AlaskaAV
GONE WEST
Mission, TX
At one point, probably 1971, when I was assigned as station manager of our Galena operation located inside the levies surrounding the Galena Air Force Base, there was an ice jam in the Yukon River.
Prior to breakup of the Yukon River in the spring, those in power wanted to use a B-24 to dust the center line of the river with coal dust so it would melt faster and enter a more relaxed breakup to preclude an ice jam. This was a normal operation in many of the larger rivers in Alaska at the time.
Some environmentalist jumped in and filed a law suit to stop the military and/or another agencies from dropping coal dust on top of the ice. Their theory was that it might kill a few fish. OK, the courts stopped the operation. I was living in company quarters outside the Air Force area right on the bank of the Yukon River. Once the ice started breaking up, an ice jam started near a town down river some 18 miles away. Within a very short time, there was an ice jam some 18 miles in length and the level of the Yukon River rose some 100 foot. In my yard were huge chunks of ice some 5 or 6 foot thick and 10 to 15 foot long. My company trailer had sealed 55 gal drums as cold weather cover along the bottom edges of the trailer and for looks. When the water came up, they floated our trailer to a point that anything on the top bunk of our kids bed in the back room was saved but everything else was lost including every photo of our life and so many personal items.
http://supercub.org/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album77
According to my friend, the base commander of the AFB at Galena, the entire area of the flood plain covered some 90 million acres. Hard to believe and I might have remembered that wrong so take it with a grain of salt. The entire town of Galena was wiped out and later moved with rebuilt, all the animals within 50 or more miles of Galena were killed and guess how many fish were killed when the water went down. Of course, no fish were killed by explosives to break up the ice jam that the US Army wanted to plant to break up the ice jam when it first started nor from the coal dust that was planned to be dropped as usual but the good group won in court. To my knowledge that has never happened again on the Yukon River. The inviros won according to them. What about nature? Ah, who cares about that, the group won in court.
When the ice jam broke, it wiped out almost half of a town down river but I have little info on that.
Now that I remember the situation and how angry I was, guess I better move on. Sorry, the stupidity of it still gets to me some 30 years later.
OK, now we are at a point when the water was within 12 inches of coming over the dike around the Air Force base at about midnight. Most of the people from the town were standing on the dike with no where to go. I had to do something so called our dispatcher in Anchorage around midnight and told him I needed a 737 with 56 seats and three empty cargo containers topside (igloos) immediately. At 2:45 AM the aircraft was sitting on the ground at Galena. I never had to say more than I needed it because of a flood. No questions. How they found an available aircraft ready to go and a crew standing by, I never did find out. I suspect they canceled a scheduled flight.
Ok, now I suddenly had a company work crew including ticket agents show up without asking. They just showed up. We loaded some 26,000 pounds of US mail plus 57 passengers (hmmmm 56 seats?) and got it out and at that time the water was just 6 inches from the top of the dike and raising. To show how stupid I am, I forgot to save a seat for myself. Hmmmmm But than again, I married my second wife so I was even more stupid.
I shut down the station, drove the company pickup with some rather important paperwork up on the dike and parked it. I had called the base commander and told him what I was doing and he said I could ride out on the last C-130 if I didn't mind if it had a flat tire. OK, here we go. There were only 3 of us plus flight deck crew and the two other guys carried some rather large weapons within easy grasp while watching over a special item. Remember, at that time, Galena was an F-4 strike base with nuclear warhead capability rockets. All of those were gone first of course and I didn't even want to know what was in that safe. Having been assigned to an atomic warhead Honest John Rocket outfit in Korea in charge of classified material, I pretty well knew what was in the safe though.
Anyway, we got off Galena with no problem with the flat tire but upon landing at Elmendorf at daybreak, the tire rolled off the rim immediately as expected. A waiting bus met us and the 3 of us were taken away and the safe was turned over to Elmendorf Security. I was dropped off near the PX and the AF guys went on about their work.
By this time I had been working some 40 hours straight and really looked like a hobo and hungry as hell.
When I went into the PX around 7 AM, I told them what had gone on and that I was a civilian and really needed a very, very cold beer and something to eat and, WOW, there it was, on the house. Four scrambled eggs, double order of hash browns, two slices of ham and 6 slices of toast and of course, another very cold beer. Thanks Air Force. I owe you... I called my sister who came out to the base to pick me up and when I got back to her place, I went to work setting up what our company could do to keep operating in that area. Galena was a hub operation for Wien at the time. Once that was done and after working some 48 hours with no sleep, I sat down and taped some 30 minutes of what had gone in the last two days. I still have that tape and play it every so often just to remember. I never broke a sentence in that 30 minutes of taping but slept some 18 hours on my sister's couch later.
After all of this was done and history, I got a bill from Wien on my personal account for the 737 flight ANC/GAL/ANC. Standard procedure for the company to keep track of costs.
I was responsible to collect all the money I could. Most of the passenger transportation charges were paid for by the government as well as some Air Force costs because it was an emergency evac. The Postal Service reimbursed us for moving the US mail out. For those that couldn't find an organization to pay for their transportation, it was left on my account (since everyone told me I was a no-account anyway). All outstanding was finally written off by Wien of course.
We all talk about bush flying and most of it involves PA-18s or spam cans but at times, it went clear up to a gravel certified 737 in my days. The above flight departed, I am sure, well over gross, more passengers than seats but what does a person do in an emergency. At all times, the Captain knew exactly what I was doing and by my request, to cut me off at any time. I moved what I needed and he made the trip. I based lots of my thoughts on that trip on what some Boeing VPs in engineering told me when we received our first 737, 461GB. The 737 was designed to operate above 40% over gross if needed.
