"Dynamite in the Wilderness"
Draft 4.8
Nov 8, 2025
“The fishing has gone to hell,” yelled passenger Dennis Udlinek from the front of the raft. “And what’s with all these green bushes under the water?”
It was Day Two of our highly anticipated late-July float trip down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River.
We had made decent time on that first day, dodging most of the exposed rocks and many of the ones just beneath the surface.
Some outfitters fly their customers to Indian Creek airstrip, to avoid the rock garden of the first 20 miles of river, especially at low flow.
But our ragtag group–none of whom were professional river guides–found continuous enjoyable challenges in the hauling of boats through shallow channels and vaulting from side to side (high-siding in river parlance) whenever rafts got pinned on large boulders.
There had been some urgency to our rowing that first day. A major storm was bearing down on us, and we wanted to be off the river and safely in camp before the rain started pummeling us.
The summertime storms along the Middle Fork are almost as legendary as the river itself, which courses through the middle of the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. In the past several decades, the longer, hotter fire seasons had taken a toll on the primitive beauty of the largest forested wilderness in the lower 48. Annual lightning-caused wildfires had reduced large swaths of ponderosa and lodgepole pine to charred hollowed-out remnants. Burned trees typically remain upright for seven years after a fire, before falling over each other and becoming a potential menace.
But for the 16 of us on this late-July raft trip, we knew what we were getting into–or so we thought. Part of the “Frank” may have burned, but we were on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, one of the best week-long vacation destinations in the world and one that can challenge even the most experienced outdoors person.
“I’ve rafted the Middle Fork probably 20 times over 40 years, and each time it has shown me something new,” said Jim Acee. “This is a place of surprises.”
Jim is not a licensed river guide, but his extensive experience has made him the natural choice for organizing and leading his friends down most of the raft-able rivers in the West, like the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, the Salmon and Selway rivers in Idaho, the Rogue in Oregon, and the Green and San Juan rivers in Utah.
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Recently, several of the group gathered to recount the events of July 24, 2006, when a powerful thunderstorm blocked popular Pistol Creek rapid with logs and debris, bringing river travel to a complete standstill.
“The thunderstorm that hit us on the evening of our first day on the river was the most savage I’d experienced,” recalled Jim. “Tent-rattling winds and a torrential rainstorm. The lightning and thunder added an element of excitement to the evening.
“At first it was fun. We huddled under a large flapping tarp, and the noise had a certain rhythm to it. But eventually everything and everybody was soaked. After a couple hours, the storm moved on, and we all headed to our soggy tents.”
The rain continued intermittently throughout the night, but blue skies greeted us in the morning as we surveyed the damage. During the night a stream of rainwater had penetrated my tent from below. My sleeping bag and camera would need a large dose of sunshine. Luckily, the 95-degree weather was only hours away.
My wet clothing wasn’t the only reason I wanted to get into my river gear and onto the raft. My passenger friend Dennis was a fly fisherman, and he was eager to match his dry-fly skills with the plentiful cutthroat.
The two of us were the first ones from our camp to hit the water that morning, and it was while we were fishing along the far bank that we realized something was not normal. We attributed it to a rockslide or a mud dam further downstream that was temporarily backing up the water. But we were in no hurry to find out what. We had some fishin’ to do.
Besides, we would soon be approaching Pistol Creek rapid, one of the trickier rapids on the Middle Fork. Trip leader Jim Acee had already warned the group what to expect, given the low flows we were experiencing.
“It’s a classic S-turn rapid situated between granite vertical walls,” he told the group. “The run at this very low flow is left of center, but it’s going to be tight. You have to stay close to the rock wall on the left side, but whatever you do, don’t bump into it! That could push you into a razor-sharp rock in the middle of the narrow run.
“I’ve heard stories of that rock ripping the floor out of rafts if you hit it,” Jim warned us. “So whatever you do, don't hit that, either. Other than that, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Those of us who had already rafted the Middle Fork knew to treat Pistol Creek rapid with respect. The International Scale of River Difficulty had rated it a Class IV rapid at certain water flows. In other words, it was for “advanced” rafters, with “intense, powerful but predictable rapids requiring precise boat handling in turbulent water.”
Nothing we hadn’t experienced before, we told ourselves.
