Historic Hood River
Coolness
6-30-2021
Notes
Jack Wilson took a series of photographs of water freezing on the ruptured pipelines from the Powerdale hydro plant. I thought today would be a fine day to appreciate the beauty of ice from February 1950.
The History Museum of Hood River County
Bringing the Rich History of Hood River County to Life
nels
Beautiful in it's own way. Oh so cooling. But sympathy to whomever had to repair it.
L.E.
In this heatwave we are having, it is hard to remember what icy cold feels like. Like nels said….how do you fix something like that?
And did it affect Hood River's electrical power?
ArthurB
Fixing a wood pipe involved some fancy carpentry. After they drained (and thawed) the system they would replace bad boards, which are sort of tongue and groove. You van see some examples of how they spliced on the Indian Creek Trail.
By the time this version of Powerdale was built there was a tie to Condit and White River hydro plants, and by 1950 Bonneville too, so turning off Powerdale didn't mean electricity was turned off. In the earlier days (pre-1913 when Condit dam was built), I'm sure there were days or weeks without power when there was a failure at the hydro plant.
How electricity is phase matched between plants is some very interesting engineering, but I'll spare you the EE lecture which I barely remember.
Jeanie Senior
Jack Wilson was married to Henny (Henrietta) Wilson, longtime owner of Columbia Photo in downtown Hood River. She also was a photographer.