As I have said before, Ahhh, the beauty of living in the bush.
Prior to breakup of the Yukon River in the spring, those in power wanted to use a B-24 to dust the center line of the river with coal dust so it would melt faster and enter a more relaxed breakup to preclude an ice jam. This was a normal operation in many of the larger rivers in Alaska at the time.
Some environmentalist jumped in and filed a law suit to stop the military and/or another agencies from dropping coal dust on top of the ice. Their theory was that it might kill a few fish. OK, the courts stopped the operation. I was living in company quarters outside the Air Force area right on the bank of the Yukon River. Once the ice started breaking up, an ice jam started near a town down river some 18 miles away. Within a very short time, there was an ice jam some 18 miles in length and the level of the Yukon River rose some 100 foot. In my yard were huge chunks of ice some 5 or 6 foot thick and 10 to 15 foot long. My company trailer had sealed 55 gal drums as cold weather cover along the bottom edges of the trailer and for looks. When the water came up, they floated our trailer to a point that anything on the top bunk of our kids bed in the back room was saved but everything else was lost including every photo of our life and so many personal items.
http://supercub.org/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album77
According to my friend, the base commander of the AFB at Galena, the entire area of the flood plain covered some 90 million acres. Hard to believe and I might have remembered that wrong so take it with a grain of salt. The entire town of Galena was wiped out and later moved with rebuilt, all the animals within 50 or more miles of Galena were killed and guess how many fish were killed when the water went down. Of course, no fish were killed by explosives to break up the ice jam that the US Army wanted to plant to break up the ice jam when it first started nor from the coal dust that was planned to be dropped as usual but the good group won in court. To my knowledge that has never happened again on the Yukon River. The inviros won according to them. What about nature? Ah, who cares about that, the group won in court.
When the ice jam broke, it wiped out almost half of a town down river but I have little info on that.
Now that I remember the situation and how angry I was, guess I better move on. Sorry, the stupidity of it still gets to me some 30 years later.
OK, now we are at a point when the water was within 12 inches of coming over the dike around the Air Force base at about midnight. Most of the people from the town were standing on the dike with no where to go. I had to do something so called our dispatcher in Anchorage around midnight and told him I needed a 737 with 56 seats and three empty cargo containers topside (igloos) immediately. At 2:45 AM the aircraft was sitting on the ground at Galena. I never had to say more than I needed it because of a flood. No questions. How they found an available aircraft ready to go and a crew standing by, I never did find out. I suspect they canceled a scheduled flight.
Ok, now I suddenly had a company work crew including ticket agents show up without asking. They just showed up. We loaded some 26,000 pounds of US mail plus 57 passengers (hmmmm 56 seats?) and got it out and at that time the water was just 6 inches from the top of the dike and raising. To show how stupid I am, I forgot to save a seat for myself. Hmmmmm But than again, I married my second wife so I was even more stupid.
I shut down the station, drove the company pickup with some rather important paperwork up on the dike and parked it. I had called the base commander and told him what I was doing and he said I could ride out on the last C-130 if I didn't mind if it had a flat tire. OK, here we go. There were only 3 of us plus flight deck crew and the two other guys carried some rather large weapons within easy grasp while watching over a special item. Remember, at that time, Galena was an F-4 strike base with nuclear warhead capability rockets. All of those were gone first of course and I didn't even want to know what was in that safe. Having been assigned to an atomic warhead Honest John Rocket outfit in Korea in charge of classified material, I pretty well knew what was in the safe though.
Anyway, we got off Galena with no problem with the flat tire but upon landing at Elmendorf at daybreak, the tire rolled off the rim immediately as expected. A waiting bus met us and the 3 of us were taken away and the safe was turned over to Elmendorf Security. I was dropped off near the PX and the AF guys went on about their work.
By this time I had been working some 40 hours straight and really looked like a hobo and hungry as hell.
When I went into the PX around 7 AM, I told them what had gone on and that I was a civilian and really needed a very, very cold beer and something to eat and, WOW, there it was, on the house. Four scrambled eggs, double order of hash browns, two slices of ham and 6 slices of toast and of course, another very cold beer. Thanks Air Force. I owe you... I called my sister who came out to the base to pick me up and when I got back to her place, I went to work setting up what our company could do to keep operating in that area. Galena was a hub operation for Wien at the time. Once that was done and after working some 48 hours with no sleep, I sat down and taped some 30 minutes of what had gone in the last two days. I still have that tape and play it every so often just to remember. I never broke a sentence in that 30 minutes of taping but slept some 18 hours on my sister's couch later.
After all of this was done and history, I got a bill from Wien on my personal account for the 737 flight ANC/GAL/ANC. Standard procedure for the company to keep track of costs.
I was responsible to collect all the money I could. Most of the passenger transportation charges were paid for by the government as well as some Air Force costs because it was an emergency evac. The Postal Service reimbursed us for moving the US mail out. For those that couldn't find an organization to pay for their transportation, it was left on my account (since everyone told me I was a no-account anyway). All outstanding was finally written off by Wien of course.
We all talk about bush flying and most of it involves PA-18s or spam cans but at times, it went clear up to a gravel certified 737 in my days. The above flight departed, I am sure, well over gross, more passengers than seats but what does a person do in an emergency. At all times, the Captain knew exactly what I was doing and by my request, to cut me off at any time. I moved what I needed and he made the trip. I based lots of my thoughts on that trip on what some Boeing VPs in engineering told me when we received our first 737, 461GB. The 737 was designed to operate above 40% over gross if needed.
As I have said before, Ahhh, the beauty of living in the bush.