But as our group broke camp and began heading down the river, fellow rafter Jeff Beaman noted a difference. “Once all our boats were in the water and floating along pretty close to each other, I was struck by the change in sound,” Jeff reminded us. “It was oddly quiet. I could easily hear voices from the other boats, which is often not the case. Then, looking down the river, I noticed the water was well up the banks with the tops of the bushes sticking out.
“I was thinking, this was definitely something I hadn’t experienced before.”
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What sets the Middle Fork apart from other rivers is the crystal-clear water, 100 named rapids, scenery that changes from alpine forest to sagebrush in the 104 mile stretch of runnable river, the abundance of large catchable cutthroat trout, magical hot springs, good hiking trails, and an historically important collection of 8,000-year-old Shoshone rock art.
No wonder the Middle Fork of the Salmon River rivals the Grand Canyon as the most coveted river trip in the nation.
The problem is that it’s almost impossible to snag a permit.
But in 2006 friends Kathy and Kim Heintzman drew one of the rare Middle Fork permits required and issued by the Forest Service, through a competitive lottery that occurs in January.
The odds of drawing such a permit in the peak rafting season of June, July, and August hover around one or two percent.
The Forest Service allows seven group launches per day on the Middle Fork, which translates to about 100 new people on the river each day during the busy season.
The Middle Fork of the Salmon was one of the original eight rivers protected under the federal 1968 Wild & Scenic Rivers Act. So what exactly does it mean to be a “wild” river? Can a river really be considered “wild” when 10,000 people float the river each year? And, more important, just what is allowed and not allowed in a congressionally designated Wild River? Our rafting group was soon to find out.
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I still remember Dennis and me coming around the bend in the river that morning and seeing a sweep-boat oarsman frantically motioning for us to pull hard to river left.
A ranch hand from nearby Pistol Creek Ranch was running up the trail, yelling at people to get off the river if they wanted to survive.
Maybe you know the feeling, when you come upon something that you know is definitely going to change your plans. That’s the excitement the men and women in our private rafting group felt, racing down to Pistol Creek rapid.
The flash flood we had experienced the night before had washed out dead and live trees, root balls, rocks, and tons of sand and earth, transporting the debris-field toward the wide, fan-shaped mouth of Lake Creek, located half a mile upstream from Pistol Creek. From there, the logs and debris flowed easily into the river and headed downstream, straight for the rapid.
One look at the 60 or 70 logs jammed into that constricted S curve and we knew that the blockage was not going to free itself any time soon.
“This problem won’t be solved until the spring run-off,” Jim told the group. “Better prepare yourself for a long, hard hike.”
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I sometimes wonder about the fate of our group and the other boaters if pilot Jeff Overton, who flew for SP Air, had not spotted the logjam from the air early Monday morning. He quickly radioed Pistol Creek Ranch, 1.5 miles from below the rapid, as well as Forest Service officials in Challis. This could be a life-threatening experience, especially for the elderly and physically challenged.
I guess it’s possible that our raft, gathering speed as it barreled toward the logs, could have hit the logjam hard enough to push the raft over the first few logs, allowing us to scurry to safety. Or the raft could just as easily have dived under the 50-foot by 30-foot log and debris blockage, perhaps staying there until spring runoff.
Thanks to pilot Overton, we didn’t have to find out. Still, tough choices would soon have to be made.
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It wasn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last. But the blowout in 2006 was certainly the most exciting and the largest logjam to have occurred on the Middle Fork in Forest Service memory.
Some of the rafting groups who hadn’t heard about the logjam and who had proceeded downstream were beginning to pile up at what some were calling “Camp Driftwood.” Located in a large meadow upstream of the blowout, the accommodation was pleasant enough, and most of the people arriving seemed to be taking things in stride.
After all, this was Mother Nature, all part of the excitement of spending a week in a Wilderness. To our 16-member group, this was fascinating stuff. How often do you get a front-row seat to one of Nature’s dramatic displays of power?
And how often do you get to watch the Forest Service deal with a perfect river storm, on a federally protected Wild and Scenic River, in an official Wilderness area?
In fact, some of us were already plotting how to take advantage of the situation. Two friends, John and Janette Crancer, had television experience. At the time, John was lead producer for Outdoor Idaho.
“We don’t have the required permit needed to shoot video in official wilderness,” John reminded our group. “Worse yet, we don’t even have a TV camera. and we’re a long-ways away from getting one. Too bad. This would make a great story for our next pledge drive.”
