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Overflows and Slop-Overs – Flooding in the Panama Canal Locks
As we were doing some final research for the upcoming exhibit in our Albert H. Nahmad Panama Canal Gallery (dedicated to the BHS class of 1958), we came across a set of three photographs that peaked our interest. Click on the images to enlarge them.
The exhibition, Ebb & Flow (opening at the end of March), explores the vast and important role that water plays in the Panama Canal. We were researching how the Canal has dealt with floods and droughts.
The images were the perfect way to depict the dangers of flooding to Canal operations, BUT we needed to know if the event that caused the flooding in these photographs was natural or human error.
The amazing thing about working on this collection is the incredible resource we have in the community of current and former Panama Canal employees and residents that support us. They lived the experience, and are always more than willing to help us when we reach out for their expertise.
First we contacted a friend whose father was a Lock Master at Gatun, but this event was after his time so she didn’t know. Then we emailed Bill McLaughlin at CZ Images who is a long time member of our PCMC Friends Executive Council and a “go-to” for all things Panama Canal and Canal Zone. We are in frequent communication, sharing interesting things we come across during our respective preservation and research efforts.
Bill cast the community net even wider and within hours that spilled over into days, he shared some wonderful information.
A tremendous thank you for this fabulous lesson in the mechanics of the locks that came from Bob McConaughey, Lew Stabler, Bill Fall, and Bill Benny.
Here is a bit of what they shared with us.
“This is not what locks employees would call a “slop-over”. It looks to me like the control house operator opened the valves from the upper chamber to the middle chamber and the middle chamber water level had not been lowered. So, he was trying to put a full upper chamber into the middle chamber whose water level was too high for the amount going in.” – Bob McConaughey
Unfortunately for the exhibit, they determined that our set of photographs likely depicted a flood at the locks that was caused by an error in the control house and not a natural event (aka a flood from rain). One of the photographs was used as an illustration in a 2020 article some of them had written about an overflow event in the 1970s that was caused by the failure of a Rising Stem Valve to completely close. Because the handles on the control board had been turned in the proper sequence the safety mechanisms were satisfied and activation of the next operation was permitted.
The design of the original Panama Canal lock control boards requires that lock operations are executed in an exact sequence. You can not skip a step. This serves as a safeguard against human error.
Here is a copy of the detailed article: “Overflow of the Chambers at the Locks”. Click to enlarge the images or download the PDF below.
These angels of lock knowledge also clarified for us whether or not flooding over the lock gates and walls due to rain was even possible – meaning the level of the lake is so high that water comes over the the top of the gates of the upper lock chambers.
They told us that in the case of a flood situation like that all 14 gates of Gatun Spillway would be open and they would be locking water down without ships to remove as much water as possible from Gatun Lake. In December of 2010 this scenario played out. They closed the Canal to all ship traffic and opened the culvert at Gatun Locks overnight to dump water directly from the lake into the ocean.
Left: Gatun Spillway. 1990s. II.2024.44.2.2
This must have released a stunning about of water – the culverts in the locks are 18-22 feet in diameter.
Compare the full scale image with a detail of the culvert in the bottom left of the photograph. Pedro Miguel Locks under construction. October 7, 1910. 2016.52.34. 
Flooding of the lock chambers can be very dangerous to personnel and equipment regardless of the cause and witnessing the event would be quite a sight.
Did you ever see a flood event at one of the locks? Share your stories and photographs with us.
Come learn more about the waters of the Panama Canal in the upcoming exhibition. A digital version of this exhibit will be available on our website soon. Click on the image to enlarge it.
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New Online Resources
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Exploring the Collection
We are excited to announce a brand new section of the PCMC Blog this month: Explorations. From time to time, we discover topics or objects in the collection that inspire us to explore them in greater depth. The digital projects under our Explorations banner will allow us to spotlight particular objects that otherwise might not be as visible, and they will demonstrate the incredible scope of the collection by highlighting a wide variety of subjects relating to the history of the Panama Canal, the Canal Zone, and Panama. We may dive deep on a single object, telling as much about it as we can, or we may explore broad themes and range far and wide to tell interesting stories. Most of our Explorations will be longer and more in-depth than the average blog post but shorter than the average exhibition.
