Mr. Whistler would, at this time, do better to review this video and the comments being posted and take action to protect his professional reputation rather than touting a service to protect his viewers' data
Watch "Our Global Water Cycle Lurches From Too-Wet to Too-Dry: New Report for 2024 by Global Water Monitor" by Climate Scientist Paul Beckwith We all live in our own community and get used to the slowly changing local climate like a frog boiling in water. The global trend is very alarming. We need a plan to mitigate our long-term mega drought in the Western USA. The Coalition for a National Infrastructure Bank has a great plan to build a pipeline from the Mississippi River bypass in Louisiana to Lake Mead and Lake Powell to refill them in this long-term mega drought. It would NOT require a huge amount of electricity to get up to those elevations and could easily be powered by floating solar power on the reservoirs, covering less than 10%. Two axis floating solar that tracks the Sun elevation and azimuth would provide very long power hours per day, producing a lot of power during peak demand. There would also be less evaporation on the reservoirs. The power lines are already nearby. And the hydropower is a huge battery. Solar power is currently the lowest cost. The cost for the project could easily be paid back by the agriculture that could grow to be a much larger business and currently which is being curtailed due to dwindling water supplies. Only a small percentage of the bypass water would be required to refill the reservoirs. The pipeline could also act as a source of water with reversed flow for occasional drought situations in Louisiana.
@AnAmericanPatriot1555 could it happen again? We are doing everything right for that if we use all the water and agriculture stops and by that point 3C warming. Did you read my comment?: Watch "Our Global Water Cycle Lurches From Too-Wet to Too-Dry: New Report for 2024 by Global Water Monitor" by Climate Scientist Paul Beckwith We all live in our own community and get used to the slowly changing local climate like a frog boiling in water. The global trend is very alarming. We need a plan to mitigate our long-term mega drought in the Western USA. The Coalition for a National Infrastructure Bank has a great plan to build a pipeline from the Mississippi River bypass in Louisiana to Lake Mead and Lake Powell to refill them in this long-term mega drought. It would NOT require a huge amount of electricity to get up to those elevations and could easily be powered by floating solar power on the reservoirs, covering less than 10%. Two axis floating solar that tracks the Sun elevation and azimuth would provide very long power hours per day, producing a lot of power during peak demand. There would also be less evaporation on the reservoirs. The power lines are already nearby. And the hydropower is a huge battery. Solar power is currently the lowest cost. The cost for the project could easily be paid back by the agriculture that could grow to be a much larger business and currently which is being curtailed due to dwindling water supplies. Only a small percentage of the bypass water would be required to refill the reservoirs. The pipeline could also act as a source of water with reversed flow for occasional drought situations in Louisiana.
Hi Vegas resident here. Las Vegas recycles 90% of all water it uses. If it goes down a drain it goes right back to the lake. The bellagio fountains even use water from sinks and showers in the hotel tower to fill it. What’s actually draining the Colorado river are alfalfa farms in Arizona and other farms in California. If they found a different water source lake mead would fill
convert the dessert into farmland and try to keep it that way. There's just so much water you can take out a river and they may need to overthink the wastage of water
@@RobertStewart-i3m that's like comparing a bathtub to a pool...when I can't have a 2500 gallon pool, why they still allow bathtubs. If it's not too dry, you don't need irrigation on actual farmland, and even if it's performed it's often in water rich areas to get the water on the plants due to the lack of rain. But in a dessert you already need a lot of water to convert it to farmland and to keep it that way, the base soil is like concrete, bone dry...and since there's no ground water or actual ground soil to contain the water and the heat, it needs permanent irrigation. Like turning concrete slab into farmland by pouring some soil on it and watering it around the clock so your plants don't dye
Dear sir: As my step father worked for the USGS in 1983 that measures all the water flows in the region, the scenario you mention actually was feared for a few days. Glen Canyon Dam was at capacity and releasing the first flows ever through it's spillways when vibrations indicted damage to those spillways. Emergency deployment of seismic specialists determined within a few days that the erosion was not heading towards the dam, but nobody knew that at first. A catastrophic collapse of Glen Canyon was truly feared with the consequences to Hoover unknowable but terrifying. I was living in Yuma at the time. This was NOT a thought exercise..
I remember the 1983 flood very well. I was pregnant with my son in Tucson, AZ, at the time. I lived within half a mile of the Rillito River, and I watched several buildings collapse into it from my balcony.
The high flows in 83 brought striped bass down from Lake Havasu and my brother and I had a blast fishing for them in the shallow white water below Laguna Dam spillway. GOOD TIMES!
I lived in Page at that time and the threat was real. The vibrations felt on top of the canyon directly above and a bit downstream (on top of the canyon) while the spillways and jet tubes were flowing was just intense. Peak output during flooding was over 92,000 cubic feet per second.
I was gonna come into the comment section to point out the near failure of the Glen Canyon dam in 1983 means it could be a realistic scenario. I was a kid in the Colorado mountains in 1983 and I do vaguely recall that winter being insanely snowy.
Yep. I was 'in the loop' at the time and there was very serious concern as they only had limited option and were terrified of going into uncontorolled release at Glen Canyon. They prevented serious damage below Hoover by raising the spillways 4' with 2 inches of marine plywood on steel frames bolted on top..
My dad worked on Glen Canyon Dam until the labor strike. He was one of those drillers that hung off of ropes and drilled into the canyon walls with the raging river below! He always told me it was no big deal hanging 600 feet off a sheer cliff, it was a job that had to be done. I also lived in Page during the 1983 floods and believe me they were very worried about spillway erosion and the integrity of that whole system. I got to go inside the spillways during the repairs caused by the floods and they are huge!
The Roosevelt Dam is on the Salt river. The waters would flood Phoenix, on its way to the Colorado via the Gila river, witch it empties into just southwest of Phoenix. The Gila river empties into the Colorado river just north of Yuma. So its waters will have no effect on the Hoover dam.
