Theodore's World

Our In Country Heroes!! They too get up every day, put on their battle rattle and go out and do their duty. And they are taken too much for granted.

Niagara Falls is one of the last attractions in Western New York. When I was a kid in the early 50's, when spring came the ice on Lake Erie would break up and would come down the Niagara river. Living only two blocks from the river this was a big event to watch these huge ice flows, massive chunks of ice and they would all end up at the falls. One year during the break up it caused a back up at the falls and the whole area flooded.

In 1957 they started work on the Niagara Power Project. They wanted to divert water from the river to the Power plant the amount depending on the Electrical demand. They were worried, though, about the ice on the river during the spring so they built an Ice Bridge in Buffalo ahead of the Peace Bridge. Now in the Spring there is little ice that gets through to the river but until about the middle of May the temperature in the city of Buffalo is constant at about 50 degrees or until the ice on the Lake melts.

This was all done to prevent damage to the water intakes at the Falls power project. At Peak hours they take water from the river to increase output. Usually done at night so the estectics of the falls is not ruined.

During this rescue, the Power Project was called and asked to divert some of the water from the Horseshoe falls, they can divert alot of water but not enough to shut it down completely. Although in 1969 they did shut it down for repairs to the Falls. This was part of the rescue effort. In one of the museums in downtown Niagara Falls there is a display of all the people who had gone over the falls, and all but a few ever lived to tell about it.

This man tried to commit suicide but when his foot got caught in the rocks and stopped him from going over, he had a change of mind. These police and firefighters put their lives on the line to save a person who tried to take his own life.

Thanks Chrissie and Mark.

What a waste of manpower and intense risk for the rescuers. Call me hard hearted but that dolt should have been shot and the body recovered. Bless those rescuers for all their efforts, but. Hardly a month goes by that some demented nerd doesn't try to jump off the bridge here. It's 187 ft to the water and the towers are 210 ft above the roadbed. That makes the fall from the tower 397 ft to some very hard water. That's not the problem, jump all you want, but jump. There are walkways along the bridge deck, some flake gets the urge and all traffic gets halted for half a day. While every effort is made to talk some fool down, they usually jump anyway. Worse yet are the climbers, they get on the suspension and haul ass to the tower, a jump from there doesn't always go as planned, the wind can and does blow the jumper back onto the bridge cables and deck where they make a hell of a mess on the deck when they hit at about 250 mph., endangering everything below from auto traffic, foot traffic to boaters in the water below. No sympathy here for the suicide victim, just do it where you don't endanger someone else or put rescuers in danger in your grab for attention.

Yankeemom, I agree. One of our nephews is a firefighter and they are just like our military when it comes to the saying...." just doing my job".

Mark, wow thank you so much for sharing about all of that. Very interesting!!

BobF., I am so glad the two firefighters that had to work their way over to him are ok. They truly do amazing and dangerous things to save others.

Jack, thanks for the link and information about the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

I have always felt strongly when a warning is given in a storm for people to leave and evacuate and many don't then the rescurers have to risk their lives to go in and get people too strong willed to leave. I would hate to leave, but I also don't want a firefighter or someone to die trying to save me from my stupidity.