Interview with James Donald Merlino, November 7, 2004

Nevada Test Site Oral History Project University of Nevada, Las Vegas Interview with James Merlino November 7, 2004 Tonopah, Nevada Interview Conducted By Suzanne Becker © 2007 by UNLV Libraries Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews conducted by an interviewer/ researcher with an interviewee/ narrator who possesses firsthand knowledge of historically significant events. The goal is to create an archive which adds relevant material to the existing historical record. Oral history recordings and transcripts are primary source material and do not represent the final, verified, or complete narrative of the events under discussion. Rather, oral history is a spoken remembrance or dialogue, reflecting the interviewee’s memories, points of view and personal opinions about events in response to the interviewer’s specific questions. Oral history interviews document each interviewee’s personal engagement with the history in question. They are unique records, reflecting the particular meaning the interviewee draws from her/ his individual life experience. Produced by: The Nevada Test Site Oral History Project Departments of History and Sociology University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 89154- 5020 Director and Editor Mary Palevsky Principal Investigators Robert Futrell, Dept. of Sociology Andrew Kirk, Dept. of History The material in the Nevada Test Site Oral History Project archive is based upon work supported by the U. S. Dept. of Energy under award number DEFG52- 03NV99203 and the U. S. Dept. of Education under award number P116Z040093. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in these recordings and transcripts are those of project participants— oral history interviewees and/ or oral history interviewers— and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U. S. Department of Energy or the U. S. Department of Education. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 1 Interview with James Merlino November 7, 2004 in Tonopah, NV Conducted by Suzanne Becker Table of Contents Introduction: brief discussions of childhood, education, early work history and path to job with Mercury sheriff���s department. 1 Family history in mining, and in the Tonopah, NV area. 2 Description of initial job with, and training for, sheriff’s position at NTS. 3 Recollection of first atmospheric test witnessed from Tonopah. 5 Main offenses sheriff was called to at NTS; genesis of dealing with protesters. 8 Opinions of and philosophies about protesters and act of protesting. 10 Discussion of logistics and procedures for dealing with a protest event. 11 Philosophy about, and establishment of, working relationship with protesters. 12 Procedures and protocol for dealing with protesters who “ crossed over the line” ( onto NTS property). 14 Recollection of story involving use of protesters using a hot air balloon to enter NTS property. 15 Recollection of Martin Sheen at NTS and “ crossing over the line.” 18 Discussion of procedure for taking protesters, after arrest, to Beatty and Tonopah. 21 Discussion of rapport between NTS security and protesters. 24 NTS workers perceptions of the protesters. 25 Mr. Merlino’s thoughts about radiation, potential health hazards and compensation. 27 Brief discussion of family ( son, daughter, grandchildren). 31 Discussion of secrecy/ security clearance at NTS; Recollection of dealing with wild horses on the land and other types of animals that commonly live on/ roam on the property. 33 Further discussion of philosophies on non- violent tactics for dealing with actions and NTS/ non- violent protest. 39 Story about tactics used by protesters to stop buses ( full of workers) coming into NTS, and other tactics used by demonstrators to get onto NTS land itself. 40 Attitude of Wackenhut security toward protesters; working relationship between Nye County Sheriff Department and Wackenhut. 42 Discussion of dealing with media and media coverage of protests. 45 Further discussion of the logistics of preparing for a large demonstration. 47 Story about one protester who was carrying a Russian Flag. 49 Security issues and dealing with union strikes ( worker strikes) at the test site 50 Celebrities who have been to the test site ( Martin Sheen, Teri Garr). 56 Conclusion: discussion of why most citations written for trespassing onto the test site were eventually dropped. 57 UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 1 Interview with James Merlino November 7, 2004 in Tonopah, NV Conducted by Suzanne Becker [ 00: 00: 00] Begin Track 2, Disc 1. Suzanne Becker: We can just begin by getting some background, maybe about how long you’ve been in Nevada, when you came to Nevada, a little bit about your family background, that kind of thing. James Merlino: All right. My name is James D. Merlino. I’ve lived in Tonopah, Nevada since 1934, so I’ve been here all but five years of my life. Well, first, went to school here, through high school, and went to one year in Los Angeles, trade school after I graduated from high school here. What year did you graduate from high school? I graduated from high school in 1947. OK. Yes, twelve grades total, twelfth grade. And I worked, after coming home from school, for five years for a trucking firm here in Tonopah. They went out of business, so then I went