Saturday Night Power Plant Emergency

Before starting this story, I feel I should explain that Sundays are the best day of the week here at the South Pole. With working 6 days a week, 9 hours a day, they are our only day off and our only morning to sleep in. As such, Saturday nights have a an awesome joyous feel about them with lots of happy Polies around station.

This story begins when we were halfway through Saturday night dinner, feeling relaxed and happy. Unexpectedly, as these things generally are, the fire alarm sounded from the power plant. Not on a response team, my friends and I stayed in the galley (our muster point for emergencies), listening on our radios for details. Smoke was reported from the scene and we were soon asked to start powering down all non-essential items. Being in IT, my colleagues and I knew we had a lot that could be turned off. We hurried away from the dinner table and I set about shutting down half of the datacenter here in the station and even some equipment in our remote facility (RF). While doing this, more information was coming in. A piece broke off of a generator, glycol spilled everywhere. No fire, the smoke was actually vapors from glycol landing on hot generators in its liquid form. We all breathed a sigh of relief.

The power plant operators and response teams got everything under control and a request soon came in for volunteers to help with clean-up. The South Pole IT team and the community really came together as several us went to help. Hours after the alarm sounded, we all reconvened in the galley for a whiskey toast to celebrate and start relaxing for Sunday all over again.

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Our LMR's (land mobile radios), lined up in a row with volumes turned up to hear communications between response teams

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Putting in ear plugs before entering the very loud power plant with 2x2 hands of blue

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Rhiannon soaking up glycol that will be seeping out of the bottom of the generator for days

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The floor of the power plant looks spic and span but hours before, pink glycol was everywhere, including dripping from the ceiling