Latitude 23: The 3 Ds Plus Two More

The Three "Ds": Dirty, Difficult and Dangerous

At the beginning of the video "heavy lifting," you saw Jesus Martinez ( red shirt ) and several others struggling with a heavy rock. At the end of the same video, you saw a young man in yellow nearly fall with a heavy rock in his hands. This was dirty difficult and dangerous work and their are plenty more examples. Below is a picture of an adaptation of a bucket brigade only this rock brigade is standing on (what is for me) a nerve wrackingly high wall.

Arq. Montoya frequently put himself in risky situations in order to gather information or direct operations.

These steps are normally covered by sand and are directly in front of the steps to the beach. See note at end of this entry.

Disheartening

The work was not only dirty, difficult and dangerous, it was often disheartening.

Recall that the first attempt to plug the breach failed. Accordingly, Arq. Montoya changed his plan from using sandbag forms to using wooden forms supported by timbers. This is a different technology. The needed materials arrived early in the day and the forms were constructed by the end of the day which coincided with low tide. Everything was ready for the cement. But the order of cement never arrived.

Without cement, the forms were not supported on one side and over night the relentless wave action disassembled the form and in the morning we awoke to see the forms askance and floating and that the previous day's work was lost. See below.

Similarly, at the north end of the wall, a fresh pour of cement was undermined and broke away taking a good sized section of wall with it.

The disheartening nature of this development is well shown in the following short video entitled "Not Good"

In addition the hole below the wall was at a very low elevation making it virtually impossible to clear direct access to it. Furthermore, the high tide and lack of beach made it impossible to work from the ocean side (see video "Not Good" ). Accordingly, cement had to be pumped into the breach from the inside against the wave action on the outside. The photo below shows that much of the newly pumped in cement bled out and into the sea before the breach was finally sealed.

For nearly a month the solution to one problem heralded a new problem.

And another new sink hole!

Determination

But the dirty difficult, dangerous and sometimes disheartening situation was met with stubborn determination and an always coherent plan of action that was supported by high moral, lots of personnel and lots of energy. I haven't any video of this but frequently, after unloading, the workers would run back to refill their empty wheelbarrow. The moral and determination is not so easily captured on film, but the following pictures illustrate those days well.

Oralia hoses down a hot, muddy worker

When your wheel barrow goes in the drink, There is only one thing to do!

Pull it out.

The video "Problem Solving" illustrates this determination very well. With the south end of the wall water tight, water could not drain out, creating a one meter deep, muddy bottomed lake in the unfilled private beach area. Sandbags, each weighing about 50kg were required in the central section. The problem was to get the sand bags to where they were needed. Check out the video "Problem solving" to see the world's first amphibious wheel barrows in action.

All in all this was an amazing effort of a team held together by Arq. Montoya's leadership and planning and while I don't want to make this an annual event, I will remember September, 2014 as a time when human intelligence, spirit and determination won the day in a battle with the elements.