1、The Hoover DamThe fight back starts here. Vast building projects, publicly funded.privately built. This is Frank "Hurry Up" Crowe. Hes already built six dams on time and under budget. And now he has his eye on something even bigger: the Colorado River.復興之路從這里開始，由政府出資私人承建的大型工程項目，這就是人稱"

2、快手"的弗蘭克·克羅。他已成功承建6座水壩，按時完工且不超預算，現在他把目光投向了更大的目標科羅拉多河。“I was wild to build this dam, the biggest dam ever built by anyone, anywhere.”“我十分渴望修建這個大壩使之成為最宏偉無與倫比的大壩。”The Colorado River is one of the most powerful rivers in the world. Every second, twice as much water, tears through these canyons

3、than goes over Niagara Falls.科羅拉多河是世上水流最湍急的河之一，從這些峽谷里每秒鐘奔騰而下的水量相當于尼亞加拉大瀑布水流量的兩倍。Frank Crowe's plan is to harness it. The water and hydroelectricity will transform the whole of the Southwest. March 4, 1931, the government gives the go-ahead to build the Hoover Dam.弗蘭克·克羅的計劃是駕馭這條河。這條河所蘊含的水和水力

4、發電將改變整個西南部。1931年3月4日，聯邦政府一聲令下開始修建胡佛水壩。 “The Hoover Dam, even before they started building it。It became a metaphor; people saw it as a statement of the American's fortitude, of our ingenuity, of our talent for hard work and for our willingness to transform the environment around us.”“胡佛水壩尚未動工之時,就

5、被視為一種象征。人們視之為美國精神的象征、不屈不撓、獨具匠心、迎難而上、勇往直前、改造世界。”The Hoover Dam will cost nearly $1 billion in today's money. Frank Crowe's is offered a 2.5% cut of the dams profits if he gets the job done quickly. It should take 6 years to build, but Frank says it can be done in 4.這座水壩的造價相當于今天的10億美元。弗蘭克·

6、;克羅如果能迅速完工便可得到水壩盈利的2.5%作為報酬。預計要花6年才能建成水壩,但弗蘭克說他只需4年即可完工。42,000 men come from across the country looking for jobs on the biggest construction site in America. Frank Crowe takes 5,000 men willing to work harder and faster than anyone else. The survival of the fittest. Men are ready to do anything for

7、work.全國各地共有四萬兩千人來這個美國最大的工地找工作。弗蘭克·克羅收了五千名最能吃苦耐勞且干活麻利的。優勝劣汰。人們為了得到工作不惜一切代價。“There's a large cando attitude in the United States and it come soon the fact that over the centuries, there has been a lot of adversity, and we have usually triumphed. First was the triumph of developing this whole

8、vast continent, putting in railroad lines, putting in all the civil engineering to support it, putting in Hoover Dam. These were all incredible challenges.”“美國有著一種人定勝天的精神，幾個世紀以來的事實也表明：盡管前路有著許多艱難險阻 我們終能凱旋而歸。首先是成功開發了這片遼闊的大陸，然后又在大平原上鋪設了鐵路還建成了所有這些宏大的工程。建設胡佛水壩全都是不可思議的巨大挑戰。”There are two stages to buildin

9、g the dam. First, divert the river around the worksite. Second, build the colossal wall. To divert the raging Colorado, four massive tunnels are drilled through 3 miles of solid rock. Each tunnel is as wide as a four lane highway and is tall as a 5-story building. A million and a half gallons of wat

10、er flow through here every second.建成水壩需要兩個步驟：第一步，讓河水改道，繞過工地周圍。第二步：建起這座巨堤。為了讓水流湍急的科羅拉多河改道需要鉆透長達3英里的巖石建成4條巨大的隧道，每條隧道的寬度堪比四車道高速公路，高度則有5層樓。每秒鐘有150萬加侖的水從這些隧道中奔騰而過。“The Hoover Dam was a statement about what America is all about. Nothing is too big to take on. We are going to change this country. If Frank