Besides, John and I figured the Forest Service would soon tell us to put on our big-boy pants and haul the thousands of pounds of gear around the blowout and hike ten miles to the public Indian Creek airstrip.
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Most people who have had experience with the Forest Service believe the federal agency does not know how to do anything fast. One outfitter at Camp Driftwood remarked that our logjam problem was no doubt a source of great amusement in Washington, D.C., another place where nothing happens fast. “It will be days before any decision is made, and chances are you won’t like the decision, anyway. Everything back there moves slow these days,” he added.
But unbeknownst to any of us, a Forest Service contingent, with some Washington, D.C., folks onboard, was heading downstream toward Pistol Creek. The officials had left the same day we did (a day after us?), with four oar boats and two kayaks. Among those on board were the Region 4 Special Areas Manager for Wilderness and Wild & Scenic Rivers and the Wilderness Coordinator for the Frank.
Also in the group was John Haugh, Wilderness & Rivers Program Manager for the Salmon-Challis National Forest. More important, John was a certified blaster for the U.S. Forest Service.
They had been notified about the log jam while on the river and were a few miles behind us. What had started out as a show-and-tell for some D.C. big-wigs quickly turned into much more. They would have to decide what to do about the obstruction that had trapped several hundred rafters and vacationers a long way from home.
Getting a permit to shoot in the Wilderness turned out to be an easy matter. Without hesitation, the public information officer who had rafted downstream with other FS officials informed us that the logjam was truly an historical event and an important news item. Thus, no need to apply for that permit.
We were good to go. But we still needed to get a TV camera deep into the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, where there are no roads.
On every other trip, our group had never ponied up the dollars to rent a satellite phone. But, for whatever reason, this time we had. I climbed 800 feet with the phone, to the top of the nearest mountain, and attempted to call Idaho Public Television.
After a few misses, the receptionist at the station caught just enough of my words to transfer the phone to General Manager Peter Morrill. Peter quickly realized the possibilities of the story and approached young Jeff Tucker, an enterprising staffer who had worked with both Peter and me on major stories. Jeff, as it turned out, would one day become General Manager of Idaho Public Television.
But today, he had a bigger problem. To hear Jeff tell it, the phone connection was so patchy that he could barely understand what I was saying.
“I heard every third word,” Jeff said afterword. “Food... Plane... Logjam... Stuck... Pistol Creek... Zimo. It was 100 degrees in Boise that day. I do enjoy the Frank, and so I said, ‘You Bet!’”
Jeff gathered together the camera gear and some chicken wings and called Pete Zimowsky of the Idaho Statesman. A few hours earlier, Zimo had heard about the logjam, and he jumped at the chance for a first-hand look at what was unfolding in the Frank.
“It was like a Commando-style trip,” commented Pete. “I grabbed my sleeping bag, my backpack, some dried food, and my computer.”
Jeff hired a pilot who was an expert at backcountry flying. As Jeff told me afterward, he didn’t exactly have permission to use the airstrip at nearby Pistol Creek Ranch but figured if they landed there, things would eventually work out.
“Luckily, the people at the ranch knew both of us,” said Pete, “and they opened their house to us. I was able to take notes and file stories and photos. We totally lucked out.”
In fact, Zimo filed multiple stories on the logjam. The Statesman ran them all. “Rafters stuck on clogged Middle Fork”... “Rafters still stuck behind logjam”... “Updated 5:31 p.m. – Rafters stream down the river through Pistol Creek Rapids”... “Middle Fork delay cost outfitters about $100,000.”
When the Associated Press distributed them, “the stories went crazy,” said Pete. “Pistol Creek logjam quickly became a national and world-wide story.”
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Meanwhile, back at the blowout and the fast-growing “Camp Hopeful.”
Upon arriving at the scene, dynamite expert John Haugh surveyed the blockage. “We had a major rain event in what we call Lake Creek. Several inches per hour. Typically when we’ve had these high intensity fires in these side drainages, we get these blow outs after high intensity thunderstorms. So it’s a relatively common occurrence after a very large fire has gone through the water shed.”
But John told us he had never seen anything as massive as this one, and he was unwilling to say how long it would take the crew to dislodge the logs and debris. “We don’t know if this is going to be completed in the next day or two. It may take as long as three days. We’re taking it very slow and very cautious at this point.”