Our inaugural Explorations project focuses on The Panama American newspaper. Of the Panama Canal Museum Collection’s vast catalog of online resources, the Panama American is by far the most-used with nearly 14 million views of newspaper issues over the past decade. It seemed obvious to us that we wanted to explore the history of this paper a bit more and share some of our resources about it. In addition to covering important milestones in the history of the “newspaper of record” for the Canal Zone, this project spotlights some of the important people who worked for the paper such as founder Nelson Rounsevelle, John K. Baxter, Sidney A. Young, Dr. Harmodio Arias, Ted Scott, and Hindi Diamond, among others. The project also incorporates excerpts from oral history interviews, including a special section on paper routes worked by Canal Zone children. We are thrilled that this project was funded by the Janice G. Grimison and Edward “Ted” W. Scott Library Memorial Fund, which also has supported digitization of the newspaper over the years.
Our second project, Panama Canal Playtime, explores a wide variety of toys, puzzles, board games, playing cards, and models in the collection that relate to the Panama Canal, Canal Zone, and Panama. The objects included in this project span more than a century, dating from the early 1900s to the early 2000s. We have grouped the objects into categories: mechanical tin toys, handheld dexterity games, plastic toys, board games, playing cards, and models. While most of these objects were intended for entertainment, some were created as educational tools or as collectibles. Regardless of their purpose, we think they demonstrate the enduring appeal of the Panama Canal over so many decades.
We will add new digital projects to the Explorations page in the future (we’re already working on our third project), so check back frequently and watch for blog posts announcing new Explorations.
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Ester Greene: Balboa High Alumna & International Track Star
This post is one of a special series of posts contributed by University of Florida graduate students, Azariah Rodriguez and Caroline Davis. The students are working on projects to digitize and promote materials related to the history of Balboa High School and the annual Ocean-to-Ocean cayuco race, which are two of the most frequently requested topics we have received from researchers recently. Within those broad topics, the students identified objects and stories that they wanted to explore in more depth and then conducted research and wrote posts to tell those stories. We hope you enjoy their contributions!
Photograph of Ester Greene on left under article titled, “We’re Going After Every Point, Shout Girls Off for Paris Athletic Games.” The Evening World, 1 August 1922. Courtesy of NYS Historic Newspapers. On August 1st, 1922, thirteen courageous women sailed from the U.S. to Paris, France, to participate in an international track meet. This would be the first U.S. women’s team to ever compete in the First International Track Meet, hosted by the Federation of Women’s Sport Societies of France, on August 20th, 1922. The Federation invited five countries, France, the U.S., Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, and Great Britain, to a competition that would forever change attitudes towards women’s track. In the 1920s, women could only compete at the Olympics in a few categories, such as figure skating or tennis. The popularity of and involvement in the “Premiers Jeux Olympiques Féminins” (First Olympic Games for Women), as the Federation called it, would push the International Olympic Committee to include women’s track in 1928.
Class of 1923, Balboa High School, The Zonian, 1922.
Ester Greene is circled in red.Among the U.S. women at this momentous event was the Canal Zone’s own Ester Greene, who graduated from Balboa High School, class of 1923. The school’s yearbook, the Zonian, touts Greene as, “undoubtedly the best long-distance runner and high jumper of which the Canal Zone can boast.” She placed in the top three for four different categories at the Balboa High School Inter-class Track and Field Meet, causing the juniors to win in 1922. She also placed top three in numerous categories for the Inter-class Track and Field Meet in 1921, with her sophomore class winning the tournament that year as well. Greene’s success on the track at Balboa High led to her participation in the First International Track Meet. She participated in the 100-yard dash and unfortunately was eliminated in the first trial.
The inclusion of a physical education program into the public schools was introduced by Superintendent Smith in 1908, establishing athletics as a core tenet of the Canal Zone Schools. The following track and field medals were awarded to other athletes, but Ester Greene was likely to have received many medals similar to these while at Balboa High School.
Three medals for achievements in track and field, awarded at various sports events.
From left to right: Community Medal of J.F. Burgoon of Balboa High School, c.1920-1930, Gift of James (Buster) and Jeanne Burgoon. 2001.020.003.003;
Track and Field medal, II.2023.999.58;
Medallion: Edwin C. Jones, July 4, 1929, 2nd Place, 440 Yd Dash, II.2025.999.25.
Sources:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/27570497
https://daily.jstor.org/how-a-paris-meet-changed-womens-track-and-field/
The Evening World 1 August 1922 — The NYS Historic Newspapers
https://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00093678/00016/images
This post was created using endowment funds raised during our Digitization Campaign. The funds from this campaign enabled us to hire students to digitize materials in the Panama Canal Museum Collection (PCMC) and make them freely available online for scholars, students, and people globally.
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