Instead I’ll direct you to several more videos available by a simple Internet search. Memorial Day weekend, 1981, a massive flood in Austin, Texas, left 13 dead and destroyed property across the Central Texas region. It’s not the first nor the last lethal event in the city’s history. Last year the event was covered locally to mark the tragedy’s 30-year anniversary, hence video
coverage existing online.
Flood control is being managed in Austin, in one capacity, through the Waller Creek tunnel project (page 10). Here is a project that will save lives. Here is a situation that, left unchecked, will endanger lives. Contrast these videos to the blatant alarmist garbage over in L.A.
In the site report on Waller Creek I’ve included a timeline describing some, not all, of the storms and damage over the last century. Creating a stormwater solution for Waller Creek had been discussed as early as 1976. The consultant began preliminary design in 1999 and was released for a number of years during budgetary hemming and hawing before returning in 2007. Between 1976 and the groundbreaking in 2011, at least 34 people died. It goes without saying, the project’s client, City of Austin, does not want to see that figure increase.
No client — nor contractor — wants death on his hands. An accident at Lake Mead resulted in one fatality in June. Our thoughts go out to the family, fellow workers and everyone on the Lake Mead No. Three Intake project. We covered the accident in T&TI last month and in this issue of TTNA is the obituary on page 24. We will keep you updated as the investigation continues.
Only a few weeks before the accident, 20 tunnel workers died in China unloading a truck of explosives. Details on the accident are scant. Names of the workers are non-existent. Two employees of the government agency that spoke to the local press about the accident would only give their last names.
No client nor contractor wants their name in the news associated with death. But that is a price everyone should happily pay for the freedom to offer our respect to the departed and to provide safe working conditions to the living.