The Colorado flows into the Gulf of California, not Mexico. The Gulf of Mexico is separated from the Colorado by the Rocky Mountains, and there's no way for the water to cross them.
Isn't he just talking about Mexico having some of the water rights from the Colorado river? Because I believe they do. Nothing to do with the Gulf of Mexico, I mean Gulf of America 😉
@@Djamonja You mean the Gulf of Stupidica? Unrelated, Mexico does have water rights to the Colorado, but because the treaty was signed in the early 1900s and they overestimated the river's flow even back then, Mexico rarely gets anywhere close to its share. The Colorado "ends" in the Gulf of California, but it stops flowing over a hundred miles further inland when the last little stream dries up.
What if Simon ran out of ideas for a new channel? What if we were doomed and destined to only have the 11 or so currently in production. Would UA-cam cease to exist? Would the Earth stop turning and the Universe go dark? Stay tuned, Simon will have a new channel shortly explaining these important questions of life and the future history of mankind.
The Whistlerverse deserves an episode making about its history, the channels that have come and gone, an insight into the writers and editors, who's in Simons basement, and of course how it's become a legendary side mission of finding and subscribing to all of the channels in the Whistlerverse!
the roosevelt dam is not upstream from lake mead, it eventually gets to the colorado river via salt then gila river finally joinng the colorado around yuma. the little colorado river has no dam and is on the other side of the mountains from roosevelt dam.
Couple of issues here, for one- you used some wide shots of Glen Canyon Dam when talking about downstream of Hoover. Second, the Colorado flows into the Gulf of California between Mexico proper and the Mexican State of Baja California before exiting into the Pacific... not the Gulf of Mexico
@@JosephJanitorius-p5v-- Sorry to disappoint you, but neither one person nor one country can "rename" an international body of water or geographic feature. So that body of water remains the Gulf of Mexico. But if renaming were really that simple, I thereby rename the property known as Mar-a-Lago to be "Idiot Asylum." There ... rebranding completed.
Hoover dead pool would not be permanent at all. Every spring would replenish things to a significant extent. However, water use and power use would have to be modified substantially.
@@hardrockuniversity7283 I don't know how to explain this if you don't understand it yourself, but let me try; the level for dead pool wouldn't be the same as it is now before the dam was built. Because before the river was flowing unhampered. It isn't until after the dam is actually there that it would even begin to fill up...
@@pantern2 That is true. But it DID fill up. The problem is they are USING more water at times than flows in. A major part of the problem is that when the original interstate and international agreements were agreed upon on how to share the water, the estimate was off and the actual amount available was less than what they thought. The Colorado River has not reached the Sea of Cortez EXCEPT during the flood in a long time.
@@hardrockuniversity7283 This problem is obviously caused by decades of gross incompetence and extreme negligence. The solution is simple - use less water. Stop pissing away the amazing gift that was given to you by your ancestors, stop destroying it.
All right, as a former Whitewater River guide in the upper salt River Canyon I can tell you with 100% certainty that Roosevelt Lake has nothing to do with the little Colorado river and is actually in the salt river watershed. I'm only hoping that when I watch the rest of the video it turns out that this is some kind of Joke but just in case I thought I'd put this in here
Minor point of order, For some reason there are two Colorado Rivers in the USA and the one that Lake Mead holds back would empty into the Gulf of California, not Gulf of Mexico.
If you understand how it was built and where it is built you would know that the only way it could fail would be by sabotage. Most all failures of this type of dam were because the surrounding area was not stable enough to maintain their integrity. Hoover is built into solid rock, unlike the failure of the Cali St Francis dam years ago. And it's shear mass prevents and possibility of uplift, especially considering the 7 Sisters Co. dug down to bedrock on the floor of the riverbed. Fun video though Simon.
@PalleRunquist-d5c possibly, but I'm not a great fan of malthusian thinking. This is just one of several ways we're going to have to Star Trek our future if the species is going to survive
@PalleRunquist-d5c Lack of food will cause starvation, which makes the most powerful parts of society to grasp even greater control over the populace. in order to assure food supply to their children/power bloc, while dooming the populace outside that circle. yeah, you're right - it is a natural process.
Well, a collapse of Hoover Dam one way to restore the Colorado River Delta as it enters the Sea Of Cortez. Unless it cuts a new channel and goes into the Salton Sink. That would enlarge the Salton Sea.
@@personzorz If the sink filled up, it would drain at the south end of the Salton Sink. It would more-or-less flood El Centro CA, Imperial, CA, Calexico, CA, and Mexicali, Mexico before entering the Sea Of Cortez (aka the Gulf Of California) in or near the Colorado river delta.
Honestly, I would kill myself if I was so fucking stupid that I thought we had the right to rename the fucking map.. but I guess that’s the difference difference between me and you is you have no shame or intelligence.
A few howlers here, as pointed out in earlier comments: Roosevelt dam is on the Salt river that feeds into the metro Phoenix area ; The Colorado river flows into into Mexico and then the Gulf of California, NOT Gulf of Mexico.
My great grandfather was one of the architects on the Hoover Dam. He was one of the less credentialed members of the architects, being a Princeton lad as my family tends to be. The guys on this project were no slouches. Simon, you'll love that he started the football (soccer) team at Princeton. Or, you should love that had you any interest in the sport of your origin story. :) I believe when he went on so the Chrysler building in Chicago with a few of those same architects, but I have to call my mom to verify and that's a Sunday afternoon call, leat she thinks I'm in the hospital because I called on a Saturday afternoon.
*_Never_* call your mother at a time when she may conclude you're in the hospital. Also, if she's like my late mother, always have a jacket when you visit, in case she worries about you being cold on the drive home (on an August evening when the temperature is 85°F/30°C in a car with fully functioning HVAC).
to be fair to our poor confused writers, there is a Colorado River in Texas that flows into the Gulf of Mexico(America, lol), BUT, this isn't that river. We have more than one Colorado River, and the one that ends in the Gulf is entirely in Texas, and has nothing to do with the Dam.
