Black Ops Raid Power Plant — Power Plant Men Ignore Attackers

I don’t know if they called them “Black Ops” in 1994, but when the control room operator David Evans answered the phone that day in October, I don’t think he ever expected to have the person on the other end of the line tell him that a military special forces unit was going to stage a mock raid on the coal-fired power plant in North Central Oklahoma  some time that night.  I’m sure Jack Maloy, the shift supervisor, was equally surprised when David told him about the phone call.  I heard later that Jack was pretty upset to find out that a military force was going to be attacking our plant in the middle of the night without his permission!

 

David Evans waits for Jim Padgett to get a cup of coffee — Thanks Jim Cave for the photo

The first we heard about the call was when Jasper Christensen called a meeting of the entire maintenance department on the spur of the moment in the main break room.  He told us about the phone call.  He said we didn’t have any more information than that.  Though the maintenance department shouldn’t be working that night, Jasper said that just in case we were called out for something, we should know that a group of commandos were going to be performing some sort of mock raid on our plant.  If we encountered any soldiers sneaking around the plant in the middle of the night in full military gear, not to be alarmed.  Just go on doing what you’re doing and don’t bother them.

Pay no attention to the man behind the mask.  Photo from Call of Duty

Now that it is 21 years later (well, almost) the truth can finally come out….  Isn’t that how it goes?  When we are sworn to secrecy, isn’t it 21 years before we can finally speak out?  I don’t remember us taking an oath or anything, but that’s the way it is with Power Plant Men.  They just assume that if the military is staging a mock raid on our plant, it is a matter of national security.  It seemed as if our plant sort of matched the layout of a power plant somewhere in Central America where the real raid was going to take place.

The main difference between our Power Plant and the one in Honduras, or wherever it was, is that our plant had recently gone through a downsizing.  So, our operators at night now had to perform the duties that had before been done by the labor crew.  They had to do coal cleanup throughout the conveyor system.

Coal conveyor carrying coal to the coal silos from the coalyard

This meant that if one of our auxiliary operators happened to run across someone dressed in the outfit above, they would have naturally handed him either a water hose or a shovel and pointed to the nearest conveyor and said something like, “I’ll start on this end, and you can start over there.”  After all.  He would already be wearing his respirator.

That day on the way home that day, Scott Hubbard and I discussed the significance of such a raid on our Power Plant.  A year and a half earlier, Janet Reno had really messed up the raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Texas when it burned down and burned everyone to death including women and children.  So, it would be good to go into a situation like this more prepared.

I had often thought about the steps that could covertly be taken to single-handed destroy the power plant without using any kind of explosives.  Those who understood how all the systems worked together could do it if they really wanted to.  Of course, that was just how I might occupy my mind when I was doing a repetitive job, like sweeping out the main switchgear.  What better place for those thoughts to drift into your mind.

A picture of a clean switchgear. Picture 6 rows of switchgear like this

Actually, now that I think about it, instead of sending in the Special Forces, just send in a few Plant Operators, Electricians and Instrument and Controls guys and they could totally destroy the plant in a matter of hours if that was their intent.  The same thing could be said about putting a few incompetent people in upper management even if it isn’t their intent, only it takes longer than a couple of hours to destroy the plant in that case.

The next morning when we arrived at the plant, our foreman Alan Kramer told us the stories about the raid that happened the night before.  This is what I can remember about it (if any Power Plant Men want to correct me, or add some more stories, please do in the comments below).

Alan Kramer

First he said that it appeared as if the commandos had landed in some kind of stealth helicopter out on the north side of the intake because later when the power plant men had investigated the site they could see where two wheels on the helicopter had left an impression in the mud.  Dan Landes had been keeping a lookout from the top of the Unit 1 boiler, and he thought for a moment that he saw the flash of a red light…. which… thinking about it now, could have been one of those laser sites taking aim at him and mock assassinating him by shooting him in the eye from about 1/2 mile.  You know how good American Snipers can be (my plug for the new movie).  Good thing he was wearing his auto-tinting safety glasses.

That’s Dan Landes in the second row with the Gray Shirt – Otherwise known as Deputy Dan

We also heard that one of the operators, Maybe Charles Peavler (Charles is standing next to Dan wearing the pink shirt and carrying something in his lower lip) had stepped out of the office elevator on the ground floor only to come face-to-face with a soldier.  When the soldier was seen by the operator, he just turned around and walked out of the door… he evidently was considered a casualty if he was seen by anyone.  Either that, or he had to go do coal cleanup the rest of the night.

I think it was Jeff Meyers (front row, left in the picture above) who told us later that the Special Ops forces had left a present for the operators on the Turbine-Generator Room floor.  Tracked across the clean shiny red T-G floor were muddy boot prints leading from the Unit 1 boiler entrance to the door to the control room.  The tracks ended at the control room door.

 

The Red T-G floor is always kept clean.  The control room entrance is under the grating where this picture was taken. – Thanks Jim Cave for the picture

The tracks were extra muddy as if someone had intentionally wanted us to see that someone had walked right up to the control room door.  The tracks did not lead away from the door.  They just ended right there.

So, we did have proof that the commandos had actually visited our plant that night, only because one of the operators had come face-to-face with one in the main lobby.  If that hadn’t happened, then they would have come and gone and we would have been none-the-wiser… other than wondering about the strange muddy footprints and the impression left in the mud by the stealth helicopter.

Stealth Helicopter

I suppose it was easy for the Power Plant operators to ignore the commandos since for the most part, they never saw them coming or going.  The Power Plant Men were happy to play their part in the mock raid.  Of all that has been asked of these Power Plant Men over the years, this was one of the more “unique” events.  How many Power Plant Men across the country can say that they took part in a Special Ops Commando Raid on their Power Plant?

All I can say is that the commandos sure picked a great bunch of Power Plant Men and Women to attack.  We were all honored (even those of us who were at home in bed asleep at the time) to be able to help out the military any way we could.