We agreed John would be our first full-length interview. “I’m a certified blaster. The first step was to decide, can we blast this? Once it was determined that it could be blasted, we had to follow the process to get approval from our forest supervisor.
“Being wilderness and being a wild and scenic river, it’s a very precious jewel. With that said, we currently have approximately 400 people above this blockage. I don’t want to use the word “trapped,” but they cannot come down. So their options are they have to backpack out, hire an outfitter, or wait for us to eliminate this blockage.”
John was a no-nonsense kind of guy, happy to push the value of explosives to anyone who would listen. “One of the questions that came up is blasting. Is the use of explosives appropriate in the wilderness? The answer is yes. Blasting is a traditional tool. It’s been around for thousands of years.”
John also informed us that, coincidentally, the Forest Service rafting party included all the right players needed to make a quick decision. “Having this mix of qualified personnel on-site at the logjam was an incredibly lucky situation,” he informed us.
John wasn’t the type to use the word “serendipity,” but I sure was.
Middle Fork district ranger Tom Montoya had flown into Pistol Creek Ranch from Challis that morning. He had been kept up to speed on the blow-out at Lake Creek and was excited to see for himself what the river looked like. Since it was “his” forest, we also set him in front of the logjam to get his opinion.
“We had the fire of 2000 that caused some of the soils to be unstable and we had a torrential rainfall. At one point the river gauge downriver at the Middle Fork Lodge showed no flow. I wish I had been on-site to see it. It’s an impressive event. It’s Nature at its best.”
Ranger Tom knew his concern had to be for the hundreds stuck behind the blockage, and he was considering all his options. “I’ve got folks in Salmon who are looking at provisions we would need to support folks back of the logjam,” he told us. “They probably don’t have enough food for more than a couple of days.”
“Which is the greater risk?” he asked, somewhat rhetorically, “trying to evacuate folks, or blasting the logjam and hoping things flush down and don’t get hung up?” He also pointed out that late July is wildfire season, “so we’re trying to support the fires first. It’s not an easy task at this point at the end of July.”
He and the others quickly came up with three alternatives that they shared with us.
Alternative one was to leave the logjam in place and let natural processes remove it, possibly in the Spring and maybe not even then, and portage hundreds of people and tons of rafting equipment around the logjam over rocky terrain.
Alternative two was to remove the logjam using helicopters and cables with chokers to lift the logs out of the way.
Alternative three was to remove the logjam using explosives.
Given the circumstances, it was inevitable what the decision would be. The high-level officials had already begun debating the legality and the appropriateness of blowing up a natural logjam in a wilderness setting.
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One could argue that there is no right way or wrong way to solve a logjam problem. As one former Idaho Fish & Game conservation officer wrote about using dynamite, “The wilderness is just doing what Mother Nature decides. Fire and washouts have been happening for millennia.”
“Get over it,” wrote Gary Gadwa, from nearby Stanley, Idaho. "You are not in control and neither should the USFS. Blasting is the stupidest thing to consider. Floating the M.F. Salmon is a privilege, not a guaranteed right. It will all be different next year.”
Of course, many stuck behind the logjam had a decidedly different opinion.
After much discussion, the folks from Washington, D.C., and the ones from Idaho agreed that there was no language in the 1964 Wilderness Act, the 1981 Central Idaho Wilderness Act, or the 1968 National Wild & Scenic Rivers Act that forbade using explosives to solve a problem.
Blaster John Haugh hid his excitement well. As he told us, “I’ve never tried to blast anything as huge as this blockage. It’s going to be a learning experience for all of us.”
The key to explosives, John told us, “is the right amount at the right spot, just enough to nudge the logs. We don’t anticipate this is going to be a major 200-foot gusher of water going into the air.”
We were slightly disappointed to hear that. Still, we wished him well.
A handful of young FS employees were already on top of the wet logs, walking around like pros, to break logs free using mechanical devices like peaveys and winches. Rescue harnesses and kayakers with rope throw-bags kept the men safe.
The plan was to break loose some key logs that were pinning things, but little was budging except some debris and small logs on the downstream side. I remember thinking that the men seemed so tiny compared to the large 50-foot logs that straddled the river.