Just to give you an idea, the Dambusters from WWII were attacking dams that were 130ft tall, 25ft thick at the top, and 100ft at the base (40m, 8m, 30m). The Hoover dam is more than 700 feet tall and 45 ft thick at the top and 660ft at the bottom, (220m, 7m, 200m). Any conventional explosive would have a limited impact. Even a MOAB weighing 10 tons, with 9 tons of explosive isn’t that huge compared to the old Dambuster bombs which were more than 3 tons of explosive and struggled to do more than chip off the top of dams which were selected because they were made out of [checks notes] “limestone rubble masonry” (mortar and rocks). The MOAB should go through some 20m of concrete. A couple of those and they might have a leak on their hands.
As climate changes over the 100,000-year glacial cycle, different parts of the United States get drastically different climates. Where do you think all those salt flats came from? A wetter period. That, however, is not the climate we are going into. We are going into one where it's even drier.
Deep canyons and gorges are not made by floods either, they are made by slow and steady erosion over millions of years (5-6 million for the Grand Canyon).
1:10 - Chapter 1 - The dam 1:30 - Mid roll ads 2:30 - Back to the video 7:25 - Chapter 2 - Collapse & ramifications 15:00 - Chapter 3 - A more realistic crisis
It is responsible for a lot of the water for crops and city water for Las Vegas and Los Angeles reservoirs. The purpose was partially power and more actually insurance of water going further west. A collapse would result in a flood that contains a lot of the silt that has built up in the lake that it might be more a mud flow rather than a actual flood.
The strength of a dam is determined by its cross-sectional area and height and not by the amount of water stored. With a canal lock it doesn't matter how long the following section is!
Put it all on black and close your eyes to see if you're rich, broke or dead. Hear the sound of chips being pulled on velvet and groan. Go home, tell your SO, close your eyes and focus on, "rich wasn't the outcome" to the sound of a tire iron on the upside of your head.
Did you take the tour inside the dam? I forgot what year it was I went but they took you all the way in to one of the diversion tunnels. That ended with 9/11.
For the record, it’s “Boulder Dam” to the locals. They’re still upset about Herbert Hoover rocking up 13 years AFTER it was finished to change the name from the town and people that built it to his own. IMO, it’s a fair point.
The 100 year old laws that govern the use of Colorado River water only allow for water restrictions when the level of Lake Mead drops to catastrophic levels. Water in higher reservoirs that feed into Lake Mead is being held back to artificially lower the level of Lake Mead. This makes it legal to impose water restrictions now when the water level in the river system as a whole is just really bad rather than waiting for an actual catastrophe. So expect the level of Lake Mead to hover just above dead pool for some time.
Droughts and wildfires are normal natural occurrences for that part of the US. It is epic mismanagement that is making things more difficult than they should be.
In the late '50s into the 60s, my family lived in Yuma AZ. It was the cold war and a lot of talk was about bomb shelters in your back yard. My dad had taken some engineering classes prior to marrying. He said in Yuma, since the target would be the Hoover Dam and the military bases in the area, we would all drown in a dug out bomb shelter. Guess he was right.
Video Idea: 8:40 China's dams... as many as 50,000 of them... are arranged like dominos controlled by five very large "top-dams" such as the 3-Gorges project. Failure of any given dam (especially during rainy season) would tend to cause all dams below it to fail. USA, Japan, probably India all have military plans involving destruction of one or more dams. Worst case scenario results in 500 million dead, leaving China with only 1 billion people to carry on. China's history was formed by periodic pre-dam flooding. They would probably not even ask for foreign assistance WHEN it happens. Anyway, it w/b a good vid.
The Scenario that glen canyon will move there overflowing problem down to the hover dam is actually realistic. As the collapse of the Glen canyon will cause the collapse of the hover dam, they will make sure that that wont happen and rather risk loosing only the hover dam by opening every valve available
Part of the issue with the use plan is that it was put into place at a period of high water levels. As climate change intensifies the river will continually bring less flow over time.
It’s getting to nearly a 100 years old! At least they cold build a backup one a little down stream like they did in Switzerland, The old Spitallamm dam built 90 years ago and built the new one in 2019 in front of it.
Power Pool could be just as devastating as Dead Pool. It was incredibly difficult to find anything about this as it all just refers to Ryan Reynold's hot pants, but once I did, I found it terrifying.
Hilarious that they still pretend this is a drought now two dozen years into it and not the real/new normal, yet they also acknowledge that it is likely to continue to become even drier.
Because that's what it is called all around the world. Just because you are part of a boot licking red hat wearing cult who believes that doesn't mean people with a brain do.
There are 2 Colorado rivers in the US. One is the one you are talking about which empties to the Gulf of California, and the other to the Gulf of Mexico. I never realized this until I moved to Texas.
Im still somewhat new to the channel (I still remember when it was warographics) but I have greatly enjoyed all your videos and this one as well. I'd love to see more.
Seen a documentary about dam's in USA, and they said most of them in critical condition due to poor maintenance, threatening 20 million people with flooding
Back in 2015 there was a UA-camr named Mikey Bolts and he did a video making voice impressions of the president's. When he does Hoover I LOL every time. Just the first thing I thought about🤙
We should have raised the price of water and started massive desalination projects decades ago. I live next to Lake Mead in a van and true to the shows content there is no rain or snow this year. In my five plus years of being around Lake Mead I have never seen conditions like this. Las Vegas has built water intake lower than dead pool though you have to wonder if the river will stop reaching Nevada. Dedicated desalination and aqueducts to Nevada is a good answer. The Roman's did to two thousand years ago. Finally I believe there is no way for water from Roosevelt Dan to enter the Colorado River.
Mr. Whistler apparently is losing either his research skills or the staff that researched for him. California has been using desalination for decades. San Diego had such a plant before 1970 _and_ there are now 12 desalination plants operating in California. Each plant has the capacity to process at least 50 million gallons of water a day. The plant in Carlsbad supplies some 10% of San Diego's water. It's not a total solution, but the effort has been started.
