Free The Yellowstone Conundrum by John Randall

Wyoming and the Idaho dams at Pallisades, Ririe, Blackfoot, American Falls, Minidoka, Millner, C.J. Strike, Swan Falls, Brownlee, and Oxbow were all blinking; all were located within three hundred miles of Yellowstone. 
      “Oh, man!  No!” pleaded Paul Griswold. Both Paul and Jake were senior control specialists, both in their early 50s; Paul having a scruffy grey beard, Paul having a full mane of grey hair, with intentions to eventually turn it into a ponytail. 
      “Jackson Lake is off line!”  Both power control specialist knew that either the dam had failed or God was playing a really nasty trick with light bulbs on the large map.
      “So are Henry’s Lake and Island Park,” both dams were on the Henry’s Fork branch of the Snake River, closest to the epicenter. 
     
             
    Island Park            Henry’s Lake Dam
     
     

     
    Jackson Dam, Wyoming
     
    All 30 miles from the epicenter of the Yellowstone eruption.  Photos.  Public domain pictures from government employees.

Western Area Power Administration
    Upper Great Plains Region
    Watertown, South Dakota
     
     
      “Jake!  Jake!” shouted Leslie Joe Abrams. As all hell was breaking loose in Portland, Leslie and his partner Jerry Stockton had felt the massive Yellowstone earthquake, even though it was 850 miles away. 
      Connecting WAPA Upper Great Plains and the Bonneville Power Administration were two sets of 500kw transmission ties, dedicated solely to connecting the Northwest with Midwest. One set of transmission ties was located near the town of Townsend just east of Helena and connected to the western portal near Lookout Pass on the Montana-Idaho border. The other set of towers connected Townsend to the eastern portal of Colstrip, a little berg in the middle of nowhere Montana. Although owned by different power companies, the pair of lines was generally referred to as the Montana Intertie; they allowed the transfer of electricity from the Pacific Northwest, through the upper mid-west plains states, and delivered to eastern utility companies.
     
       
    Photos by James Chalmers
     
      Outside Leslie Joe’s office it was ten degrees above zero and a bright morning sun.  Inside, it was raining sweat.
      “What happened to the Intertie?” shouted Abrams.
      His partner Jerry Stockton pointed to the map.
      “Shit,” Leslie Joe said simply. On the big map the transmission ties connecting to Bonneville Power were two long red lines of lights, at first blinking slowly, and now blinking quickly, meaning eminent damage. In fact, the damage had already been done by the massive earthquake.
      “I can’t see it!” shouted Jake Beatty on the BPA line.
    “The Intertie is out!”
      Unbeknownst to both Jake Beatty and Leslie Joe Abrams, a 185-foot “self-supporting” transmission tower in the desert east of Townsend, Montana had reacted to the violent shaking of the earth and, like the Space Center in Seattle, had snapped the top third of its tower smack off, effectively shutting down the transmission of electricity across the Rocky Mountains.
      “Leslie, I’m shutting it down!  Immediately!  Good bye, my friend.”
    In Portland Jake Beatty pushed the buttons that closed the Montana Intertie.  Neither Jake nor Leslie was out of the woods.
     

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
    111 North Hope Street
    Los Angeles, California
     
      The 12-story pancake-like building that housed the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power was busy as usual.  The first shift people were already starting to gather in the cafeteria, ready to replace the third shift zombies, who would leave the darkness of the building and enter the ethereal world of morning in LA.
      Unlike other Power Control Centers, the map on the wall consisted of LA County, with long distance lines to the outside; Mohave, Phoenix, Hoover, PG&E (the enemy) and San Diego. It was assumed that everyone in the outside world knew it to be a fact