes."
The governor folded his arms as if he were waiting.
"In private!" said the commissioner. He looked around. "Don't you have a room someplace?"
Fred motioned to the small theater they'd been using as a conference room. Roland and his two sidekicks started walking. Grant stood still. The three men had barely disappeared into the theater before one of them stuck his head back out.
"Stevens, get in here!" he said.
The governor held out his arm to block Grant. "I thought you just fired this man?"
The Bureau man's head disappeared for a moment, and then reappeared. "You're not fired Stevens. Now get in here."
Grant walked into the small conference room to find them all sitting, Roland massaging his temples with both hands. Grant shut the door behind him and one of Roland's men motioned him to a seat. In spite of the way he'd been treated, Grant understood how the commissioner felt. He was in over his head. The modern Bureau focused on politics, budgets, and schmoozing, not flood dynamics and disaster mitigation. However, compassion or not, the commissioner had already jettisoned him with little concern for Grant's well-being. Grant knew he had to tread very carefully for the next few minutes.
The commissioner started talking without looking up. "You've put me in a difficult situation here, Stevens."
Grant wanted to point out that he felt like he was in an even worse situation, but thought better.
Roland looked up at him. "What the hell is that dike out there? How did you come up with that crazy scheme?"
Grant tried to choose his words carefully. "I used the Bureau's research from the late nineties. According to the report, over sixty feet of water would breech Hoover, or about two million cubic feet per second."
Grant saw Roland's jaw drop, but he kept going. "As you know, that would wipe out Hoover, and most of the dams downstream." He paused in case the group had any comments, but they remained silent. "We knew that water levels in both Mead and Powell were below maximum due to the drought, so we had to estimate the new flood levels compared to the research. With the lower levels, we calculated just over fifteen feet would still overtop, which I reduced a few feet by blowing the spillways." Grant hadn't meant to talk about the spillways yet.
The commissioner's head came up. "What? What do you mean 'blowing the spillways?'"
Grant wanted to get the subject back to Hoover-Two, but didn't know how. "When I arrived here yesterday, they weren't dumping as much water as I told them to. I'd called them from Glen Canyon and told them to open everything, all the gates. But when I arrived, the governor was here, preventing them from opening the gates. They wanted more time to evacuate downstream."
"Yeah?" Roland prompted.
"Well, I had to explain to the governor what would happen if he didn't start dumping immediately." Grant smiled a little. "I had to scare him. I asked him if he wanted to take responsibility if Hoover failed and wiped out everything downstream."
"Go on." The commissioner looked perplexed. "What about the spillways?"
"Well, after we convinced the governor to open all the gates, we were still only dumping about 75,000 cubic feet per second. And I knew that the spillways could handle almost 400,000 between them, but by the time the floodwater arrived and rose high enough to spill, it'd be too late. So I convinced the governor to bring in a demolition team and open 'em up."
Stuart Jaconi, one of Roland's sidekicks, shook his head. "How many dollars worth of damage do you think you caused?"
Grant tore into him. "Less than what it would've cost to rebuild Hoover and the other dams downstream."
"You don't know Hoover would have failed. We don't even know if your numbers are right."
Roland held out his hand to call off Jaconi then looked back at Grant. "Did anyone check your numbers?"
Grant nodded. "Of course. Bruce's team checked 'em. We're within a couple of feet."
"What difference did you say blowing the spillways will make?" Roland asked hesitantly.
"We figure that by the time the water is high enough to go over the dam, we will have dropped the lake almost three feet."
Roland surprised Grant by his next comment, and judging by their expressions, he surprised his men also. "I'm not sure I would have done it, but I understand your logic in opening the spillways." He pointed out of the room. "Now I want to hear about that sandbag circus out there."
Grant continued. "Well, we still expected between ten and fifteen feet of water to spill over the top of Hoover, and even that, we knew, would take out Davis Dam downstream and cause millions of dollars worth of damage to Hoover, especially the generation plants. We felt that even ten feet topping Hoover could potentially break it, especially since it will be topped for almost two months."
Jaconi interrupted. "How could you be sure Davis would fail?"
Grant talked down to him like he would to a child. "Davis Dam is a land fill. It's made of dirt. How much water over the top do you think it could stand?"
"I know what a land fill is," he retorted, but he immediately shut up.
"Go on, Stevens," the commissioner urged.
"We knew that Davis was a goner, but I was surprised to find out that Davis held over three times as much water as Lake Havasu downstream. Therefore, when Davis failed, it would definitely take out Parker Dam downstream with it."
"What about the dams downstream from Parker?" asked the commissioner.
"Oh, we'll lose them regardless," Grant stated unemotionally.
Jaconi stood. "How can you be sure of that?
Grant faced him. "Easy math, Stuart. Their spillways aren't nearly as big as Hoover, Davis, and Parker. Since the big spillways will be running at capacity, the smaller dams will definitely get topped."
Roland put his hand over Jaconi's, an unspoken command to shut up. "Please continue, Stevens."
"Anyway, we were fairly certain that we couldn't save Davis and Parker. We were concentrating mostly on how to mitigate the damage. It was frustrating. Finally, in desperation, we concluded that if Hoover were only fifteen feet higher… and…" Grant motioned toward the dam. "In fact, the more we thought about it, the more we realized we might be able to save all three dams with a twenty foot dike."
The commissioner thought about it. He looked around at the others who were silent, then looked back at Grant. "What if the sandbags don't hold?"
Grant shrugged. "Then ten feet of water would spill, the same as if we hadn't built it." Grant stood on his feet, sucked up the pain from the sore toe, and walked over close to the commissioner and leaned down close. "But what if it does hold, Commissioner?"
Roland turned and scanned the eyes of his men, then looked back at Grant, hesitating for a few moments. "Stevens, I'm going to let you keep working on the dike." He rubbed his temples again. "Things aren't as bad as they seemed when I first arrived. I'll tell the governor we are proceeding." He looked directly at Grant. "But make sure it doesn't fail. I don't have to tell you that the Bureau can't win in this deal. The publicity from Glen Canyon and the other dams downstream that we're going to lose is going to kill us."