My local Dam was built around 1287AD to power a corn mill, its been overtopped a few times but held, if it failed it would take out my Sons School and the 24/7 Asda amongst a lot more on its way to the River Calder, glad we live a lot higher than the flood plain :)
Visited the Hoover Dam on family vacation in 1999 or 2000 and wild seeing pictures nowadays since back then the water was like 40 feet from the top of the dam.
I get anxiety just thinking about driving across that bridge they built. The roadway used to go right across the top of the dam. I haven't been there in many years. It is impressive.
Okay, I'll admit that I clicked to find out how bad it would really be if the Hoover Dam collapsed, but what you ended with is WAY worse and scary!!! 😮😮😮 Let's all hope Mother Nature doesn't actually hate us and will give the SouthWestern USA some real rain this year!! 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
I would worry more about a dam failure on the upper Columbia River. They're all hydro-electric, and one failure upstream will take out every subsequent dam. That's a lot of water.
Simon, I love your show, you know that, and the idea is very interesting, but I must point out, the Theodor Rosevelt dam is DOWNSTREAM of Hoover dam. I don't see how it can feed lake Mead. It could flood downstream if it broke open the same time Hoover dam did. Is it possible that perhaps you meant Glen Canyon Dam that creates Lake Powel? I have been down inside of Hoover dam, it's amazing. It would take the mother of all earthquakes to break that thing.
Wow, the deadpool scenario was really interesting and something I had never thought of before. And you didn't even mention the ecological devastation of such a thing. Countless individual animals and species would die and become extinct, entire ecosystems would vanish or be transformed into things unrecognisable.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
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Zero chance that this sponsor is legit.
Mr. Whistler would, at this time, do better to review this video and the comments being posted and take action to protect his professional reputation rather than touting a service to protect his viewers' data
Watch "Our Global Water Cycle Lurches From Too-Wet to Too-Dry: New Report for 2024 by Global Water Monitor" by Climate Scientist Paul Beckwith
We all live in our own community and get used to the slowly changing local climate like a frog boiling in water. The global trend is very alarming.
We need a plan to mitigate our long-term mega drought in the Western USA. The Coalition for a National Infrastructure Bank has a great plan to build a pipeline from the Mississippi River bypass in Louisiana to Lake Mead and Lake Powell to refill them in this long-term mega drought. It would NOT require a huge amount of electricity to get up to those elevations and could easily be powered by floating solar power on the reservoirs, covering less than 10%. Two axis floating solar that tracks the Sun elevation and azimuth would provide very long power hours per day, producing a lot of power during peak demand. There would also be less evaporation on the reservoirs. The power lines are already nearby. And the hydropower is a huge battery. Solar power is currently the lowest cost. The cost for the project could easily be paid back by the agriculture that could grow to be a much larger business and currently which is being curtailed due to dwindling water supplies. Only a small percentage of the bypass water would be required to refill the reservoirs. The pipeline could also act as a source of water with reversed flow for occasional drought situations in Louisiana.
Is there a chance that the dust bowl is worthy of a story?
@AnAmericanPatriot1555 could it happen again? We are doing everything right for that if we use all the water and agriculture stops and by that point 3C warming. Did you read my comment?:
Watch "Our Global Water Cycle Lurches From Too-Wet to Too-Dry: New Report for 2024 by Global Water Monitor" by Climate Scientist Paul Beckwith
We all live in our own community and get used to the slowly changing local climate like a frog boiling in water. The global trend is very alarming.
We need a plan to mitigate our long-term mega drought in the Western USA. The Coalition for a National Infrastructure Bank has a great plan to build a pipeline from the Mississippi River bypass in Louisiana to Lake Mead and Lake Powell to refill them in this long-term mega drought. It would NOT require a huge amount of electricity to get up to those elevations and could easily be powered by floating solar power on the reservoirs, covering less than 10%. Two axis floating solar that tracks the Sun elevation and azimuth would provide very long power hours per day, producing a lot of power during peak demand. There would also be less evaporation on the reservoirs. The power lines are already nearby. And the hydropower is a huge battery. Solar power is currently the lowest cost. The cost for the project could easily be paid back by the agriculture that could grow to be a much larger business and currently which is being curtailed due to dwindling water supplies. Only a small percentage of the bypass water would be required to refill the reservoirs. The pipeline could also act as a source of water with reversed flow for occasional drought situations in Louisiana.
The more important question is: what if it is seized by Caesar's Legion in 2281?
Hail Caesar
Hail Caesar
Patrolling the Mojave almost makes me wish for a nuclear winter.
When I got this assignment, I thought there'd be more gambling.
The truth is.. the game was rigged from the start
My brother died at the battle of Hoover damn!
Hi Vegas resident here. Las Vegas recycles 90% of all water it uses. If it goes down a drain it goes right back to the lake. The bellagio fountains even use water from sinks and showers in the hotel tower to fill it. What’s actually draining the Colorado river are alfalfa farms in Arizona and other farms in California. If they found a different water source lake mead would fill
convert the dessert into farmland and try to keep it that way.
There's just so much water you can take out a river and they may need to overthink the wastage of water
@@mammutMK2 So dessert farmland bad but normal good. Gotcha
@@RobertStewart-i3m that's like comparing a bathtub to a pool...when I can't have a 2500 gallon pool, why they still allow bathtubs.
If it's not too dry, you don't need irrigation on actual farmland, and even if it's performed it's often in water rich areas to get the water on the plants due to the lack of rain.
But in a dessert you already need a lot of water to convert it to farmland and to keep it that way, the base soil is like concrete, bone dry...and since there's no ground water or actual ground soil to contain the water and the heat, it needs permanent irrigation.