11、Crow was in a hurry before, now the pressure is double; Time and money. The tunnels can only be dug when the river is low. That's only four months in a year; and the money. There is a $3,000 fine for every day the project falls behind the schedule.”“胡佛水壩是美國最好的寫照，不惜一切代價。我們必將改變這個國家。”蘭克·克羅本就分秒

12、必爭。現在更是壓力倍增，無論時間還是資金隧道只能在枯水季節挖掘，而枯水期每年只有四個月。資金也是個問題。工程每延期一天就要罰款3000美元。The clock is ticking. Franks answer is as bold as he is. Gigantic mobile drilling rigs.4 stories of scaffolding mounted on the backs of trucks. Up to 30 men drill into the rock around the clock, 24 hours a day. They move ten times

13、 faster than normal drilling. Temperatures hit 140 degrees in the tunnels. Frank just pushes harder. The drilling crews compete against each other.時間不等人。弗蘭克的解決之道一如既往地大膽。巨大的移動鉆孔機 4層腳手架搭在卡車上面，多達30名工人一天24小時不停地鉆，比通常的鉆孔進度快上10倍。隧道內溫度高至華氏140度60攝氏度，弗蘭克還是催得更急，他要求鉆孔工人們相互競爭。 “Which will drill the furthest ever

14、y day?” As drill man Marion Allen puts it: it didn't make any difference what you did, but you had to beat that other crew.哪隊每天能鉆更多？正如鉆孔工人馬里昂·艾倫所言：其實干多干少并不會怎么樣，但你必須要比其他人多干。Deadly fumes pump out of the trucks. They build up in the tunnel. They get into the men's lungs, into their blood.

15、You men, get him out of here. Carbon monoxide poisoning claims hundreds of men. I went to work down there one night, and there were 17 men in my crew. The next morning, myself and three others was all that was left. All the rest was taken out sick. It was rough.卡車排放出致命廢氣，這些氣體在隧道里聚集，進入工人們的肺部和血液中。“你派幾

16、個人把他弄出去”。一氧化碳毒倒了數百人。有天晚上我在那干活，隊里本來有17個人，第二天早上只剩下我和另外3個了，其他的都病倒了。條件非常艱苦。Crowe has only one working rule: to hell with excuses- get results. But the drive to get results quickly will have deadly consequences. Men desperate to keep their jobs make mistakes like trying to clear rubble before the blastin

17、g is finished. You are having to dynamite areas and you have to dig out. There's machinery, but you're still using a lot of pick and shovel. Treacherous work.克羅對工作只有一個要求：別給我借口，我要結果。但這樣急于求成將導致致命后果。竭力保住工作的工人，不免忙中出錯。諸如爆破還沒完成就試圖去清理碎石，爆破之后還需要挖掘清理。雖然有機器但仍然要用鋤頭和鏟子去挖。危險重重。A miner's wife remember

18、s one worker, desperate to keep his job. Everybody was trying to work in the tunnels. This man was so anxious to work that he just went into the tunnel too quick. Just as he put his shovel in, there was a delayed blast. The company says 96 men died. The workers claim it's hundreds. The tunnels a

19、re finished 11 months ahead of time. But that's just the beginning of the Hoover Dam. The hardest job is yet to come: building the biggest concrete structure on earth.一名礦工的妻子還記得，有位竭力想保住工作的工人。每個人都想進隧道里工作，這個人太急于表現，太快就沖進了隧道中。剛把鏟子伸進去一個炸彈延時爆炸了。公司稱96人在事故中身亡，工人們說其實有好幾百人。隧道提前11個月完工，但對于胡佛水壩來說這只能算是開了個頭最大的

20、困難還在前面。Frank Crowe is driving ahead the building of the Hoover Dam, the biggest engineering project America has ever seen. He's driving his men hard. The crews work day and night. A sea of concrete rises in the canyon, as thick as two football fields laid end to end. 5,000 men, 50,000 machines a

21、nd tools, the best engineers alive, enough materials to fill a train 1,000 miles long. This is the 1930s' equivalent of putting a man on the moon. 6.6 million tons of concrete have to be poured. That's enough to lay a 4-foot-wide sidewalk around the earth.建起地球上最大的混凝土建筑。弗蘭克·克羅大力推進胡佛水壩的建設

