John Delach

April 2026, originally published 2008

A recent article in Newsday stopped me cold. The headline read, “Power cables laid in Sound.” The article reported that new cables were being installed in trenches on the sea bottom in order to strengthen the electrical grid connecting Connecticut and Long Island. I sat back, amazed and soon found what I was looking for, the exact location of these cables. They were laid between Norwalk and Northport. The article stated that these new cables would replace aging, battered cables that were unreeled along the bottom of the Sound in 1969. “Those are my cables,” I laughed to myself.

In April of 1969, I quit my job as a claims adjuster at the Atlantic Mutual Insurance Company and joined a small independent marine surveyor, Donald M. Lamont & Co. I’d only been there a little more than one-month when Lamont took me aside for a new assignment as soon as I walked into the office. He related in his thick Scottish brogue, “We just received an emergency job to survey damaged electrical cables being laid in the Long Island Sound as soon as possible. I cannot go because I have to be in Philadelphia for another job and nobody else is around.”

            “Don, I don’t know anything about electrical cables.”

“That’s okay. We don’t have a choice. All work has been stopped until the cables are inspected. There’s a crane barge, tug boats, workers and divers all hanging around doing nothing. Pirelli is the contractor and they need you up there, today.”

“Up where?” I asked.

“Norwalk, Connecticut. You’ll have to drive. Do you have a car available?”

“I don’t know. My wife has our car. If she’s home, I guess I can go.”

I called Mary Ann and tracked her down at her mother’s house in Flushing. “Great,  I have to go up to Connecticut to do a job for Lamont. Meet me at home and please make sure the car has a full tank of gas.”

I didn’t bother to ask Don what I should do. I figured I’d just wing it. The drive up to the Norwalk was easy, the sun still high in the sky on a nice June afternoon as I exited from Interstate 95 in Norwalk. I followed a two-lane highway toward a large power plant with an imposing smoke stack that loomed in the distance. The Connecticut Power and Light plant that was at the end of that road and it seemed to float on the vacant wetland that lined the Connecticut shore. About 500 yards from the power plant, I pulled up to an intercom positioned outside a massive gate. A detached hollow voice demanded to know who I was. “I’m the surveyor from Don Lamont’s office here to inspect the damaged cable.”

Instead of a reply, the cyclone gate opened allowing me to drive a short distance to a second gate. The first gate closed trapping me until the second one opened. I drove up to the plant where I was directed to a parking space close to the plant’s dock. There, a boat with inflated rubber pontoon sides and a wooden bottom awaited me. I handed my camera to a crewmember, stepped into the boat and barely seated myself before the twin outboard engines roared to life and off we went into the Long Island Sound.

            I could see the barges and workboats clustered together about a half-mile away and I felt a pang of disappointment that the ride was going to be so short. Too bad, this was fun. The damaged cable had been hauled out of the water and on to the deck of a barge. I saw that it was leaking fluid from a long, jagged cut where it had been sliced open by an anchor from a handling boat. I took out my notebook and took a statement from an engineer who had been appointed spokesman. He explained that they planned to cut away about 100 feet of cable, drain the remaining fluid that may have been contaminated with sea water, splice in a new piece and pump in new fluid.

Who was I to argue? Any questions I asked would show off my ignorance. I wrote down everything I thought he said and took enough photographs to satisfy Don and the

insurance company then departed for my ride back to the dock.

            After I left the power plant, I headed toward a lobster shack that I had noticed on my ride in and bought two 1½ half pound lobsters for dinner.

            I called Mary Ann from a pay phone that I found nearby. It was about 7 p.m. “I just finished my survey. I think it went well. Listen, I know it’s late, but don’t make anything for dinner. I should be home in about two hours and l have picked up something special for dinner.”

The ride took a bit longer, but Mary Ann was not displeased when I walked in the door with two lobsters.

Don wasn’t displeased although I didn’t receive any praise either. In fact I never heard a word about my report or photographs, so I guess the insurance company was satisfied.

The article in Newsday confirmed that the cables lasted 39 years so the engineers must have done a good job splicing them.