to work for a local Mobil dealer here in Tonopah. I drove a truck for twenty years, hauled fuel, diesel, gasoline, and propane out of Bakersfield and Sacramento [ California] into Tonopah and some other places in Nevada. And in 1972 this business that I was working for, the petroleum business, was going out of business, and there was an opening in the sheriff’s department at Mercury. So I went to the sheriff and talked to him, and the district attorney at that time, and yes, there was an opening. I went down there in June of 1972. And as my luck was running then, about three weeks after I got down there, maybe six weeks, they decided they were going to have a layoff in Mercury, in the sheriff’s department. Well, I was the last one hired, so I would be UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 2 naturally the first one fired, or let go. So that was on for about three weeks, and then I got a call one day and they said, Jim, would you like to come back? We’re going to do some hiring now. I said, Well, yeah, I’d love to come back. So I went back and I stayed there until January of 1994 when I retired, twenty- one years and six months later. Good job. Very good job. Which I want to talk about, but I’m just curious because you’ve been here in Tonopah your whole life. It’s a mining town, was your father a miner? My father, when we came in here, yes, he was a miner. Was that why he came out here? Yes, we came out of Idaho. They were closing down the mines up there, and mining was doing very well here in the Tonopah and in central Nye County here. And I remember at the time they said you didn’t have to go apply for work. You walked down the street and somebody would walk up and ask you if you want to go to work. So he did. He worked underground and then he elevated himself to a hoist man working above ground, which was good. Then he went to work in one of the gaming joints here as a racehorse keno dealer, and did that for, oh, probably ten years. And then he and his wife— my mother passed away in ’ 39 and then my dad got married again in ’ 40 or ’ 50— and his wife lived in Hawthorne [ NV], so he moved down there, but we stayed here. I have two brothers. They live here in Tonopah. One was the assessor for thirty years here and the other worked locally around town for a freight outfit. Both of them are retired also. I have two sisters. One lives in Minnesota, one lives in Texas. And so we see each other quite often, and life has been good here in Tonopah. For us, it has. And you decided not to go the route of mining? UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 3 No, I didn’t have any interest in that at all. I knew it was hard work, I knew it was underground, and I knew a lot of the older miners and their health didn’t hold up too well because of working underground and the dust and everything. So I had no desire whatsoever. And my dad, he might have frowned on it had I mentioned going down there. I think he would’ve, I really do. And I’ve always managed to [ work]— I’ve only been out of work, I think, two or three days and that’s when one business closed down and I got the job driving the tanker two days later. So I’ve been very fortunate. Had you ever thought about going into sherriffing? Is that what it would be called? Sheriffing? [ 00: 05: 00] Well, the sheriff’s department. Yes, had you ever considered that? No, I didn’t. I was so busy driving I was perfectly content. I have to be honest and say if those jobs hadn’t have left town, I would’ve probably stayed with those jobs because I was doing well. I liked it and financially I was doing well. But when the jobs left, well, I wanted to stay here but I didn’t want to work for the sheriff’s department here in Tonopah. I was practically born and raised [ here]— I was five years old when I came here, and I thought well, you know everybody here and you have lots of friends and I said, No, I’d like to go down there, and they said, Well, that’s fine, we have an opening, so we’ll put you up down there. And that’s just what they did. Ultimately you ended up, then, working for the Nevada Test Site? That’s correct. And what were your initial thoughts on that, if any? Well, I enjoyed it and I knew probably 90 percent of the people that were working for the sheriff’s department. They were gentlemen that were from Tonopah that I had gone to school UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 4 with and knew, and so I wasn’t a stranger to them. I was a stranger to Mercury, of course. But I didn’t mind being alone down there. You know you’re working in a car patrolling and you’re by yourself. Well, when I was driving for twenty years, I was always by myself, so I had no problem with that. And those who were down there when I got there had already been there, oh, three or four or five years. So they were experienced and they just took me under their wing and showed me the ropes. Then almost immediately at that time there was a three- week course you had to take within the first eighteen months of your hiring called Peace Officers’ Standard Training. I think now it’s fifteen weeks, and should be, but that’s all it was then. So I went to school. What is that all about? That’s just law enforcement rules and regulations and laws, and what the people expect of you. You get the law books. It was drug information and hazardous