Mission Almost Impossible

Imagine it’s 6 a.m. and the day’s first sunlight is filtering through dark, blustery clouds. From your job site high on a hill, you gaze down on the tile roofs and palm-tree-lined streets of Santa Barbara, Calif., and from there to the gray, wintry sea. As your crew of 18 gathers, you recall the three weeks gone by, when 15 workers formed steel and set forms for 28-foot stem walls — 12 feet in the ground and 16 feet above. Today, 10 concrete trucks are scheduled to start rumbling up the hill by 8 a.m. Around 7 o’clock, the boom truck pulls up. Because there is so little flat space to park on