This went on for hours. At least Forest Service officials would be able to say they had tried every means possible to break up the obstruction before resorting to dynamite.
“To my knowledge and from what I’ve been told, we’ve never had a blockage this severe,” said John. “Our communication here is very challenging. We have two-way radios; we have satellite phones. We’re relaying through two different guard stations. Things get lost in the translation.”
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Upriver, in “Camp Hopeless,” the natives were getting restless. “What kind of vacation is this?” a New Yorker demanded. “This is not what we signed up for,” complained another.
The negative comments got even louder when it became apparent everyone would be camping for at least one more night.
Some of the outfitters were watching their profits evaporate before their eyes. The next day one outfitter procured pack horses from Pistol Creek Ranch to begin the arduous task of hauling tons of equipment, rafts, food and people up to the trail and then on to Indian Creek airstrip. I remember seeing one of the guides carrying a wheelchair on his back.
“People are anxious to move on,” acknowledged John Haugh. “They want to go down the river. They are very anxious and want to know why we can’t move faster. And I think we are moving pretty fast on this.”
I had to agree.
Early in the morning of July 26 John and two other blasters flown in for the occasion began building the explosive charges. They would attempt one blast instead of several smaller blasts. Thirty-nine pounds of dynamite, strategically placed on the longest and largest logs, should do the job, John informed us. “It’s going to be a learning experience for all of us, so we’re gonna take it one step at a time, and just chip away at it. We’re telling the public now two to three days.”
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One of the nice touches when floating the Middle Fork is that, before embarking on the weeklong journey, a native Shoshone elder talks to everyone about what the Middle Fork means to his people. It means a lot to the Shoshone-Bannock Tuka-Deka, and there are pictographs all along the corridor, dating back 8,000 years, to prove the point.
When it became clear that Mother Nature would be dealt a dynamite blow, a group of us gathered below the logjam, more than 500 feet away. “We wanted to get closer,” said John Crancer. “If we had had our way, we would be 50 feet away, to get the full effect of the blast. But the Forest Service told us that was not going to happen. In fact, they were going to move us back a thousand feet from the explosion. We consoled ourselves that at least there was no chance a log would land on our expensive camera.”
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It's always interesting what people remember. "He was a very slight man and must have been issued the smallest Forest Service uniform available," commented Ruth Merrill, a member of our group. "I remember he was also sporting a very large wristwatch, or it just seemed huge on his narrow wrist."
They never exchanged names, but Ruth knew that he was a Shoshone elder who had just walked downriver with his niece to witness the spectacle at Pistol Creek.
"Probably since I was sitting alone off the trail, he stopped to pass the time," she said. "He noted that the Forest Service said no firecrackers in the wilderness. But he heard they were going to use one big firecracker.
“He startled me when he declared, ‘Why don’t you all go back to where you came from?’ I told him that we would, either by floating down the river, or if there was no other option, by packing things out.
“’No, go back to where your people came from,’ he declared.
"I felt like bantering with him," said Ruth, "so I asked him if I should move to France where my people came from. He nodded enthusiastically. 'Yes!'
"Then we sat a while longer together, watching the antics of the FS setting up the big firecracker, waiting for the show."
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It was 12:50 p.m. when the dynamite rattled the river. We had the TV camera rolling and caught the blast. We were ecstatic.
But at first the dynamite didn’t seem to have made a difference. My heart sank. And then ever so slowly, we saw debris floating past the curve in the rapid. Certainly not enough to make a difference. But as the debris kept flowing, small logs appeared. “Come on, come on, you can do it!” some of us urged excitedly. It seemed to be working. The logs were getting larger and moving faster.
“The blast went great!” exclaimed an exuberant John Haugh. “We were worried that we didn’t have enough explosives. It was the largest logjam any of us had seen. We drilled the biggest logs out there and we stuck sticks of dynamite in them to break them in half.”
Their back-up plan–to fly in more explosives in the morning–wasn’t necessary.
We were home free. And we owed it all to toe-nail painting.
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River guide Erin Ridle grew up on the river when her parents purchased Middle Fork River Expeditions.
“When I first saw the logs, I was in complete awe,” she told us when we interviewed her. “We were even looking in that Middle Fork book. They had a logjam that happened in the 1930’s and it was five logs. When I saw that there was a huge lake, I got so excited. I had no idea it meant I would be camping there for three days.