information and things like that. And so we took that right away. One week here and then the other two, the classes were taught in Las Vegas. So it’s just to give you just a very minor part of it. You picked up the rest of it as you worked. Living here, which is virtually down the road from the test site, I imagine that you were well aware of the test site being— Oh, yes. And I’m sure it was a part of your general background and your existence. What were your perceptions? Did you have any thoughts about? Well, I had an idea— well, everybody had an idea what was going on down there somewhat because when I was driving, sometimes I would be coming into town, say, four or five o’clock in UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 5 the morning and they would have a test down there. Well, I don’t know if your aware of it [ laughter] but when that went off, everything lit up like as bright as— brighter than it is today. So you got to see a lot of the atmospheric tests that they did. Oh, yeah. First one I ever saw it wasn’t announced, and it went off, and I was coming towards Tonopah about forty miles out but looking towards Tonopah, and it just lit up. I thought, my God, did the whole town blow up? I was terrified. At that time I was married and I had my two children and I thought, oh no, what is this? And then I found out what it was. After that they would announce them sometime, and a lot of the people would go up on the summit here, and from there you could look way down. They would post the time that it was going to be; if it went, [ you] would witness those. So I did have a pretty good handle— know what to expect. And I met some people down there that introduced me to a lot of that. I have to say that that was the only place in the free world where that type of thing was taking place, and so I felt very, very fortunate to be a part of that. And you know those technicians and those scientists were great— all that I met were great people. And I got to go to the weather briefings and stuff like that, so I was very fortunate, and I learned more all the time. The people would come and go and I would [ 00: 10: 00] meet them. I feel very fortunate to have worked down there. I do. It was good. It was good. And like I say, I was single so it wasn’t that I was leaving a wife at home for five days a week and come home on weekends. And my children were being raised by their mother, so I didn’t have a worry there. They do very well. They’re all over the walls here. Yes, I see that. And so that wasn’t a worry. And when I was driving, I was gone, sometimes I wouldn’t get home for three or four days and sometimes I’d be home every other day, so I was used to that. So you’re used to having that very sporadic schedule and being away. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 6 Yes, exactly, it wasn’t strange to me at all. And did you stay down in Mercury? Oh, yes, we lived right there. We had a room and the cafeteria was open, three meals a day there, no problem. It was just a very good job, a good learning job, and the government treated us very well. We had a fairly nice building and we had new cars about every two or three years. We were county employees paid by the [ federal] government. The county would pay us and then the county would submit a bill to the government, our bill for our six deputies down there, and the government would pay the county. So it was a very nice situation. So you were down there also when they were doing the underground shots when they switched to that, as well. Yes, that’s when— yes. What did you think between seeing the above ground tests and then switching to the underground tests? I guess I’m just wondering— well, you already said what your perceptions were, but it’s interesting talking to other people that have been in the area for a long time and remember when the test site came to be and the whole program of testing was just sort of part of everybody’s lives. It depends who you’re talking to but everybody has their varying thoughts of— Oh, yeah. The overhead, well, there was an awful lot of things happened there. I can’t even describe it because I can’t come up with words like that. But underground apparently they could determine whether it went off like it should, it will do this much or it will do that much. I don’t know if you’ve ever been on the site. I would assume you have. You’ve been to Sedan. Yes. OK, and you witnessed something there. Every time I would drive by there and look at that, I couldn’t believe that. So those kind of things. But I know scientists expected something from the UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 7 device underground and they could determine yes, this did work right, or no, that didn’t. I wasn’t privy to that but I was out there when we would patrol the roads and make sure that nobody went into the actual site. And I’ve seen the ground move like an earthquake. Like a ripple? It is. Yes, “ ripple” is the right word, I think. Yeah, I’ve seen that but it didn’t catch me by surprise because the guys said, Now, Jim, we’ll go out there and sometimes the ground will roll, and sure enough it did roll. But I never had a problem. It must’ve been interesting. Interesting sensation. It was. Really, like I say it’s something you’ll never see anyplace else, I don’t think. So I felt very privileged to have been