It’s hard to keep track of the activities of the last 36 hours, and impossible to cover the myriad of different stories from yesterday, so I’ll try to give a personal account of what has been going on in Jordan.
On Monday Robert Atkinson had an appointment with Dr. Badawi at the Royal Jordanian Rehabilitation Centre in Amman to check on the progress of his injured hand. Having never seen Amman and with the work on ThrustSSC’s steering looking like completion on Tuesday (yesterday) I was free to volunteer to drive Robert the 200 miles or so each way. We had some shopping to do too as well - washers and some bolts for the car, ink cartridges for the HP DeskJets, and chocolate for the team.
Apart from spending many hours getting repeatedly lost in Amman, it was an uneventful day - Robert’s hand is progressing so well he does not need to return, all the stitches are out, and the dressing can come off in a few days. Eventually we found our way out of the city at around 6.30pm - with a good run we’d make it home in time for the end of supper.
Driving down Highway 15 in the dark towards Ma’an we could see bright flashes ahead - long, violent bursts of fork lightning illuminating the dense cloud structures. Before long it was raining, then raining hard, then nearly impossible to see through the windscreen onto the saturated road. Eventually it cleared, but continuing south we could see that some area far to our left was getting one hell of a hammering.
To reach Al Jafr from Ma’an you turn left which we did, and suddenly there was the storm ahead of us again - the hammering was being meted out to the Jafr air base! The first half of the leg from Ma’an was dry, then the rain struck again with a vengeance - the appropriate driving technique soon became navigating from one central white road marking to the next, then it changed to driving with one wheel over the central reflectors - as long as there was a rythmic bumping you knew you were still on the road. Finally it became so bad we pulled over to ride out the worst of the storm on the hard shoulder.
When Robert and I eventually got away again we discovered we had been barely half a mile short of the desert police’s fort at the entrance to the Jafr Desert - the worst of the incredible pounding had been on the air base and immediate surrounds. Even more extraordinary was the discovery in the morning that the overnight watch crew at the Desert Pits had had no rain at all - just a fantastic firework display!
So why are the ThrustSSC team out in Jordan at such a dreadful time of year for weather? To answer that I have to refer to the statistics: the average rainfall for November here is less than 3mm; 6 of the last 10 Novembers have been totally dry; there have been 5 dust storms in the last 10 years - we have already had two. The worst weather-related phenomenon of all from our point of view - a flood - normally comes between January and March: this last happened in 1991. Indeed, as Ron Ayers, who has studied the records in detail, points out: "According to the weather statistics, November should have the ideal combination of moderate temperature, low wind, low precipitation, and few dust storms." I guess it’s just one of those years…
Arrival at the air base at 10 o’clock was akin to fording a river - the area was flooded - and with no intelligence from the desert, the worst was assumed. It was a surprised team that learned next morning that the Jafr Desert was completely dry.
Our vehicle was one of the last to head out yesterday - having emptied the tank with the long run to Amman, we needed to refuel first. With that dealt with, and the last three of the desert party aboard, we left the base. The usual route was already very dry again - left off the road at the fort, along the track to the left-hand dog-leg keeping ‘the islands’ on the left, across the flats to Scania Leap and on to the Desert Pits. Approaching the deep ruts of Scania Leap, the mirage on the right was particularly good - but it was far too early for such a strong reflection.
When fodding on the desert (picking up stones and debris that could damage the jet-car), it has become commonplace for people to look across it as the mirage develops and comment: "The tide’s coming in!". It is surprisingly similar to standing on a long, gently sloping beach and watching just that - the water advancing slowly towards the land. We were unhappy with this one though - it was too early and too close, so turning right at the Leap, we headed towards it. It didn’t move away as a self-respecting mirage should.
What we found was very shallow water advancing at a rate of around a foot a second towards the access track - the only route off the desert known to be viable for the large trucks. We weren’t the only ones to find it - Operations Manager Martyn ‘Hawkeye’ Davidson was already checking out the situation. One story that came out later concerns the team member who commented that the water was moving so fast it was pushing stones ahead of it - it took Glynne Bowsher to point out that the stones were floating camel droppings…
Arriving at the Desert Pits the order came from Martyn to evacuate the desert - load car and equipment and get out before we were cut off. The Aireshelta was bodily lifted away from ThrustSSC and deflated; the antennae on the Pit Station Trailer (PST) were taken down and packed away; all equipment was loaded into the PST, the Land Rover, the Discoverys or the cars; anything and everything was prepared for evacuation. ‘Sungold’ - the air base tower - was contacted to request air force lorries to tow their mobile caravans away and to provide extra transport for equipment. With the water advancing rapidly Andrew Noble headed to the North end of the track in ‘Press 1’ to check out alternative escape routes. Back at base Ninetta Hearn, Dee Campbell-Coombe and Sally Noble could only listen frustratedly on Channel 1, unable to help.
Within two and a half hours of the first warning the two large trailers were loaded and secured - the PST with computers, tools and other equipment, and the Tiltec trailer with the SSC: it had been the quickest loading of the car yet! The two Scania-hauled trailers were the team’s major concern - apart from their weight, they were the vehicles least suited to off-road conditions, and the PST in particular has very limited ground clearances. At the North end Andrew had found a suitable hard track - but at Mile 2 another advancing tongue of water had already crossed all seventeen lanes of the jet-car’s track.
