Sunday, April 18, 2010

Just part of the job

So, with yesterday's glycol leak/spill in the main power plant, we had our first real emergency response for the winter. The engine room was fogged out with vaporized glycol from one of the generators, and we were lucky it was not that big a spill and that nobody got hurt during the initial response and clean-up. My involvement was deploying the fire brigade for SCBA support, but we thankfully did not have to pull anybody out of the scene. I, in particular, got to stand outside in bunker gear for however long it was and do a lot of talking on the radio between my folks on the inside and the rest of the ERT apparatus outside. Oh, and I got to try and keep warm, which is definitely a challenge in that gear at our current outdoor temperatures. Anyhow, hopefully a real response coming like this at a totally unforeseen time will open the eyes of some folks here to the fact that we have to be ready to address any sort of issue like this at any time of the day. I know that realization has certainly shaped my behavior since I started doing this Pole firefighter thing back in "07.

"There thou beholdest the walls of Sparta, and every man a brick."
~Attributed to Lycurgus by Plutarch

5 comments:

Mark said...

Did the people going into the power plant have to wear hazmat suits or respirators to be safe? Congratulations on a successful first emergency call!

Rev Chong said...

Seems like the glycol proplems in the power plant have been happening too often.... Glad you guys are safe.

Did the 300 club happen?

Teacher said...

Nice spot in the new Wired Magazine about the SP Station. See: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/04/ff_antarctica/

Whew, good to know the trained professionals are on the job!

Becky said...

This seems to be a regular event. Be extra careful, ok?

EthanG said...

Yeah, PPE was used accordingly. I don't see how any leaks are acceptable, but apparently they are in this part of the world. We're working on plans to deal with future instances of the same.

Cool article and cool bases. I wish I could deploy to all of them.