Like turning concrete slab into farmland by pouring some soil on it and watering it around the clock so your plants don't dye
Don't drink the tap water 😂
You're absolutely right and as an Arizona resident it infuriates me that we waste water on suadi alfalfa farms
Dear sir: As my step father worked for the USGS in 1983 that measures all the water flows in the region, the scenario you mention actually was feared for a few days. Glen Canyon Dam was at capacity and releasing the first flows ever through it's spillways when vibrations indicted damage to those spillways. Emergency deployment of seismic specialists determined within a few days that the erosion was not heading towards the dam, but nobody knew that at first. A catastrophic collapse of Glen Canyon was truly feared with the consequences to Hoover unknowable but terrifying. I was living in Yuma at the time. This was NOT a thought exercise..
I remember the 1983 flood very well. I was pregnant with my son in Tucson, AZ, at the time. I lived within half a mile of the Rillito River, and I watched several buildings collapse into it from my balcony.
The high flows in 83 brought striped bass down from Lake Havasu and my brother and I had a blast fishing for them in the shallow white water below Laguna Dam spillway. GOOD TIMES!
I lived in Page at that time and the threat was real. The vibrations felt on top of the canyon directly above and a bit downstream (on top of the canyon) while the spillways and jet tubes were flowing was just intense. Peak output during flooding was over 92,000 cubic feet per second.
I was gonna come into the comment section to point out the near failure of the Glen Canyon dam in 1983 means it could be a realistic scenario. I was a kid in the Colorado mountains in 1983 and I do vaguely recall that winter being insanely snowy.
Yep. I was 'in the loop' at the time and there was very serious concern as they only had limited option and were terrified of going into uncontorolled release at Glen Canyon. They prevented serious damage below Hoover by raising the spillways 4' with 2 inches of marine plywood on steel frames bolted on top..
And to think, they have Megatron hidden under the dam undergoing experiments on him.
Autobots roll out, we've found Megatron!!!!
dont forget about the cube too
Where was megaton when the Roman’s and ncr fought over control of it????
@@austinjacob8026he was going by his alter ego Liberty prime
Dude, that was like 3 films ago 😂
My dad worked on Glen Canyon Dam until the labor strike. He was one of those drillers that hung off of ropes and drilled into the canyon walls with the raging river below! He always told me it was no big deal hanging 600 feet off a sheer cliff, it was a job that had to be done. I also lived in Page during the 1983 floods and believe me they were very worried about spillway erosion and the integrity of that whole system. I got to go inside the spillways during the repairs caused by the floods and they are huge!
The Roosevelt Dam is on the Salt river. The waters would flood Phoenix, on its way to the Colorado via the Gila river, witch it empties into just southwest of Phoenix. The Gila river empties into the Colorado river just north of Yuma. So its waters will have no effect on the Hoover dam.
Glad someone corrected this. Seems like the editors for this channel are quite sloppy.
Yeah, this error annoyed me too. (Arizona resident)
@@johnchedsey1306 I'm a Tucsonan
I can't believe his research was so far off on this one.
@@TheDanEdwardschinese writers.
The Colorado flows into the Gulf of California, not Mexico. The Gulf of Mexico is separated from the Colorado by the Rocky Mountains, and there's no way for the water to cross them.
Isn't he just talking about Mexico having some of the water rights from the Colorado river? Because I believe they do. Nothing to do with the Gulf of Mexico, I mean Gulf of America 😉
@@Djamonja You mean the Gulf of Stupidica?
Unrelated, Mexico does have water rights to the Colorado, but because the treaty was signed in the early 1900s and they overestimated the river's flow even back then, Mexico rarely gets anywhere close to its share. The Colorado "ends" in the Gulf of California, but it stops flowing over a hundred miles further inland when the last little stream dries up.
There is if the water evaporates and snows on the other side 🤪
@ Yes, I know that, and I was just joking about the name, thus the winky face.
Gulf of California? You mean the Sea of Arizona lol
13:40 "spill out in the Gulf of Mexico"
I gave up when they couldn't correctly identify an upstream dam or river to cause their fictional disaster.
for real!
when he said that, i about choked! 😱
And even worse, it took me a minute to find anyone else who caught that.
I knew I wasn’t alone. No way is it going over New Mexico and Texas
Wrong. Definitely would flood the Persian Gulf and get the Warfronts writers all riled up.
What if Simon ran out of ideas for a new channel? What if we were doomed and destined to only have the 11 or so currently in production. Would UA-cam cease to exist? Would the Earth stop turning and the Universe go dark? Stay tuned, Simon will have a new channel shortly explaining these important questions of life and the future history of mankind.
The Whistlerverse deserves an episode making about its history, the channels that have come and gone, an insight into the writers and editors, who's in Simons basement, and of course how it's become a legendary side mission of finding and subscribing to all of the channels in the Whistlerverse!
It's hard to believe you once had 3 choices of "streaming" media to choose from. I couldn't live in that world.
1:08 the dam
2:29 end of sponsorship
7:22 collapse and ramifications
14:58 a more realistic crisis
You dropped your 👑
Please marry me.
Big Dog!
i think i love you
the roosevelt dam is not upstream from lake mead, it eventually gets to the colorado river via salt then gila river finally joinng the colorado around yuma. the little colorado river has no dam and is on the other side of the mountains from roosevelt dam.
The map they displayed literally shows this. Lazy fact-checking before recording
Lake Mead was named after Elwood Mead, the engineer who made the desert bloom. He's from the town I grew up in.
err - isn't the Theodore Roosevelt Dam on the Salt River, not the Little Colorado? And the Salt River does not feed Lake Meade?
C'mon bro what do you expect out of a Brit who self-admittedly doesn't "get" Pink Floyd? I will never forgive Simon for that statement.
Couple of issues here, for one- you used some wide shots of Glen Canyon Dam when talking about downstream of Hoover. Second, the Colorado flows into the Gulf of California between Mexico proper and the Mexican State of Baja California before exiting into the Pacific... not the Gulf of Mexico
This scriptwriter should work in Hollywood using such a huge volume of 'if's and but's'.
The real question is "Is siding with the yes-man truly the best choice for Mojave, in particular new vegas?"
I think you meant to say it would spill into the gulf of California
So right. Besides, the Gulf of Mexico has been rebranded to the Gulf of America, but I was fine with the old name
Yup, someone needs to check these scripts.
