Flash Flood

Back in 1972, I was observer on a GSI crew in Aceh Province, the northernmost area in Sumatra. We were working about 10km. West of Cot Jirek airport in some of the roughest territory I’d ever been in. The prospect was in the foothills of the mountains. The north/south lines weren’t so bad but the east/west lines were murder. It was one steep hill after another. Up and down all the way. The ground was muddy and slippery. The men carrying the camp and instruments were having a terrible time. About half of them quit and walked back to civilization before we got to the first camp on a particular line that became my nemesis.

When we finally reached the campsite, Dave DeBurgh arrived in camp. He had walked in from the other direction, which was an easy walk—except for the mud, leeches and rain.

The instruments were set up at the bottom of the hill in front of us, alongside a small dry creek. They were in their boxes. The batteries were being charged for an early start the following morning.

After about an hour, one of the foremen came running up to our platform and yelled something about the instruments. I ran after him as he went over the hill in the direction of the instrument set up. That dry creek had become a raging river. This was a flash flood. The DFS-IV modules were bobbing around like corks in the brown swirling water. Although I was scared shitless, I jumped into the water and swam toward the instrument modules. Several of the foremen followed and in a few minutes, we had attached rattan vines to the handles of all the modules and managed to pull them to the bank.

In couple of hours, the water had subsided, and we were able to retrieve the batteries, the cables, and the generator. The box of books disappeared downstream.

While it wasn’t really my fault, I was responsible for the equipment, and expected to get canned as a result. The hindsight of Supervisors and higher ups is far seeing. I should have known about the impending flash flood and set up the instruments on the hill.

Because the camp transport crew was doing double duty, our food never arrived that night. Dave and I ate plain rice with some sweet chili sauce.

The shit storm started the next morning when I called the Party Manager, Andy Popp, on the radio. He notified Ben Lage, who was playing Party Chief in Medan, who notified Bill Harrison, the Supervisor in Singapore. The ass covering exercise had begun.

Ben had been micro-managing the recording crew, and calling the Mobil client rep, Dan Richardson, every five minutes with an update. Ben was trying to soothe the client, who wanted to know why it was taking so long to get moved to the new line. Ben also got the line shortened, which put the first instrument set up in harms way—in the path of the flood.

The walk out of the area wasn’t too bad. We got out of the jungle and to a clearing by late afternoon. There had been a bridge crossing a river that was also washed away by the same flood. We had to build rafts in order to get the instruments and other equipment to the other side. We got into camp before dark. I was exhausted.

The Party Manager sent out a surveyor and one of his desk wallahs to check out our story. When they came to the edge of the jungle where the bridge had washed out, then shrugged their shoulders, got back in the Land Rover, and came back to the office. That bridge had been there since Dutch colonial times, so they rightly reasoned that it took quite a flash flood to wipe it out.

Field Service Engineer, Al Sprague had already arrived and as usual, expected everyone to stay up all night and help, then work all the next day while he slept, then stay up all night with him again, and so on.

It took a couple of days to dry everyone out. The covering on all the cables were removed and everything was sprayed with Freon. The only damage was when the wrong size screw was used to put the power transistor bar back on one of the modules. The screw went into the case of one of the power transistors and shorted it out. Once that was corrected, the system worked properly, and I was ready to go back to the field—not anything I was looking forward to.

My daughter was born about that time. Lage notified me by radio.

In a few days, Paul Symanzik came back from leave, and I left the crew—for good, as it turned out.

There was a letter from Harrison waiting for me when I got back to Singapore. Bill was never much good at face to face confrontations. He preferred writing letters from a safe distance. The letter essentially blamed me for every problem the crew had, and told me to pack my stuff and report to Dallas. That covered his ass nicely. He had already left for Home Leave Vacation.

Walt Sych was acting Supervisor. It was he who gave me the letter. Then he told me that he knew I couldn’t travel with a baby only a few days old. Instead of running me off, he sent me to the Caltex operation in Rumbai. That was the best operation in Indonesia. They had helicopters and good food. I couldn’t have begged for a better reassignment. For that I’ll always be grateful to Walt. That was the last time I saw him. As old Far East hands know, Walt was murdered by a crazy villager on that same crew not long after that.