Vaxdemic Book 2 Chapter 16
Chapter 16
A war has started outside the dam. I wish I was exaggerating. Shortly after we arrived the men on the walls came under fire from a group in the woods. It’s not like I expected war to be, but then the number of people fighting is much smaller than the wars I read about, or saw in video games. We have about fifty people behind the walls on the east side of the dam. The west side of the dam is blocked by cliffs and drop offs. There are very few trees on that side and it would be suicide to attempt to climb it. We have one or two people always watching that direction just in case.
We lost a man on the very first day, but have lost almost no one since. The initial volley of weapons fire hitting the eastern wall made us think there had to be hundreds of people shooting at us. A scouting party went into the woods across the road that night and found that several guns had been set up to fire by themselves using timers. Whoever’s attacking us it trying to make us think they’re larger than they are. I say whoever, because we haven’t actually caught any of the attackers alive. That doesn’t stop the sound of gunfire which can be heard at all hours.
It's not as much as I would have thought. There have been heated exchanges that last five to ten minutes followed by hours of silence. On that note, I really have to hand it to the guys who built the wall. It’s intermittent layers of wood and metal filled concrete. I wanted to get more information from the guys who built it, but that hasn’t been an option. Garv and myself have been confined to the generator room. I volunteered to help fight, but Matt told me we were too valuable to lose. The equipment for the hoist was moved down here by some of Matt’s men, and beds were placed in the corners for us to sleep. Buckets are changed out for, other unsavory things. Basically, every precaution is being used to keep us from exposure to enemies.
So, what else could we do? We got to work. Matt left detailed instructions on the construction of the hoist. It’s a massive thing that has to be anchored to the floor. It’s also unbelievably heavy. I’m stronger than I was. Two years of farming have giving me much bigger arms than the soft twigs I had before. The same cannot be said of Garv, who looks a little more like a bearded skeleton. He says he once weighed nearly 300 lbs. I’d be surprised if all six feet of him were 140 now. Disappointing as it is to be the bigger stronger one of the group, we made decent progress in assembling the monstrous frame. Anchoring to the floor required a bit of help.
The electric system we have at the dam has been added to in my absence. It is now not only capable of running the lights and Garv’s computers, but also three big refrigerators used to store food. It unfortunately didn’t account for the big drill called a hole hog we had to use to drill holes in to the cement. I had no idea they made drill of this size, I thought it was a jackhammer the first time I saw it. The first time we used it we were half way done with the first hole when the lights when out and everything stopped working. It took about a half hour to get everything running again. Garv has taken the emergency step of shutting off his computers which has bought us an extra 15 minutes with the drill. It took us two days to put together the hoist for the turbine, and another day for Matt to check it. We did some stuff wrong which took the rest of the week to correct.
According to Matt the hoist is actually a crane. He says they use similar ones in factories all the time. The main difference is this one is manual and had to be specially made. Finally, the day came to remove the turbine. Matt has spent most of his time at the wall, but this was something we needed help with. At first, we thought the three of us could handle the move. It ended up taking two of us to work the chain the raised the turbine from its housing. With Matt and myself doing the lifting, that left Garv to push it to the blocks we set out for it to rest on and keep the blades from bending. Despite his struggling, grunting, and shoe sliding, the turbine remained unmoved.
It eventually took another three people to push the turbine to it’s temporary resting place. Then one of the blocks was crushed and we had to try again. After a whole day, several more blocks, and some panicked inspections to make sure the turbine was undamaged it finally rested twenty feet from where it started. What a mess it left behind. When standing at the housing, you could see the areas we’d been able to reach was only about two thirds of what needed to be done. Rust lay next to the clean shiny patches we had covered over the winter, but the biggest problem of all was the large cracked bearing that lay at the center of the housing. I’m glad we had the hoist because there was no way anyone was picking that thing up. It also took some percussive maintenance to free it from it’s spot. No sooner had we freed it, did it fall apart. Massive ball bearings the size of cantaloupes rolled in every direction. This was going to complicate the fixing.
Matt brought several other bearings, but had not counted on one of this size. After assembling all the pieces, he took some measurements and made a note for his son. I had no doubt his son was capable, but I wasn’t sure he would be able to make something on this scale. Never the less, he took some of the pieces and gave them to one of his men, who promptly hoped on a motorcycle in the dark of night and left to deliver the message. We heard some shots ring out, but soon saw the bikes headlight traveling in the distance. All we could do was hope it was the same man riding it.
This left Garv and myself to finish removing the rust from the generator. On the plus side the rust on the newly exposed areas isn’t very thick. On the negative side, we’re going to have to strip the protective sealant on the inside of the turbine housing and apply new anti-rust paint. Matt thought ahead and had already acquired what we needed, but that didn’t make the task much easier. The old sealant had worn away in places and rust has come through. In most cases it’s not very deep, but we can’t take too much metal out. The walls of the housing have to be fairly close to the turbine blades to get the most power. That also means we can’t put the paint on too thick. Matt showed us how we needed to measure, which we do before we start every day, and after we’re done.
The blades of the turbine are another matter. Most of them are completely fine, and will require little if no attention, but there is rust showing here too and in the hardest of places to reach. The metal is also fairly thin so it requires delicate, and arduous work. Garv and I will switch days from housing to turbine, keeping very careful track of what we do. He’s much better at the fine work of the turbine, but I’m better at the force required for the housing. We switch to prevent boredom more than anything else.
This brings us to a final problem, the spill way. Since we took the generator off line no water has been moving through the dam. The people who made the dam were not stupid and installed pipes that run through the dam for when the water level gets too high. Problem is, all but the highest few are clogged from years of neglect. Normally this could be alleviated by allowing more water to run through the main inlet, but we closed that to work on the dam in fall. It wasn’t a problem in winter or spring. Despite the snow the water level didn’t rise much. Now we’re entering summer, and the sky has decided to start unleashing everything it held back over the last eight months. I has rained almost everyday since we’ve gotten back and the water is almost to the first usable spillway pipe. It give me little comfort to think about the mass of water just on the other side of the concrete wall I sleep next to, even less to think it’s growing. We’ve suggested to Matt we should clean out the lower spillways, but he says it’s too dangerous with the water level so high. I do my best to ignore the occasional sounds of water running through the first spillway.
Bob Stackey
May 18 2024