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00:00Heavier than the Great Pyramid, taller than a 60-story skyscraper, it is the most famous concrete structure in history.
00:10Welcome to the Hoover Dam. Today, it's a tourist icon. But in 1931, this place was hell on earth.
00:19For millions of years, the Colorado River was a wild beast.
00:26Farmers called it the Red Bull. In spring, it drowned crops. In summer, it dried up and killed them.
00:33To tame the West, engineers needed a collar on the beast. They needed a massive dam. Right here, Black Canyon.
00:42The location was a nightmare. Middle of the Nevada desert. No roads. No power.
00:48But then, the world broke. 1929. The Great Depression. America was starving. 25% unemployment. Men needed work. Any work.
01:02Even if it killed them.
01:04Rumors spread that the government was hiring. Thousands of families packed their cars and drove into the emptiness.
01:10They built rag town. No toilets. No clean water. Just heat. Rattlesnakes and dust.
01:2042,000 men applied. Only 5,000 would be hired.
01:26To lead them, the government hired a legend. Frank Crowe. They called him, Hurry Up Crowe.
01:33Crowe wasn't just an engineer. He was a general. And he had a contract that fined him $3,000 for
01:39every single day he was late.
01:41The six companies consortium won the bid. The largest federal contract in history.
01:47But here was the first problem. How do you pour concrete in a rushing river?
01:56You can't just ask the Colorado to stop. You have to move it. Literally.
02:01The plan. Drill four massive tunnels through the solid rock walls. Two on the Nevada side. Two on the Arizona
02:09side.
02:09May 1931. The clock starts. Crowe orders the drilling to begin.
02:18But there were no roads to the tunnel sites. Men had to hang from ropes just to chip away the
02:24entrance.
02:25It started with hand tools. But to finish on time, they needed a monster.
02:34Enter the drilling jumbo. Crowe built a beast. A 10-ton truck with three levels of platforms backed into the
02:45tunnel face.
02:46It carried 30 men and 30 pneumatic drills. They attacked the rock wall simultaneously.
02:55It was loud. It was dusty. And it was a race. One team versus the other.
03:03Crowe pitted the Nevada crew against the Arizona crew. He offered bonuses to whoever drilled faster.
03:12Drill. Load. Blast. Clear. Repeat. 24 hours a day.
03:20They were tearing through 16 feet of solid volcanic rock every single day.
03:26But the tunnels were a death trap. The trucks, called jaywalkers, spewed exhaust.
03:34Carbon monoxide. It pooled in the dead air. Men would get dizzy and collapse.
03:42They called it pneumonia to avoid insurance claims.
03:47But it was gas poisoning.
03:49Dozens died in those tunnels. But with thousands waiting in line for a job,
03:54if you quit, you were replaced in an hour.
03:58Despite the cost, they finished the drilling in just one year.
04:03The tunnels were ready. But rough rock slows down water.
04:08They had to line the tunnels with three feet of smooth concrete.
04:15They created the world's largest polished pipes.
04:22November 1932.
04:25The moment of truth.
04:27To turn the river, they dumped tons of rock into the main channel to block it.
04:39The water rose.
04:41It hit the blockage.
04:43And for the first time in history, the Colorado River turned left.
04:50It worked. The roar of the water vanished into the mountain.
04:56Suddenly, the roar stopped.
04:58The riverbed, where the water had flowed for millions of years, was dry.
05:03A mile of drying mud.
05:07This was the foundation.
05:10They built two temporary dams.
05:12One to stop the water coming in.
05:15One to stop it flowing back.
05:18Now they had to dig down to the bedrock.
05:21Steam shovels removed half a million cubic yards of muck.
05:26They couldn't build on mud.
05:28They had to hit solid rock.
05:30And once they did, the real danger began.
05:33The walls were loose.
05:35Rocks fell constantly.
05:37Someone had to go up there and clean them.
05:40The canyon walls were full of loose rock.
05:44If a stone fell, it would kill the workers below like a bullet.
05:48They hung 700 feet in the air on nothing but a rope and a wooden plank.
06:01Their job, knock the loose rocks down before they fell on someone else.
06:09They earned $5.60 a day.
06:12They didn't just use pry bars.
06:14They used jackhammers while swinging in midair.
06:19They were acrobats.
06:21They would kick off the wall, swing out, and smash the rock on the return arc.
06:29Many were former circus performers or sailors.
06:33They had no fear of heights.
06:35But rocks fell on them too.
06:37They wore soft cloth caps.
06:38In the early days, they wore soft cloth caps.
06:41So they improvived.
06:43They took two cloth hats, dipped them in hot tar, and let them harden.
06:49The hard-boiled hat.
06:51The Hoover Dam workers effectively invented the modern hard hat.
06:57Six companies saw it worked and ordered thousands.
07:02It saved countless lives.
07:05Legends were born here.
07:07Like Louis Fagan, the human pendulum.
07:10He could swing his body to transport dynamite boxes between teams without touching the ground.
07:17But not everyone made it.
07:20Falls were fatal.
07:21If the rope broke, there was no backup.
07:26After months of swinging and blasting, the walls were shaved clean.
07:31The foundation was ready.
07:42But now the engineers faced a physics problem that nearly killed the project.
07:48The dam required 3.25 million cubic yards of concrete.
07:54If they poured it all at once, the chemical heat would take 125 years to cool down.
08:00And it would crack into useless rubble.
08:05They couldn't wait 125 years.
08:07They had two years left.
08:10The solution?
08:12Don't build a wall.