He's just getting lazy now
@@JosephJanitorius-p5vrebranded by a halfwit moron. Only him and his pole smokers call it that.
Was gonna say...
@@JosephJanitorius-p5v-- Sorry to disappoint you, but neither one person nor one country can "rename" an international body of water or geographic feature. So that body of water remains the Gulf of Mexico.
But if renaming were really that simple, I thereby rename the property known as Mar-a-Lago to be "Idiot Asylum." There ... rebranding completed.
Hoover dead pool would not be permanent at all. Every spring would replenish things to a significant extent. However, water use and power use would have to be modified substantially.
Exactly. Watering lawns and golf courses would be outlawed, and farm and industry use would be closely monitored.
Yep, but 'dead pool' would not be catastrophic as described. After all, it started below dead pool when built.
@@hardrockuniversity7283 I don't know how to explain this if you don't understand it yourself, but let me try; the level for dead pool wouldn't be the same as it is now before the dam was built. Because before the river was flowing unhampered. It isn't until after the dam is actually there that it would even begin to fill up...
@@pantern2 That is true. But it DID fill up. The problem is they are USING more water at times than flows in. A major part of the problem is that when the original interstate and international agreements were agreed upon on how to share the water, the estimate was off and the actual amount available was less than what they thought. The Colorado River has not reached the Sea of Cortez EXCEPT during the flood in a long time.
@@hardrockuniversity7283
This problem is obviously caused by decades of gross incompetence and extreme negligence.
The solution is simple - use less water.
Stop pissing away the amazing gift that was given to you by your ancestors, stop destroying it.
All right, as a former Whitewater River guide in the upper salt River Canyon I can tell you with 100% certainty that Roosevelt Lake has nothing to do with the little Colorado river and is actually in the salt river watershed. I'm only hoping that when I watch the rest of the video it turns out that this is some kind of Joke but just in case I thought I'd put this in here
Minor point of order, For some reason there are two Colorado Rivers in the USA and the one that Lake Mead holds back would empty into the Gulf of California, not Gulf of Mexico.
Or the Gulf of America for that matter 😂. Sorry I had to say it.
Yea, opposite side of the continental divide.
If you understand how it was built and where it is built you would know that the only way it could fail would be by sabotage.
Most all failures of this type of dam were because the surrounding area was not stable enough to maintain their integrity. Hoover is built into solid rock, unlike the failure of the Cali St Francis dam years ago. And it's shear mass prevents and possibility of uplift, especially considering the 7 Sisters Co. dug down to bedrock on the floor of the riverbed. Fun video though Simon.
Turns out living and farming in a desert isn't a great idea...
What a shocker
There's only so much land on the planet. You either have to terraform it or limit human birth at some point
Lack of food will naturally limit population size
@PalleRunquist-d5c possibly, but I'm not a great fan of malthusian thinking. This is just one of several ways we're going to have to Star Trek our future if the species is going to survive
@PalleRunquist-d5c Lack of food will cause starvation, which makes the most powerful parts of society to grasp even greater control over the populace. in order to assure food supply to their children/power bloc, while dooming the populace outside that circle. yeah, you're right - it is a natural process.
Well, a collapse of Hoover Dam one way to restore the Colorado River Delta as it enters the Sea Of Cortez. Unless it cuts a new channel and goes into the Salton Sink. That would enlarge the Salton Sea.
Maybe that will bring the tourists back.
If Salton kept rising, where would it eventually drain?
@@personzorz If the sink filled up, it would drain at the south end of the Salton Sink. It would more-or-less flood El Centro CA, Imperial, CA, Calexico, CA, and Mexicali, Mexico before entering the Sea Of Cortez (aka the Gulf Of California) in or near the Colorado river delta.
Wish I could have seen the central valley and lake Owens before all the water diversion projects.
Flooding of the Colorado is how the salton sea has been refilled
13:38 dude you really need to learn how to read a map! The Colorado river flow to the Gulf of California not the Gulf of Mexico.
Yea, and it’s the gulf of America anyway!
It’s fine - it won’t cause any problems in the Gulf of America at least. 😂😂🤪
California and Mexico seem very similar to us Brits
Honestly, I would kill myself if I was so fucking stupid that I thought we had the right to rename the fucking map.. but I guess that’s the difference difference between me and you is you have no shame or intelligence.
lol - Hoover Dam is so over-engineered if it breaks the planet has far, far worse problems 🤣
A fun thought experiment though!
A few howlers here, as pointed out in earlier comments: Roosevelt dam is on the Salt river that feeds into the metro Phoenix area ; The Colorado river flows into into Mexico and then the Gulf of California, NOT Gulf of Mexico.
Maybe we will finally find Jimmy Hoffa.
My great grandfather was one of the architects on the Hoover Dam. He was one of the less credentialed members of the architects, being a Princeton lad as my family tends to be. The guys on this project were no slouches. Simon, you'll love that he started the football (soccer) team at Princeton. Or, you should love that had you any interest in the sport of your origin story. :)
I believe when he went on so the Chrysler building in Chicago with a few of those same architects, but I have to call my mom to verify and that's a Sunday afternoon call, leat she thinks I'm in the hospital because I called on a Saturday afternoon.
*_Never_* call your mother at a time when she may conclude you're in the hospital.
Also, if she's like my late mother, always have a jacket when you visit, in case she worries about you being cold on the drive home (on an August evening when the temperature is 85°F/30°C in a car with fully functioning HVAC).
FFS, why did I keep watching?
Deadpool will apparently "leave the Colorado River bone dry 'permanently," Well, at least until the dam refills enough.
to be fair to our poor confused writers, there is a Colorado River in Texas that flows into the Gulf of Mexico(America, lol), BUT, this isn't that river. We have more than one Colorado River, and the one that ends in the Gulf is entirely in Texas, and has nothing to do with the Dam.
9:20 What? Even your own map clearly shows the waters released from the Roosevelt Dam being DOWNSTREAM of the Hoover, and not impacting it whatsoever.
