Once when we were working on the Inks Dam anchoring project there were many obstacles to overcome everyday.

There was one day when the stars aligned and it appeared we would have a banner day of pouring concrete. We ordered up 2 huge concrete pump trucks that were capable of sending concrete all the way across the length of the dam. They came out of San Antonio, at a hefty price for mobilization.

We had a huge team of finishers that we had hired out of Austin to help place and finish the concrete.

The concrete was batched out of Marble Falls. They would come out FM 1431 west and turn on FM 2342 to come over to the dam along the east side of the lake.

Everything had to work closely in concert to pull this all off. We had every thing timed out perfectly. With the pumps setup and ready to start shooting concrete more than 1000′ to the far side of the dam we were waiting on the first truck to arrive. They were staged out, 15 minutes apart.

On all the previous pours that had kept to a very good schedule. We waited. No trucks showed up. We called the concrete plant and they couldn’t reach any of the drivers. Apparently the trucks were behind the mountain in a dead spot for their radios.

I left the dam and drove towards Marble Falls in search of concrete mixer trucks.

On the long stretch of road between the Hoover Valley Store and the Road leading up the hill toward Longhorn Caverns, there was a Dollar General 18 Wheeler parked across the highway. It spanned the road from bar ditch to bar ditch. A dozen mixer trucks were forming a long line on the other side.

The DG Truck had found himself headed the wrong way and tried to turn around, and high centered on the pavement.

Under normal circumstances that wouldn’t have been such a disaster, but this concrete, by specification had to be in place within a certain number of minutes. That didn’t allow time to take Longhorn Cavern Road to Burnet and back to Ink. Nor could we go around by way of Fuzzy’s Corner and meet the time criteria.

A large enough wrecker had to be dispatched from Georgetown to free the DG Truck.

We ended up having to dump a dozen truck loads of concrete, pay for the pump trucks for a dry run from San Antonio, pay time on the large finishing crew as well as a complete day lost on our crews.

I attempted to pursue compensation through Dollar General and their insurance but finally gave up. It was too difficult to explain to everyone I spoke to. I guess if The Angora Chronicles has been around then, I could just let them read about it there.

This was only one example of the obstacles we had during that job. I’ll add a link to a prior post about that project.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/729839877052650/permalink/2442382349131719/

This is a link to another story about the horrors of that project:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/729839877052650/permalink/2519833274719959/

This may be the same driver