there. And I met some very nice people. You were probably told when they were going to do the different tests. Oh, absolutely. And you actually patrolled on the grounds of the test site? Oh, yeah, we worked up there. Sometimes you wouldn’t leave there your whole tour, the whole week. Sometimes you’d get called out on the highway maybe to assist NHP [ Nevada Highway Patrol] or just go out there, take a ride out there and see if everything was all right on the highway. But yeah, we patrolled up there, all the areas. We worked five in the morning till ten at night, and then we’d go on call. Whoever was on call would call in to Wackenhut [ Security, Incorporated], who we worked with, and worked very well with. I enjoyed working with them. They would take our calls and if something went wrong, there was an accident or something, that person would say, I’ll be on call tonight and you have my phone number, so if something comes up, you just call me. It was a very good operation. What were the main things that you were called for? What types of—? UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 8 Well, most of it when we were patrolling, but we wrote a lot of speeding tickets, and then— OK. And these are to test site employees? [ 00: 15: 00] Oh, absolutely. Yeah, we wrote a lot of those, and accidents, little fender- benders, and there would be— with government vehicles and also a lot of civilian vehicles, if you take your car to work and you’d have an accident, those type of things. And there was a lot of equipment there and we’d have accidents with the trucks and trailers. Just like you do anywhere else, only it’s on a government installation. Sure. Right. Which is huge. Yeah, it was. I mean we would get, oh, you could tour out there two hundred and fifty, three hundred miles a day and hardly ever go in the same place twice, from Mercury clear up to Area 20 and back and around. You know the grounds well, I would imagine. Yes. I don’t remember all the grounds but we put a lot of miles on it and seen a lot of things out there. When did you start to deal with the whole issue of protesters? Well, they had protests down there before I even got there, but they allowed them to come right up to the gate, the gate that is existing now, I think. When we started having them, we were down from the gate just a little that other side of the road that goes to Desert Rock. We would allow them to come into there. They did, they just painted a white stripe across the road, and as long as they stayed on this side, we didn’t have a problem. If they crossed, then we would arrest them and hold them for a while. And then it kept getting bigger and bigger, so we decided that let’s not let them in this close; let’s keep them out there at the cattle guard. I’m sure you’ve crossed over that a number of times. There’s a little trailer out there, and then the holding facility UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 9 is still out there. So we did all our demonstrations out there, the big ones. But that was in early ’ 80, ’ 81 and ’ 82, and it started out— the one I remember the most was the forty days of Lent for Easter. It was in 1982, I think? Eighty- two, early eighties, yes. They were young people, just early twenties, maybe not even that old. They were girls out of Oregon, I think, and every day for forty days there was somebody there. They were that dedicated, I have to say this; they were dedicated. Sometimes there’d be maybe five or six of them there, and then maybe for a day or two, only one. But they never broke that idea, we have to have somebody here every day for forty days. And they did. And they did. We didn’t have any problem with them. They’d just come down they had a thing they believed in; they didn’t think that the devices should be set off, we didn’t need that, and the government [ said] yes, we needed deterrence here just in case. Things weren’t going too well with Russia at that time, and so that was a deterrent. I have to sit here and tell you right now, that was a deterrent, and it worked. It did. I believe that. But that’s when we first started that, and that’s where we held them up right there. So it was in the early eighties when you really remember starting to be conscious of the fact that protesters were coming down. Yes. What were your initial thoughts about that? Well, you know, you’re always apprehensive as to what are they going to do. And when we were there, it was just the five of us and the lady dispatcher. So, you always wonder, if they get a whole lot of them down here, can the five of us handle it? And you have to bring the guys out UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 10 that are on their days off. But we never had a problem. But that was the biggest worry, that you get that many people and some are just— they’re activists from their heads to their toes and they think they’re right and they think they can do anything they want. Well, you can’t allow that. And to have a weapon wouldn’t have been at all hard to do down there, and sometimes in winter they got heavy clothes on— so those kind of things. You’re worried about yourself, you’re worried about your people, and you worried about them, too. Anything could happen. But fortunately we didn’t have that. There were a few weapons confiscated in there but no guns, to my knowledge. I don’t