* Author: Alejandro Rodríguez Carabias *
I first started working at the Almendra dam in the year 1967 as a maintenance electrician. It was the first time I took part in a major project and I was just 18 years of age.
It was a huge challenge to build that dam: 190 metres high and over 2000 metres long; underground caves to house the turbines 450 metres below the surface; high-pressure shafts, access and drainage tunnels excavated from granite.
Several memories spring to mind, such as the work carried out at the quarry that provided the stone to make the concrete for the dam. The blasting operations were spectacular. To see that immense mass of stones flying several metres high and landing over a thousand metres away.
Making the explosion happen may have been less spectacular but it was more impressive. The electricians had to connect the detonators and trigger them protected by the bucket of one of the loaders that were used to move the stone onto the lorries.
As there were so many people working there, it was complicated to make sure that everyone was notified to take shelter during the blast. We came up with an internal rule: the siren would go off three times; the first to notify that there would be a blast; the second, to let everyone know it was imminent and that they should look for a safe place to hide, and the third, just before the blast occurred. They were scheduled for eight in the morning and in the evening, coinciding with the changes in shift so that there would be fewer workers in the vicinity of the quarry.
I’ll never forget the “blondín” either, a crane cable system we used when working on the dam. It consisted of a permanent tower 220 metres high and two moving towers. They were over 2000 metres apart and they worked at high speed, handling huge loads of concrete. When carrying out maintenance work, we used to travel between the two towers in a pulley cart, reaching heights of up to 230 metres in the centre. Sometimes we had to use a belt as a harness to carry out the repair. We hadn’t been introduced to real harnesses at that time.
The hired workers came from very different trades. We were practically self-sufficient. There was a mechanic’s workshop for the vehicles used on the site, a metalworking studio with lathes to manufacture all kinds of parts; an electrical workshop for performing maintenance on machinery and assembling installations to be used on the site and in the settlement, and a carpentry workshop for making formwork or metallic structures… There was even a service station!
The settlements had all the same services as a small town: a school, a health centre, a religious service, shops, a restaurant, bars, a cinema and a swimming-pool. The festivities in the settlement often included bullfighting and boxing tournaments.
After that I moved to Villarino to work on the assembly of the hydroelectric power plant, where I remained until I completed my Military Service. I ended up returning to Salamanca, to the Aldeadávila hydroelectric power plant, where I helped complete the commissioning of the Villarino pumps.
Over the years I got to know colleagues from different sections of the company; I also spent time with international students that came to do summer internships at the power plant. I got married. I brought my children up in the settlement, where they attended the local school until the age of ten. I also saw them off as they left for Salamanca at that age to go and finish their studies. That was hard. For the parents, to have to see them go at such a young age; for the children, to have to attend a boarding-school in order to complete their education.
Having said that, I feel a great sense of accomplishment. I’m proud to have belonged to the various teams that erected these wonderful installations for our company. A project that even today is still a key component in the electricity system.
