Post No. 25. The Panama Canal

The Panama Canal has proven to be a demonstration of human ingenuity in challenging nature and achieving the dream of connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The Project was achieved through the extensive use of technology and efficient management and the work of hundreds of workers from many parts of the world, including the personnel who came to work from the West Indies.  Many years have passed since that May 6, 1904 when he was appointed the first Chief Engineer to start work, infrastructure and sanitation. More than 75,000 men and women worked n the Canal in total and after 32 years of intense work the Canal was officially opened on August 15, 1914 with an estimated 28,000 workers death and 5609 during the U.S. construction era due to illnesses and accidents. This high cost would have been much less with the current methods that include robots and digital technology but the human value, the tenacity and the perseverance to finish the project can not be replaced. They were united to overcome all the obstacles to achieve the dream of hundreds of years. There have been political, technical and financial controversies but they have been overcome and the Panama Canal remains in force and at the service of humanity. (author)

The Panama Canal is an artificial 77 Km (48 miles) waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. There are locks at each end to lift ships up to Gatun Lake, an artificial lake created to reduce the amount of excavation work required for the canal, 26 m (85 ft) above the sea level, and then lower the ships at the other end. The original locks are 34 m (110 ft) wide. A third, wider lane of locks was constructed between September 2007 and May 2016. The expanded canal began commercial operation on June 26, 2016. The new locks allow transit of larger, Post-Panamax ships (larger than Panamax that do not fit in the original canal locks, such as supertankers and the largest modern container and passenger ships), capable of handling more cargo. The canal consists of artificial lakes, several improved and artificial channels, and three sets of locks. ²

France began work on the canal in 1881 but stopped due to engineering problems and a high worker mortality rate. The United States took over the project in 1904 and opened the canal on August 15, 1914. Annual traffic has risen from about 1000 ships in 1914, when the canal opened, to 14,702 vessels in 2008, for a total of 333.7 million Panama Canal/Universal Measurement System (PC/UMS) tons (A shipping ton, freight ton, measurement ton or ocean ton is a measure of volume used for shipments of freight in large vehicles, trains or sips, In the USA it is the equivalent to 40 cubic feet).

The earliest mention of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama dates back to 1534, when Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, ordered a survey for a route through the Americas that would ease the voyage for ips traveling between Spain and Peru. In 1668 The English physician and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne speculated in his encyclopaedic endeavor Pseudodoxia Epidemica. In 1788, Thomas Jefferson suggested that the Spanish should create it since it would be a less treacherous route than going around the southern tip of South America, which tropical ocean currents would naturally widen thereafter. ²

The United States spent almost $500,000,000 (roughly equivalent to $9,169,650,000 now) to finish the project. This way by far was the largest American engineering project to date. ²

The construction of a canal with locks required the excavation of more than 170,000,000 cu yd ( 130,000,000) of material over and above the 30,000,000 cu yd (23,000 cubic meters) excavated by the French. As quickly as possible, the Americans replaced or upgraded the old, unusable French equipment with new construction equipment that was designed for a much larger and faster scale of work. About 102 new large, railroad-mounted steam shovels were purchased from the Marion Power Shovel Company and brought from the United States. The railroad also had to be comprehensively upgraded with heavy-duty, double-tracked rails over most of the line to accommodate new rolling stock. In many places, the new Gatun Lake flooded over the original rail line, and a new line had to be constructed above Gatun Lake’s waterline. ²

On 1904, John Frank Stevens, a self-educated engineer who had built the Great Northern Railroad was appointed as Chief engineer of the Panama Canal Project.

One of Steven’s first achievements in Panama was building and rebuilding the housing, cafeterias, hotels, water systems, repair shops, warehouses, and other infrastructure needed by the thousands of incoming workers. He also re-established and enlarged the railway that was to prove crucial in transporting millions of tons of soil from the cut through the mountains to the dam across the Chagres River. ²

Colonel William C. Gorgas had been appointed chief sanitation officer of the canal construction project in 1904. Gorgas implemented a range of measures to minimize the spread of deadly diseases, particularly yellow fever and malaria which had recently been shown to be mosquito-borne following the work of Dr. Carlos Finlay and Dr. Walter Reed. There was investment in extensive sanitation projects, including city water systems, fumigation of buildings, spraying of insect- breeding areas with oil and larvicide, installation of mosquito netting and window screens, and elimination of stagnant water. After two years of extensive work, the mosquito-spread diseases were nearly eliminated. Nevertheless, even with all this effort, about 5,600 workers died of disease and accidents during the U.S. construction phase of the canal. ²

In 1907, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt appointed U.S. Army Major George Washington Goethals of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (later promoted to General), a strong, United States Military Academy- trained leader and civil engineer with experience of canals. Goethals would direct the work in Panama to a successful conclusion in 1914, two years ahead of the target date of June 10, 1916. ²

He divided the engineering and excavation work into three divisions: Atlantic, Central, and Pacific. The Atlantic Division, under Major William L. Sibert, was responsible for construction of the massive breakwater (structures constructed on coasts as part of coastal management [defense against flooding and erosion, and techniques that stop erosion to claim lands] or to protect an anchorage from the effects of both weather and longshore drift.], the Gatun locks (lock system that lifts a ship up 85 feet [26 meters] to the main elevation of the Panama Canal and down again. The original canal had a total of six steps [three up, three down] for a ship’s passage. The total length of the lock structures, including the approach walls, is over 1.9 miles {3 k}. The locks were one of the greatest engineering works ever to be undertaken when they opened in 1914. No other concrete construction of comparable size was undertaken until the Hoover Dam, in the 1930s) and their 3½ mi (5.6 km) approach channel, and the immense Gatun Dam. The Pacific Division, under Sydney B. Williamson (the only civilian member of this high-level team), was similarly responsible for the Pacific 3 mi (4.8 km) breakwater in Panama Bay, the approach channel to the locks, and the Miraflores and Pedro Miguel locks and their associated dams and reservoirs. ²

The Central Division, under Major David du Bose Gaillard of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, was assigned one of the most difficult parts: excavating the Culebra Cut through the continental divide to connect Gatun Lake to the Pacific Panama Canal locks. ²

On October 10, 1913, President Woodrow Wilson sent a signal from the White House by telegraph which triggered the explosion that destroyed the Gamboa Dike. This flooded the Culebra Cut,thereby joining the Atlantic and pacific Oceans. ²

By the 1930s it was seen that water supply would be an issue for the canal; this prompted the building of the Madden Dam across the Chagres River above Gatun Lake. Completed in 1935, the dam created Madden Lake (later Alajuela Lake) which provides additional water storage for the canal. In 1939, construction began on a further major improvement: a new set of locks for the canal, large enough to carry the larger warships that the United States was building. The work proceeded for several years, and significant excavation was carried out on the new approach channels. But the project was canceled after World War II. ²

While globally the Atlantic Ocean is east of the isthmus and the Pacific is west, the general direction of the canal passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific is from northwest to southeast. ²

References:

² Wikipedia.

The Panama Canal: Documentary on the Construction of the Panama Canal (Full Documentary). Time: 1:23:39:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGbrYa8O-ag

Experience Panama- Megastructures Panama Canal by National Geographic. Time: 47:00:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4F867o_U1w

How the Panama Canal was built-BBC News. Time: 2:00:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2T7CL9wqyM

The Panama Canal’s New Expansion, Explained. Time: 2:13:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGYmlk1X0wU

Panama Canal Expansion: How it works. Time: 1:23:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB3tfM7ISgY

Building the Panama Canal and how does it work [Full Documentary]. Time: 2:05:29:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gByO7XdtZD4