Full blown lounge mode, need to start a gofundme to get him a few new shirts.
Something with a tropical motif perhaps.
Nothing wrong with being comfortable
Mr Armani over here
Completely unprofessional!!! I agree!!!
His beard has a fresh trim though so it cancels out.
You should make a whole series of videos on hypothetical dam failures and actual dam failures though out history and make a playlist for them
Dams would be a good playlist
Not with this writer…
Just to give you an idea, the Dambusters from WWII were attacking dams that were 130ft tall, 25ft thick at the top, and 100ft at the base (40m, 8m, 30m).
The Hoover dam is more than 700 feet tall and 45 ft thick at the top and 660ft at the bottom, (220m, 7m, 200m).
Any conventional explosive would have a limited impact. Even a MOAB weighing 10 tons, with 9 tons of explosive isn’t that huge compared to the old Dambuster bombs which were more than 3 tons of explosive and struggled to do more than chip off the top of dams which were selected because they were made out of [checks notes] “limestone rubble masonry” (mortar and rocks). The MOAB should go through some 20m of concrete. A couple of those and they might have a leak on their hands.
Looking at the topography of the area, it seems catastrophic floods are not unusual... those deep canyons and gorges were not made by wind...
As climate changes over the 100,000-year glacial cycle, different parts of the United States get drastically different climates. Where do you think all those salt flats came from? A wetter period.
That, however, is not the climate we are going into. We are going into one where it's even drier.
Deep canyons and gorges are not made by floods either, they are made by slow and steady erosion over millions of years (5-6 million for the Grand Canyon).
@@personzorztry warmer and wetter. Overall rainfall worldwide increases as temperature increases.
@@emu071981 That is one school of thought yes... Are you denying the Missoula floods created canyons?
@@chuckd9007 Overall yes, but this particular area should dry. Others would get much wetter.
I loved the video!
FYI, the Colorado River empties in the the Gulf of California, not Gulf of Mexico
1:10 - Chapter 1 - The dam
1:30 - Mid roll ads
2:30 - Back to the video
7:25 - Chapter 2 - Collapse & ramifications
15:00 - Chapter 3 - A more realistic crisis
Merci!
Megatron is gonna escape
Him and the AllSpark
An excellent documentary about the Colorado River is on Nebula, called the Colorado Problem, well worth the watch
It is responsible for a lot of the water for crops and city water for Las Vegas and Los Angeles reservoirs. The purpose was partially power and more actually insurance of water going further west. A collapse would result in a flood that contains a lot of the silt that has built up in the lake that it might be more a mud flow rather than a actual flood.
This channel is going kurzgesagt existential dark now. Love it
My brother, the last time I saw the Hoover Dam it had like 2 liters of water left behind it; we'd be fine.
Actually, 3 US Customary pints.
Low water, over-engineering from another age, and the fact that it's getting harder still make the chances of failure even more remote than I thought.
7:45 Fact Boi channeling his inner MythBuster 😂😂😂
As we seem to be rushing into WW3 im glad you're doing videos on everyone's war crime targets.
The strength of a dam is determined by its cross-sectional area and height and not by the amount of water stored. With a canal lock it doesn't matter how long the following section is!
Gulf of Mexico? Gulf of Mexico?
Never heard of it.
Gulf of 'Murica
I'm going to go WAY out on a limb here - it would be bad, super BAD.
Been there several times. Great tour.
To be safe, I just scheduled my perhaps last-ever vacation to Las Vegas.
Put it all on black and close your eyes to see if you're rich, broke or dead. Hear the sound of chips being pulled on velvet and groan. Go home, tell your SO, close your eyes and focus on, "rich wasn't the outcome" to the sound of a tire iron on the upside of your head.
Don't forget to visit the strip
@@SRW_ ...club?
@@JosephJanitorius-p5v
What?
We drove to Hover Dam in 83 just to see the spillways flowing, it was very impressive to say the least.
Did you take the tour inside the dam? I forgot what year it was I went but they took you all the way in to one of the diversion tunnels. That ended with 9/11.
Simon, magnificent as always. Can you produce a video on the Vaiont dam disaster in Italy? Thanks!
So, should California be funneling water towards the east instead of draining it into the Pacific ocean?
Colorado river is already so over exploited it doesn't really reach the sea anymore.
Paroling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter.
15:38 “Brian Reynolds”? 😂
For the record, it’s “Boulder Dam” to the locals. They’re still upset about Herbert Hoover rocking up 13 years AFTER it was finished to change the name from the town and people that built it to his own. IMO, it’s a fair point.
@13:40 Gulf of California, not Gulf of Mexico
0:00 "The Hoover Dam is one of those structures that's tied inextricably to the place where it was built."
I daresay that's true for all dams.
Fun fact, if you drained the entire Colorado river into the ocean the ocean level would increase by 0.229 millimeters.
You should do more items failing videos, and create a new channel and call it Nega Projects! All negative videos.
That sounds a little too close to a certain n word.
All I know is...we won't go quietly...the legion can count on that.
I think you meant to say it would spill out into the Gulf of California. The Gulf of Mexico is on the eastern coast of mainland Mexico.
Isn't that the Gulf of America as of the 20th of February. Lol
Yes 👍@@paulcockman930
@@paulpaintshop103 In the same way that Texas is now Norte de Mexico.
If the dam broke for whatever reason, how long would the bathtub ring last on the walls of the canyon and reservoir?
Wow, the acre-foot. I had never heard of that before. What a sensible way te express volume. 🤣
The 100 year old laws that govern the use of Colorado River water only allow for water restrictions when the level of Lake Mead drops to catastrophic levels. Water in higher reservoirs that feed into Lake Mead is being held back to artificially lower the level of Lake Mead. This makes it legal to impose water restrictions now when the water level in the river system as a whole is just really bad rather than waiting for an actual catastrophe. So expect the level of Lake Mead to hover just above dead pool for some time.
Droughts and wildfires are normal natural occurrences for that part of the US. It is epic mismanagement that is making things more difficult than they should be.