08:14Build a giant set of Lego blocks.
08:20Next, how they turned the desert into a refrigerator.
08:25They broke the dam into 230 individual vertical columns.
08:30Like a 3D puzzle.
08:33They poured one block at a time.
08:36Only 5 feet high.
08:38But that didn't solve the heat problem.
08:42Concrete generates heat as it cures.
08:45In the 120 degree desert sun, it wouldn't set.
08:50So, they did something crazy.
08:53They built a massive refrigeration plant.
08:57They built a plant capable of producing 1,000 tons of ice a day.
09:04They embedded 582 miles of steel pipes inside the concrete blocks.
09:10They pumped ice water through them.
09:12The cold water sucked the heat out of the curing concrete.
09:16What would take 100 years took 2 months.
09:20And the pipes.
09:22They are still inside the dam today.
09:24They filled them with grout and left them there forever.
09:29Now, the poor.
09:31Frank Crow designed 8-ton buckets that flew on aerial cableways.
09:36The rhythm was relentless.
09:38A bucket arrived every 78 seconds.
09:4124 hours a day.
09:44Men called poddlers stood knee deep in wet concrete.
09:49Stomping it down to remove air bubbles.
09:52It was grueling.
09:54120 degrees outside.
09:56140 degrees inside the curing concrete.
10:00The buckets were heavy.
10:01If a cable slipped or the operator missed signal, men were crushed.
10:06But up.
10:09Slowly, the columns rose.
10:12The puzzle pieces started to connect.
10:15Once the blocks cooled, gaps opened between them.
10:19They pumped high-pressure grout to seal it into one solid rock.
10:23The result?
10:25A monolithic structure.
10:27One single piece of stone.
10:31Enough concrete to pave a two-lane highway from San Francisco to New York.
10:39Imagine that.
10:40A road across the entire continent.
10:43That's how much concrete is sitting in this canyon.
10:47The men had a mascot.
10:49A stray dog that followed them everywhere.
10:52He was the heart of the crew.
10:54Tragically, he was crushed by a truck.
10:57The men buried him in the concrete mix.
11:00He is part of the dam forever.
11:03By 1934, the dam was rising ahead of schedule.
11:08Crow was winning.
11:10But nature had one last surprise.
11:13A drought was ending.
11:15The river was rising fast.
11:18They had to finish the intake towers before the water topped the diversion tunnels.
11:24Four giant towers.
11:27The lungs of the dam.
11:30They built four massive towers.
11:33Two on each side.
11:35They look like art deco castles.
11:38These aren't just decorations.
11:40They are the gatekeepers.
11:42They decide how much water goes to the turbines.
11:46Water enters through these gates, drops down a 30-foot shaft, and enters the penstocks.
11:56But here was the next headache.
11:58The penstock pipes were 30 feet wide.
12:02So, the six companies did the impossible again.
12:05They built a factory at the dam site.
12:11The steel was three inches thick.
12:14They couldn't use rivets.
12:16They had to invent new welding techniques.
12:19To check the welds, they used a portable x-ray machine.
12:23One of the first times it was used in construction.
12:28Once built, a monster truck carried the 45-ton pipe sections down the canyon road.
12:35One slip, and the truck, the pipe, and the driver would tumble 800 feet down.
12:42Then, the aerial crane lowered them into the tunnels like a thread into a needle.
12:49Watch your back!
12:52Clearance was only inches.
12:55Men guided them by hand.
12:57I am standing inside a penstock.
13:00In full operation, enough water rushes through here.
13:06But what if the river floods?
13:09What if the water gets too high?
13:12Enter the spillways.
13:14The emergency drains.
13:18They look like giant bathtub drains.
13:21And they are terrifying.
13:24Each spillway is 100 feet wide.
13:27You could drop a house into it without touching the sides.
13:32They are rarely used.
13:34Only twice in history.
13:36The water moves so fast, it can cavitate and tear the concrete apart.
13:40Early 1935.
13:42The concrete wall reaches its final height.
13:45The plug is finished.
13:48Now, the final step.
13:50Closing the doors.
13:54Next, we shut the tunnels and berth a sea in the desert.
14:09For the first time in geologic history, the Colorado River stopped.
14:17Behind the dam, the water began to rise.
14:21Lake Mead was born.
14:25It took 6.5 years to fill completely.
14:28It is the largest reservoir in the United States.
14:32The rising water swallowed entire towns.
14:36St. Thomas, Nevada lies at the bottom of the lake today.
14:40While the lake filled, work shifted to the powerhouse.
14:46Crow finished the dam two years ahead of schedule.
14:51A miracle.
14:53But it wasn't making power yet.
14:55They had to install the generators.
14:5817 massive Francis turbines.
15:01Each weighing hundreds of tons.
15:05The pressure of the lake pushes water against the blades.
15:09The energy of the river becomes lightning.
15:14October 1936.
15:16The first generator comes online.
15:19Hoover Dam Power built modern Los Angeles.
15:23It built Las Vegas.
15:25It lit up the west.
15:27The dam cost 49 million dollars.
15:30But the sale of electricity paid back every single cent to the government with interest.
15:35The added Art Deco sculptures.
15:37The winged figures of the republic.
15:42They say rubbing their toes brings good luck.
15:46The Colorado River fought the engineers.
15:49And for now, the engineers won.
15:53Next time, we leave the desert for the jungle.
15:57See you in Panama!
15:59If you've been fascinated by the sheer audacity of human engineering,
16:03then don't miss our next adventure.
16:05Hit that subscribe button.
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