22、。這是美國前所未有的最大工程項目。他要求快馬加鞭，工人們夜以繼日地工作。一片混凝土的海洋在峽谷中拔地而起，厚度相當于兩個足球場并排的長度。五千工人，五萬臺機器和工具，當世最杰出的工程師所用原材料足以裝滿一列1000英里長的火車。這座大壩可謂20世紀30年代的"登月"計劃。建造大壩要傾倒660萬噸混凝土足以鋪設一條四英尺寬的人行道，環繞地球一圈。How to pour that much concrete and get it where it's needed? Frank Crowe designs the most sophisticated cable sys

23、tem ever built. Giant bottom-opening buckets. They pour the concrete into molds exactly where it is wanted. Concrete was invented by the Romans 2,000 years ago, but the Hoover Dam is the first large concrete dam in history. Today virtually all dams are made of concrete. It's malleable and it'

24、;s strong. It's the world's favorite building material for any structure.如何將如此大量的混凝土傾倒在特定的地點呢？弗蘭克·克羅設計了歷史上最為復雜的纜索系統開底式巨桶，能將混凝土準確地倒入指定地點的模具中。羅馬人早在2000年前就發明了混凝土，但胡佛水壩卻是歷史上第一座由混凝土建成的大壩。現如今幾乎所有的水壩均由混凝土建成。混凝土易成形又很堅固，是建筑中使用最廣泛的材料時間緊迫。Frank is up against the clock, and he has a big problem. Th

25、e curing concrete generates heat. If the dam were constructed in a single, continuous pour, it would put out enough heat to bake half a million loaves of bread every day for three years. But worse, the dam would take 125 years to harden. Frank Crowe's got no time for that. Backs against the wall

26、, we figured out who we were. We worked our way out of that Depression. The secret of cooling the concrete lies within the dam itself. 582 miles of 1-inch pipes carry ice-cold water from the very river the dam is taming.弗蘭克需要解決一個重大問題：混凝土凝固過程中會釋放熱量。若這些混凝土一次性持續傾倒，產生的熱量足以連續三年每天烘烤50萬片面包。更糟的是，這讓大壩要過125年才

27、能完全硬化。弗蘭克·克羅可等不起。無路可退，我們終于真正認清自己，拼盡全力，安然度過了大蕭條時期。讓混凝土冷卻下來的法寶就藏于大壩之內直徑1英寸總長582英里的水管 自大壩所要制服的科羅拉多河引來冰冷的河睡。“No one had ever thought of this before, and those pipes are still in the Hoover Dam today. Frank "Hurry Up" Crowe lives up to his name.” The Hoover Dam is completed on September 30

28、,1935, two years ahead of schedule. Frank receives a bonus worth over $4 million in today's money. “For those workers to have built something as monumental and as challenging as Hoover Dam was, it was an astonishing feat of construction and I think it gave us all a sense of the possible.”“那是一次創舉

29、。這些水管如今依然留在胡佛大壩中，弗蘭克·克羅未辜負其快手之名。”胡佛大壩于1935年9月30日竣工，提前兩年完工。弗蘭克獲得了一筆相當于如今400多萬美元的巨額獎金。”對于那些工人來說，建造了胡佛水壩如此富有挑戰又意義深遠的建筑物實在是建筑史上一次驚人的壯舉，讓我們相信一切皆有可能。”1936, the Hoover Dam is the largest hydroelectric power-producing facility in the world. Each of the 17 generators weighs more than four jumbo jets. To

30、gether, they can supply power to 750,000 people in booming cities like Los Angeles. The dam creates Lake Mead, the biggest reservoir in America, big enough to flood the entire state of New York under a foot of water. It helps California produce more food, for the United States than any other state.1936年，胡佛大壩成為世界上最大的水力發電設施。這里共17座發電機每座的重量都超過4架巨型飛機。這些發電機可以給像洛杉磯這樣迅速發展的城市里75萬人口提供電力；這座大壩造就了密德湖美國最大的水庫,蓄水量足以將整個紐約州覆蓋在一英尺深的水下；讓加利福尼亞成為美國糧食產量最