DREAM SAVED DAM

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 November 1939, Page 7

DREAM SAVED DAM

INDIAN FLOOD STORY. How a dam was saved by a dream was revealed in London by Mr J. D. H. Bedford, formerly chief irrigation engineer to the Punjab Government. in charge of the new £2.500.000 Haveli irrigation scheme. The scheme depends on a barrage— - the Emerson Barrage—across the River Chenab to head up water so that it flows in a canal from Chenab to the River Ravi. The time came —last winter —when the engineers were ready to divert the river at the barage. And then Mr Bedford had a dream. "In my dream I stood on the superstructure of the barrage surrounded by rearing floods.” he said. "I woke up sweating with fear, and was down at the office very early issuing orders to augment the leading cuts on to the barrage so as to give the floods, which I felt sure were coming, a chance to scour a waterway. An additional £12.000 was spent on these precautions. "We were six weeks from the opening ceremony, when unusually heavy winter rains started, but the .'rush of

waters did not come up to my dream and I was puzzled. "Then two weeks later heavy rains set in. and I knew we were for it this time. The river burst through two silt ejectors. My dream had come true." The staff worked unceasingly for three days fighting the floods. "The barrage had been tested as it may never be tested again, and those few days of tension when the river was cutting a channel for itself had removed all our anxieties during the coming flood season. “But had our time-table of work broken down, and had we tried to divert the river later than we did. the river would not be flowing through the Emerson Barrage today."