Estados Unidos empezó la construcción del canal de Panamá en 1904. El presidente Theodore Roosevelt pensó que podían hacer lo que los franceses no. Se construyeron sistemas de agua y sanitación para los trabajadores venideros. Una comisión de expertos recomendó construir un canal a nivel del mar, pero Stevens argumentó a favor de un sistema que suba y baje los barcos.
En vocabulario: jumble, overly, hindrance,
entice, stagnant, untenable, feasibility
Gorgas implemented a range of measures to minimize the spread of deadly diseases, particularly yellow fever and malaria…
Even after all that effort, about 5,600
workers died of disease and accidents during the US construction phase of the
canal…
While medical care was provided to all,
housing was not provided to black workers, many of whom had to live in tents…
The US formally took control of the canal property on May 4, 1904, inheriting from the French a depleted workforce and a vast jumble of buildings, infrastructure, and equipment, much of it in poor condition. A US government commission, the Isthmian Canal Commission (ICC), was established to oversee construction; it was given control of the Panama Canal Zone, over which the United States exercised sovereignty. The commission reported directly to Secretary of War William Howard Taft and was directed to avoid the inefficiency that had plagued the French 15 years earlier.
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| Presidente Roosevelt on a steam shovel at Culebra Cut, 1906 |
On May 6, 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed John Findley Wallace as chief engineer
of the Panama Canal Project.
Overwhelmed by the disease-plagued country and forced to use often dilapidated French equipment, as well as being
frustrated by the overly
bureaucratic ICC, Wallace resigned abruptly in June 1905.
He was succeeded by John Frank Stevens.
Stevens was not a member of the ICC; he increasingly viewed its
bureaucracy as a serious hindrance,
bypassing the commission and sending requests and demands directly to the Roosevelt administration in Washington, DC.
One of Stevens' first achievements in Panama was in building and rebuilding the housing, cafeterias, hotels, water systems, repair shops, warehouses, and other infrastructure needed by the thousands of incoming workers. Stevens began the recruitment effort to entice thousands of workers from the United States and other areas to come to the Canal Zone to work, and tried to provide accommodation in which the incoming workers could work and live in reasonable safety and comfort. He also re-established and enlarged the railway, which was to prove crucial in transporting millions of tons of soil from the cut through the mountains to the dam across the Chagres River.
 |
| Panama Canal |
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. Investment was made 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. Even
after all that effort, about 5,600 workers died of disease and accidents during
the US construction phase of the
canal.
In 1905, a US engineering panel was commissioned to
review the canal design, which had not been finalized. The panel recommended to
President Roosevelt a sea-level
canal, as had been attempted by the
French. But in 1906 Stevens, who
had seen the Chagres in full flood,
was summoned to Washington; he
declared a sea-level approach to be "an entirely untenable proposition". He argued in favor of a canal
using a lock system to raise and lower ships from a large reservoir 26 m above
sea level. This would create both the largest dam (Gatun Dam) and the largest man-made lake (Gatun Lake) in the world at that time. The water to refill the
locks would be taken from Gatun Lake
by opening and closing enormous gates and valves and letting gravity propel the
water from the lake. Gatun Lake would
connect to the Pacific through the
mountains at the Gaillard (Culebra) Cut.
Stevens successfully convinced Roosevelt of the necessity and feasibility of this alternative
scheme.
The construction
of a canal with locks required the excavation of more than 130,000,000 m3 of
material over and above the 23,000,000 m3 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. 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.
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 via the Panama Canal.
The United States spent almost $500 million (roughly equivalent to
$12.8 billion in 2019) to finish the project. This was by far the largest American engineering project to date.
While medical care was provided to all,
housing was not provided to black workers, many of whom had to live in tents and tenements outside the mosquito-controlled zone. In
the end, 350 white workers had died compared to 4,500 black workers. While the
loss was tragic, it was far less than during the French era.
Vocabulario
Jumble: an untidy collection of things.
Overly: to an excessive degree.
Hindrance:
impediment, obstacle.
Entice: to attract by arousing hope or desire.
Stagnant: having no current or flow and often having an
unpleasant smell as a consequence.
Untenable:
undefendable.
If a theory or
argument is untenable, it
cannot be supported or defended against criticism.
Feasibility: describes how easy or difficult it is to do something.
When you set a goal at work, think about the long-term feasibility of accomplishing what you want.
¿Cómo llegó Estados
Unidos a intervenir en Panamá? Después de todo Panamá, se suponía, era un país
independiente. Enterate en el próximo posteo
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