Hover Dam hasn't fallen since the second battle at Hover Dam
In the late '50s into the 60s, my family lived in Yuma AZ. It was the cold war and a lot of talk was about bomb shelters in your back yard. My dad had taken some engineering classes prior to marrying. He said in Yuma, since the target would be the Hoover Dam and the military bases in the area, we would all drown in a dug out bomb shelter. Guess he was right.
I've been across the dam many times, before the bypass. It's very impressive. If you ever have the chance, walk across it, at least on it
I think retrieving the platinum chip would've proven to be a tad bit difficult.
Makes me want to watch Superman (1978), and San Andreas (2015) again.
Well, this was cheery!
If you take the tour you find out the cement hasn’t even fully cured yet! 😂
Video Idea: 8:40 China's dams... as many as 50,000 of them... are arranged like dominos controlled by five very large "top-dams" such as the 3-Gorges project. Failure of any given dam (especially during rainy season) would tend to cause all dams below it to fail. USA, Japan, probably India all have military plans involving destruction of one or more dams. Worst case scenario results in 500 million dead, leaving China with only 1 billion people to carry on. China's history was formed by periodic pre-dam flooding. They would probably not even ask for foreign assistance WHEN it happens. Anyway, it w/b a good vid.
The Scenario that glen canyon will move there overflowing problem down to the hover dam is actually realistic.
As the collapse of the Glen canyon will cause the collapse of the hover dam, they will make sure that that wont happen and rather risk loosing only the hover dam by opening every valve available
Part of the issue with the use plan is that it was put into place at a period of high water levels. As climate change intensifies the river will continually bring less flow over time.
It’s getting to nearly a 100 years old! At least they cold build a backup one a little down stream like they did in Switzerland, The old Spitallamm dam built 90 years ago and built the new one in 2019 in front of it.
The Colorado River doesn't flow into the Gulf of Mexico.. it flows to the Gulf of California.
A similar "what if?" about the Three Gorges Dam would be interesting, too.
Power Pool could be just as devastating as Dead Pool. It was incredibly difficult to find anything about this as it all just refers to Ryan Reynold's hot pants, but once I did, I found it terrifying.
Take all of the record breaking snow we just got in Florida, we won't mind
Bit of a myth, the concrete is not still curing. It would have been if one pour. Even though that would have been impossible.
Hilarious that they still pretend this is a drought now two dozen years into it and not the real/new normal, yet they also acknowledge that it is likely to continue to become even drier.
Despite all this Las Vegas continues to build like crazy.
13:38 wtf … how can you mistake that for the Gulf of Mexico?
Because that's what it is called all around the world. Just because you are part of a boot licking red hat wearing cult who believes that doesn't mean people with a brain do.
Because that's what its called all around the world.
There are 2 Colorado rivers in the US. One is the one you are talking about which empties to the Gulf of California, and the other to the Gulf of Mexico. I never realized this until I moved to Texas.
Im still somewhat new to the channel (I still remember when it was warographics) but I have greatly enjoyed all your videos and this one as well. I'd love to see more.
Seen a documentary about dam's in USA, and they said most of them in critical condition due to poor maintenance, threatening 20 million people with flooding
You should look into the failure of the Grand Teton dam. It probably had the shortest life span of any dam ever.
Back in 2015 there was a UA-camr named Mikey Bolts and he did a video making voice impressions of the president's. When he does Hoover I LOL every time. Just the first thing I thought about🤙
We should have raised the price of water and started massive desalination projects decades ago. I live next to Lake Mead in a van and true to the shows content there is no rain or snow this year. In my five plus years of being around Lake Mead I have never seen conditions like this. Las Vegas has built water intake lower than dead pool though you have to wonder if the river will stop reaching Nevada. Dedicated desalination and aqueducts to Nevada is a good answer. The Roman's did to two thousand years ago. Finally I believe there is no way for water from Roosevelt Dan to enter the Colorado River.
Mr. Whistler apparently is losing either his research skills or the staff that researched for him. California has been using desalination for decades. San Diego had such a plant before 1970 _and_ there are now 12 desalination plants operating in California. Each plant has the capacity to process at least 50 million gallons of water a day. The plant in Carlsbad supplies some 10% of San Diego's water. It's not a total solution, but the effort has been started.
My local Dam was built around 1287AD to power a corn mill, its been overtopped a few times but held, if it failed it would take out my Sons School and the 24/7 Asda amongst a lot more on its way to the River Calder, glad we live a lot higher than the flood plain :)
Visited the Hoover Dam on family vacation in 1999 or 2000 and wild seeing pictures nowadays since back then the water was like 40 feet from the top of the dam.
I get anxiety just thinking about driving across that bridge they built. The roadway used to go right across the top of the dam. I haven't been there in many years. It is impressive.
Okay, I'll admit that I clicked to find out how bad it would really be if the Hoover Dam collapsed, but what you ended with is WAY worse and scary!!! 😮😮😮 Let's all hope Mother Nature doesn't actually hate us and will give the SouthWestern USA some real rain this year!! 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
I would worry more about a dam failure on the upper Columbia River. They're all hydro-electric, and one failure upstream will take out every subsequent dam. That's a lot of water.
As someone who lives about a half hour drive away from Hoover (Boulder) Dam, this is concerning
Simon, I love your show, you know that, and the idea is very interesting, but I must point out, the Theodor Rosevelt dam is DOWNSTREAM of Hoover dam. I don't see how it can feed lake Mead. It could flood downstream if it broke open the same time Hoover dam did. Is it possible that perhaps you meant Glen Canyon Dam that creates Lake Powel? I have been down inside of Hoover dam, it's amazing. It would take the mother of all earthquakes to break that thing.
The Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, just down river, is an underrated visit.
Wow, the deadpool scenario was really interesting and something I had never thought of before. And you didn't even mention the ecological devastation of such a thing. Countless individual animals and species would die and become extinct, entire ecosystems would vanish or be transformed into things unrecognisable.