As soon as the PST was ready I set off with ‘Scania 2’ escorted by a car and Supacat - Brian Palmer quickly followed with ‘Scania 1’. On the way out to the desert two weeks ago we had taken it very gingerly - raising as little dust as possible to avoid too much getting into the under-floor lockers. This time such cares had to be ignored - it was foot down across the dried lake bed until the speed-limiter held us at 56mph. We crossed the carefully prepared tracks in front of the pits and turned left towards the advancing waters to the North. Skirting the floods at Mile 2, we found Andrew waiting to guide us off - "The track is very bumpy", he warned, "but if the ‘cat scouts ahead we should find a good route to the main road."
In the event Andrew had done a fine job - until a few hundred yards short of the road there were few problems, and with Brian behind we made steady progress off the Jafr. Al Harkness and Chris Cowell on the Supacat checked the best routes ahead, and all the time Jayne Millington continued her role coordinating operations as ‘Pit Station’ using Scania 2’s radio. Brian passed us before the road, then the surface began to show signs of the recent rain. As we approached a particularly bad part, Scania 1 slowed, then the radio barked:
"Scania 1 is stuck, Scania 1 is stuck. Scania 2, do not stop. Repeat, Scania 2, do not stop!"
It was keep the right foot down, stay in second gear, and find the least rutted route. Passing the stricken artic we eventually made it safely onto hard ground directly below the road - which itself was at the top of a moderately steep embankment some 6 to 10 feet high. We stopped and surveyed our task with Brian - his years of experience with heavy goods vehicles would be crucial. We settled on an approach of turning the PST round and approaching the bank from the other direction, taking it at an oblique angle to avoid grounding the trailer at the crest of the slope. Brian asked if I was happy to do it, or did I want him to drive? I opted to have a go with him watching me up.
The golden rule was to keep going - we could not risk stopping on the embankment. Turning the trailer round was no problem - there was enough room to do it about 100 yards further down the road without dragging it round on its twin axles and risking digging the wheels in. Into first gear - you don’t use that one often - and up the slope at the selected point. As we climbed the unit heeled more and more to the left, and the whole unit/trailer combination groaned under the stresses. As the Scania mounted the road Brian indicated to me to turn across it - which I did as the trailer followed me up and onto the safety of the tarmac. It was only later that I learned that all the offside wheels had lifted from the ground, and Brian’s manouvre could well have saved us from a disastrous roll…
Now it was the turn of ‘Scania 2’. Rubber matting under the drive wheels did not help free it from its ruts, nor did the assistance of the front winch on ‘Supacat 2’. Finally it was freed with a tow from the ‘cat and two of the four-wheel-drive Discoverys - immediately after this the air force arrived with a huge dumper truck and a ‘Terex’ grader. A Terex is a fantastic piece of kit - like a huge bulldozer, but capable of producing perfectly level ground for runways. Taking no chances, it was enlisted to tow Scania 1 and the SSC up to the road - a task which it accomplished with effortless ease.
The two most difficult vehicles had been dealt with - but there was still equipment in the desert: the satellite dish, Aireshelta (‘bouncy castle’), runway matting used as a solid floor in the inflatable hangar, chairs, tents, ‘Fecher’ marker posts, car-trailer loading ramps, timekeeper and press caravans, portable toilets - and the vital Merlo forklift. The air-force lorry headed along the track we had used - the last known open route onto the desert - followed by a second one to recover these items. I wasn’t there, but by 6pm everything was off, with the Merlo the last vehicle out carrying the 6-foot dish, still mounted on its stand, strapped to the long forks. The only things left on the playa were the Fechers marking the jet-car’s track and the matting - its ground-handling trailer could not be obtained in time.
When the last vehicles left the pits complex the water was barely 200 metres from it. It had been a fantastic effort - within three hours the majority of the desert camp had been broken and taken to higher ground, within six the desert was deserted. Along the way the team had acquired a new member - ‘Spike’ was a hedgehog found in a state of near exhaustion fleeing the advancing tide. Carried off in a cardboard box in the PST, he was eventually released on the dry periphery of his home.
Driving back to base along the main road we discovered where the water was coming from. Several culverts under the road - and one in particular - had a muddy torrent of water flowing through them. Apparently there are some 92 tributaries leading on to the desert. Many of the locals were out with their young children to see the sight - looking again at Ron’s statistics, one wonders if torrents of flowing water are as unusual to them as the sight of deep snow can be to similar children at home?
A special award for the day must go the representative from one of our sponsors who missed his turning in the air base. Finding himself close to the team houses, but separated from them by another house’s back yard, he attempted to drive across it. His car - sunk in the mud up to the front bumper under a washing line - was eventually rescued that evening by a Supacat.
So what next? The desert has already proved to have remarkable powers of self-healing, and the experience of the Thrust2 team was that Black Rock would be usable 48 hours after being flooded from direct rainfall. It remains to be seen whether Jafr will dry as quickly after the amount of runoff it has been subjected to. One survey yesterday evening has reported that the waters are receding. In the meantime, the ThrustSSC team are continuing their preparations in the full intention of running again very shortly to prove the modifications to the rear-wheel steering.
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