It was just a regular day off even though it was my holiday. Kinda nice... I thought I'd go to bed alittle early since my sleep hours have been offset for the Christmas holiday. I'd been up since 11pm on the 25th... we had our veterans and POW/MIA ceremony to take down the flag at midnight.
I'd been spending the my day off relaxing - reading, updating my blog, etc. Although I did decide to go to bed early - 0730... this is the 26th since I had to work the night. But at 1030, someone started yelling in the Jamesway if anyone was sleeping. There were a few of us that were disgruntled being woken up but the guy said there was as fire in the power plant and that summercamp heat was turned off so if we get cold, go to the main station. That would have been common sense and I would have figured it out sooner or later by waking up freezing to death - it's not the first time the heat has been turned off in summercamp. But not 5 minutes later some other guy started yelling that there was a bad power plant fire and everyone needed to be accounted for in the station galley. So off everyone went. Luckily, I packed my bag with my uniform and extra gear for hanging out in the galley. No sleep for anyone on midrats...
Turns out the power had been out since 830 or so and it was a bad mishap. The exhaust gas heat exchanger on the generator failed and caused the glycol to spill, which in turn the glycol 9 - 55 gallon drums worth poured out onto the generator which then vaporized and turned into bad smoke and fumes.
Glycol is commonly used as antifreeze on vehicles and personal computers because it is a coolant and in WWI was an ingredient in explosives. It has an extremely low freezing point and allows a higher boiling point which in turn lets engines run at a higher temperature.
The emergency generators were turned on but it was not enough to support summercamp and non-vital areas of the station so only critical parts of the station had power. The 2nd generator was turned on in addition to the emergency after the glycol was cleaned up. McMurdo sent out some air tanks for the firefighters and some maintenance personnel to help... but it takes 3 hrs for the flight so by the time they arrived most of the clean up was complete - everyone in the station pitched in to help. They say, nothing like this has ever happened before... but it is a new station and I'm sure the bugs and kinks to all new things have not yet been worked out.
Anyway, since the galley is a non-critial area everyone had sandwiches for lunch, dinner and midrats. We're suppose to find out today if the power plant is fixed and returned to normal but so far they are still trying to figure out how come the generator failed and are fixing it. Until then, we're still on conserving power although the jamesways are heated. The 6 people that went to medical due to the smoke/ fume inhalation are doing well and recovering fine.
I think I'll finally go to bed now that I've been awake for 33 hrs - as with the other midrat crew. Cheers.
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