remember any guns. A few knives or something like that. But that was the biggest concern we had. And we got along well with those people and we had sometimes half- a- dozen people [ 00: 20: 00] maybe the next one for, say, the Franciscans, they come out there maybe with twelve hundred, fifteen hundred people. You’d look out there and [ think] my God, what are we getting ourselves into? But they just didn’t create— we spent a lot of time but it wasn’t that tough. It seems like you had a rapport built up— We did. I have to admit that, and I’m proud of that inasmuch as I think that maybe kept anybody from being injured, them or us. Oh, there was some knee- scraping and you’re chasing them in the desert and they go through the brush and they get scratched and fall down, and we would fall down, too. So there was that kind of stuff. But when we had the demonstrations there, the government was perfect. [ They asked] What do you need out there? Tell us what you need and you’ll have it tomorrow. So there was an open line of communication between you and the protesters? Oh, I never seen anything like it. And did you know ahead of time when they were coming? UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 11 I did know. They would call me up and sometimes they’d say, Well, Jim, we’d like to have a meeting with you. So we would meet in Wackenhut’s office outside the gate, right at the gate. That little hut that’s off to the side? To the right as you come up to go in, and it’s the building that’s to the left. And we would meet in there. A couple of times we went downtown and met with them down there. But they got to the point where they’d say, Well, now, we’re going to come out there, going to be fourteen days, and it’ll start Monday the sixth and end on the twentieth, and we’re going to be about, oh, it was always a guesstimate because they never did know actually. It might be fifteen, and then again it might be five hundred, and we’re going to cross that line, Jim. I said, Well, you know, that’s fine. And then when they would do that, if there was going to be a thousand, that’d give me or us the opportunity to call the under sheriff up here who was my immediate boss and tell him, I need some people. So he was taking people from Tonopah and Beatty, Amargosa, Pahrump, and we’d have the Mercury force, and then Wackenhut was there all the time. They never turned us down for anything and we would work shoulder- to- shoulder with them. Had a beautiful working relationship with those people, from the top brass right down to the guy on the street. With the big ones, we would hire NHP and they would come out and work with us. It worked good. There’s a book that was written about the Nevada Desert Experience. Nevada Desert Experience. Big group. Big. Big group. And you’re mentioned in the book several times. One of the things that they talk about is— I don’t know if you remember, I think his name was Michael Affleck. He was— Affleck? Affleck, yes. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 12 Oh, yeah, I know Michael well. What he says is that the first time that they met you, that he met you, you really challenged their concept of what it meant to protest because you were the person that was very friendly and very willing to understand what they were doing for the cause, and trying to work with them. In the book he talks about how it’s like well, OK, now we have to completely rethink how we’re going to do this because we didn’t expect this. Were you aware that you had— it seems that you had a very profound impact. Well, I wasn’t really aware of that because I didn’t know those people at all, like I didn’t know you till right now, so I didn’t know really what to expect. I knew they wanted to come out there and demonstrate, and I just had to wait and see how they were going to do it. But I did talk to them. I says, I’m looking at it this way. I have a daughter and a son. Now if they choose to demonstrate, I would hope that wherever they demonstrate, if it’s going to be nonviolent, that they will be treated nonviolently. That’s all I would ask of anybody if they decided to do something like this. They didn’t and it doesn’t make any difference but that’s what I wanted. If those people can act that way, then I can in return. As a matter of fact, one thing that really would bowl you over— it bowled us all over— we were having demonstrations and the cattle guard’s here, both sides of the road like this. We had the demonstrators on this side of the road and the opposites, the workers, on this side of the road. So the demonstrators and the workers were lined up alongside of the road opposite each other. [ I thought] Oh, this is going to be disastrous, you know. But I’m telling you there wasn’t no problems. Sure, they had their placards, everybody, and they were kind of yelling back and forth. [ 00: 25: 00] There was no violence, no physical contact, and I thought, this can work if we just be reasonable about this. And I didn’t condone what they did. I thought we were doing the right UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 13 thing out there, but I couldn’t say to them, now, you’re not allowed to do this. It just didn’t set well with me. And yeah, we got along very well, like I say. But they would come to me and say, Well, Jim, there’s going to be this many people and there are going