Hoover Dam

Nevada and Arizona, USA, 20th October 2014.

After the helicopter flight, we briefly visited Hoover Dam.  This was built between 1931 and 1936 partly as an employment-generating project during Depression years.   It was at the time the world’s largest concrete dam and by 1939 it was the world’s largest electricity generating plant.   One hundred and fifty-four workers died during construction, not including the sixteen workers who died of heat exhaustion during a couple of days in 1931 when the temperature reached 49°C (120°F).

 

Arizona, Grand Canyon, Helicopter, Landscape, Nevada, Photography, Southwest Canyonlands, Travel, USA

Bridge and Dam from helicopter.

 

Arizona, Grand Canyon, Helicopter, Landscape, Nevada, Photography, Southwest Canyonlands, Travel, USA

This was at a lift at the dam.  A No Firearms sign is not something you expect to see in countries other than the USA.

 

Arizona, Grand Canyon, Helicopter, Landscape, Nevada, Photography, Southwest Canyonlands, Travel, USA

 

Arizona, Grand Canyon, Helicopter, Landscape, Nevada, Photography, Southwest Canyonlands, Travel, USA

There has been an extended drought for several years and you can see how far the water has dropped.  Lake Mead is now at 39% of capacity and there are many demands on it including aqueducts to California and Arizona and high dependence by Las Vegas including for drinking water.  It is at the lowest level it has been since the dam opened and the drought has continued for fourteen years.  There doesn’t appear to be any sense of crisis as yet.

 

Arizona, Grand Canyon, Helicopter, Landscape, Nevada, Photography, Southwest Canyonlands, Travel, USA

 

13 comments on “Hoover Dam

  1. leecleland says:

    Jaw dropping photos, Murray. You’ve captured the scale and immensity of the dam particularly in the last shot.

    Like

  2. Hoover Dam is still on my bucket list – perhaps I had better get there while there is still water behind it. I suspect that the no guns sign is because the dam spans the NV/AZ border and in Nevada you can’t openly carry firearms, and in Arizona you usually can.

    Like

    • Murray Foote says:

      Someone said there is still 600 or 700 feet of water in it so it’s not going to run out soon although it would become unusable for drinking long before that. In Australia there’d be tight usage restrictions by now.

      Ah, I see. Openly carrying guns is another strange concept to me. I think it was in a state that allows open carrying of guns that a 12-year old boy playing with a toy gun was shot by police recently.

      Like

  3. agent provocateur says:

    Reblogged this on Nevada State Personnel Watch.

    Like

  4. Rajiv says:

    Brilliant shot

    Like

  5. excellent set Murray certainly on my bucket list

    Like

  6. lake minnetonka cruises says:

    Hello my friend! I wish to say that this post is amazing, great written and come with approximately
    all vital infos. I would like to peer extra posts like
    this .

    Like

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s