Explosive Projects!

Sitting across the booth from my co-worker, we eased into a pleasant lunch break conversation. We were in town for the construction of a large new corporate campus. The site would be home to thousands of employees doing lots of different jobs. As usual, we were on a tight timeline.   

Then my mobile phone (probably a Nokia candy bar style!) buzzed.  “Steve, uh, you have to come see this,” said the person at the other end.

Big projects come with a myriad of issues, but this urgent call had my mind racing.  ‘What could be the hangup this time?’ I wondered. 

We quickly finished up lunch and headed to our cars. 

I didn’t know what to expect when I arrived.  As I pulled up to the busy construction site, the usual big, yellow front end loaders and backhoes rumbled around. It seemed pretty normal so far.  

Then I stepped out of my rental car.

Standing alongside my co-workers and the general contractor’s team, we stared down into what can only be called a giant crater. Below us a 15-foot diameter hole in the ground stared back. Rock and rubble were strewn everywhere.  

You see, the geology of the area made dynamite a useful method of clearing and site prep. It turns out that dynamite had blasted away our recently installed, highly delicate fiber optic cable for the campus. From one side of the hole I saw a ragged, ripped end of a black-clad fiber cable. Several feet across on the other side was its match, similarly ripped and ragged.

That fiber cable was definitely on the critical path, as we project managers say.  Without it, the entire schedule and opening deadline was in jeopardy. That fiber was designed to handle data and communications for the entire multi-acre site, carrying thousands of calls and millions of bytes of data daily.

Thankfully, our experienced team had already put in motion the fix we would need. Calls were made to the telco, discussions we had, solutions were being devised.  

In the end we were able to react and bring in the telco and construction teams to repair the fiber.  It was a nerve-racking part of an aggressive project.