to be a lot of demonstrations, a lot of demonstrations and a lot of trespassing going on. The thing that bothered me more was if there was a shot going to go off and they would publish it. Somehow people had a way of knowing what area. It’s going to be in Area 20. That word would get out somehow. The test site isn’t completely fenced. It’s as big as what they say, Rhode Island, I think, and there’s no way you can fence that. There’s no way you can patrol that. And they would come in at night and get into that area. Most of the time we would find them before the shot, but sometimes it was very, very close. And what we wanted to know after we got them [ was], is this all of you that did this? Because when that goes off out there, there’s an awful lot of things can happen. There’s mountains out there, canyons and gullies, and we want to get them out of there before the shot goes because if it goes, anything can happen. One time there was some out there and we didn’t find any of them before, but we found them afterwards. They told some hair- raising stories, that the ground was shaking, the rocks were moving, and it was scary. So that put more fear into us, too, that somebody could get hurt out there or could get lost. They did it numerous times. They would come into Mercury and we’d catch them in Mercury. I don’t remember any damage, very little graffiti or any of that kind of stuff. Can you talk a little bit about the procedures that were involved in the— people cross over the line— it seems to me that there are a couple of different protocols that were in place, depending on what was going on, maybe, or the size of the crowd? Generally how did you deal with people after they crossed over? UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 14 Before they would cross over, we’d stop them. They’d come down and we would put eight or ten men in front of them, and they’d give you a chance just— all I had to tell them was, Look, I’d rather you didn’t do this, but if you do this, then you will be arrested. You’re trespassing. If you went to court, they couldn’t say, We didn’t know he was going to arrest us. They never said anything about it. Right. They were warned. So you know you spiel that out all day long, pretty quick you’re saying that in your sleep [ laughter] and only four or five come across. And we’d do it that way. They’d come across, and sometimes they would sit down right in front of you and then they’d lock arms. And then they got these things, they were pieces of pipe, and they’d put over their arms and they would have a padlock inside there. So you had to wrestle with that. Most of them, if they did sit down, you’d say come on, get up, or we’d get two guys— we always tried to use two, and so one guy would try to pick somebody up, they’d slip. It’s hard. So we would do it that way. Then we’d take them over to that holding facility over there and keep them there until we got— if there was, say, a thousand or fifteen hundred of them, if you arrest them, you can only hold them so long in that facility. So we would wait till we got maybe ten busloads, which is five hundred people almost, fifty people to a bus, and we’d haul them to Tonopah or we’d haul them to Beatty. That’s a long haul. It is, but what I was doing, we didn’t have to worry about those people coming back right away. Because if you released them, sometimes they would cross back over and turn right around and come back in again. This could go on indefinitely, and it gives them a certain amount of satisfaction; we’re working them to death out there. But that’s the way we would do that. And some would chain themselves together. So they would cross over the line and sit down? UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 15 Yes. Oh, yeah. And then they’d be linked together? Locked together sometimes. Some of them would and some would just walk across. One time down there, and this was in the early— Greenpeace. Everybody’s familiar with Greenpeace. Not familiar, but they know about Greenpeace. They’d come out there with a hot air [ 00: 30: 00] balloon, and they got it up. You get to know them people after a while. They were there about three or four days and then even they’re there with Greenpeace, you’re going to be there. Somebody’s going to be there. So I worked days. I’d be out there and [ they would say], Well, Jim, we’re going to fly that. Want to go with us? I said, No, no, Jim Merlino is not going to go riding in your balloon, let me tell you. That would look great. And then it was good to be at demonstrations, so the day of the demonstration they got up in the air. I don’t think they had a lot of experience with it, and they had the basket and they were up in the air. And what they wanted to do, I think, was they could say they’d come into the test site but they didn’t trespass at the cattle guard, which is true. They came through the air. That ground out there looks like it’s level as this table. But it has gullies in it, and it had little rises and little gullies. Well, they come swooping down over the cattle guard like this and then I guess they turned the fire off too soon, so it came down and the gully was like this. Well, the basket hit the top of the gully and the basket went like that and unloaded everybody. So it tipped over and dumped them all out then? It dumped them right on the desert. Tha