“I love when the river is totally in charge, and we just get to be pawns.”
Erin told her clients that they needed to paint their toenails. “This is how I get people through rapids,” she said. “If we painted our toenails, it would be good luck, and we’d all be able to get down the river. Well, it worked!”
At first, Erin wasn’t sure what to think about the efforts of the Forest Service. “We didn’t know if the Forest Service was going to be blowing it up the day before yesterday. Then it was yesterday. We were in this holding pattern where each time we would get this ray of hope and think it was going to happen right away, and then it wouldn’t.”
But she wanted us to know that she was impressed with the Forest Service. “I think they did a fabulous job. I’m really pleased with them. They really got here quick and really did their work quick, and we still get to have two days on the water.”
“I’ve run the river many times,” said Jeff Beaman, from our group. “This trip especially has impressed on me how insignificant we are in the whole scheme of things, and how powerful nature can be. It’s very impressive, and you’re very thankful you were not anywhere near it when it happened.”
Kathleen Fahey, another of our group, had an interesting take on the experience. “This has been a great adventure," she said us. "This is to some degree what a lot of us look forward to, where we have to see how we perform and how we adapt."
But it was not over yet. A massive, gnarled root-ball had worked its way downstream and was now blocking the best path forward for the dozens of rafts preparing to escape Pistol Creek rapid. Sharp four-foot-long stumps jutted from the tangled mass of roots like broken teeth, any one of which could cause serious damage to rafts and rafters alike. Outfitters were understandably concerned for the safety of their passengers.
The first outfitted group tried another route and ran into trouble. They wound up on a sandbar, shaken but unhurt. Our group was next.
“For whatever reason Robert Minch decided to be the first person in our group to go through the rapid,” recalled trip leader Jim Acee. “Maybe it was because he had the largest boat, a 16-foot cata-raft.
“Whatever you do, don’t go to the right, where the root ball is,” I told Robert. “The main current goes right, so you’re going to have to pull left into one of the channels. If you run into that root ball, get out of your boat and save yourself. Just don’t go right.”
Robert was an instructor in Information Technology at Boise State University. We knew him to approach problems in an analytical manner.
“He’s floating toward the rapid and not dipping an oar.” Jim recalls. “It’s as if he’s trying to figure out a problem in his head. His arms are just hanging onto the oars, not doing anything, and the current is drifting him into the right-hand channel. And now there is nothing he can do about it. On shore, we are yelling.”
As Robert approached the forbidding tangle of roots and trunk remnants, we could see this was not going to be a fair fight. The woody mass towered over Robert and his raft. But the fearless man pushed on, slamming sideways into the dense snarl of wood, perhaps on purpose sticking his oar into the tangled heart of the beast.
“His oar goes right into that root ball. It’s stuck there,” said Jim, “and then the current pushes on the boat. As the boat turns, so does the root ball.”
Fellow rafter Jeff Beaman watched the encounter from shore with dozens of other rafters from various outfitted parties.
“As the main current caught it, you could see them twirling down the river together. It was obvious that Robert was not in control or anything, and we're going, oh my God, he's stuck in the root ball, and it's gonna kill him! But eventually, it just pulls off to the side onto a sandbar, and Robert is sitting there smiling, with his oar stuck in the roots.”
As trip leader, Jim quickly realized what Robert had done. “Somehow, he had managed to completely clear the righthand path. And all of a sudden there’s this huge cheer from the crowd. Robert had just made everyone’s life so much easier and safer, and they knew it.”
“Robert certainly deserved the applause,” remarked Jim, “but I’m not sure he ever realized what kind of trouble he was in.”
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As it turned out, our concern, that we would be fighting a moving series of log jams as we traveled downstream, did not materialize. The logs drifted to the sides of the river, making it relatively easy for a decent rafter to avoid hitting them.
When we got back to the station several days later, we produced two videos of our experience. The four-minute version became part of our 25th season in a show we called “A Middle Fork Journey.”
The longer version we saved for our Outdoor Idaho website. It was twice as long. We heard later that FS employees at the national headquarters had watched it. Hey, it’s not every day that the Forest Service is featured solving a serious problem in record time, and without any difficulties.
Unfortunately, the example of a job well done and in record time did not seem to impress the rest of Washington, D.C. Congress is still as slow as ever!
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