Published in the Antarctic Sun
It’s a blue-sky day out on McMurdo Station’s ice runway, but the world’s turned upside down in the tower.
An LC-130 is leaving for the South Pole and the tower crew is thinking “north.”
“Planes fly north to the South Pole,” air traffic controller Heidi McCaffray said, watching the aircraft head between Black Island and White Island.
Here, that statement makes sense. Close to the magnetic poles of the earth, navigation by compass is unreliable at best and dangerous at worst. Navigation is by “grid,” based on calculations involving the longitude of a current position in relation to the 180-degree longitude line, explained air traffic controller Robert Virgil.
Since McMurdo is so close to 180 degrees of longitude, “grid north” is very close to true south.
Oddly, though, helicopters use true north and south for their navigation. It means the tower has
to keep straight not only the type of aircraft on the radio, but also its direction— in real space and on its map.
They manage to do this with ease, fulfilling their basic mission. According to tower manager Mike
MacLean, “We keep the airplanes apart.”
That’s may not seem too tough at an airport which deals with only about a dozen different planes all season. But it’s not all that easy.
Runways are busy places, even when there are no planes around. Surveyors are out on the runway checking the sea ice movement, snow plows are keeping the path clear, maintenance workers are checking lights and navigational equipment, and the decelerometer crews are measuring the braking qualities of the ice.
Any time a plane comes near, to take off or land, the tower clears the runway of all people and equipment and calls out the fire department’s crash vehicle in the event of a mishap.
It’s all done by radio, and largely without the aid of tower radar, except in bad weather. Then the machine in the downstairs closet goes to work. It’s the pilot’s eyes, connected to the airplane only by the voice of the tower controller, every five seconds during final approach in bad conditions.
Of the 15 controllers on staff, two are on duty at any given time. Sometimes there are more, if they’re training or checking equipment. There’s a bed in the tower, too, in case the controllers get stuck at the runway. They don’t go home until all the planes are in.
There’s also a weather person in the tower, taking readings on the instruments outside and observing conditions on the sea ice.
Sandra Lorenzana, one of the tower’s rotating weather crew, said she does hourly observations as well as special reports and more frequent full reports if the weather is changing rapidly. These are called into Mac Weather and Mac Center, she said, to assist them in determining severe weather conditions and informing the pilots of what to expect during approach and landing.
A bit later in the season, MacLean said, there will be two towers operating around McMurdo; one will be at the ice runway until it shuts down, and the other will be at Williams Field. Last year they just had one tower and were unable to move it and set it up again in time for flights to
arrive on schedule. Now, with an extra tower (which is presently at the ice runway, just next to the operating tower), Williams Field will be up and running with fewer delays.
Sunday, November 7, 1999
Rock of ages: Cape Roberts project probes Earth’s past
Published in the Antarctic Sun
It’s almost the year 2000, but in McMurdo Station’s Crary Lab it’s closer to 40 million years ago. The Cape Roberts project, in its third year of research, is still in search of layers of rock laid down during the Eocene Epoch, 35-55 million years ago.
Cape Roberts is about climate change. Right now, climate pattern forecasts are made with only a few centuries of data. Cape Roberts researchers hope to add many million years to the known body of climate data.
But this is not Mac Weather’s afternoon forecast. Knowing how climatic trends have evolved over massively long periods of time can help predict what the climate will be like in coming centuries.
In this search back in time, they are looking at material drilled from beneath the sea floor. This seabed core was drilled to a depth of 1968 feet on Friday.
The drill site is at Cape Roberts, about 75 miles northeast of McMurdo, just south of Granite Harbor, in the southwest Ross Sea.
It’s a huge team effort, involving over 60 people, including researchers, technicians, and drillers, among others. They’re all looking at what they know about the earth’s structure and applying
it to the question of climate. At the same time, they’re taking advantage of this rare opportunity to look back in time to further their own studies.
The daily schedule in Crary is a mix of routine and adventure. They begin each day by doing a basic classification of the core which arrives late each night from the drill site. In the middle of the morning they report to each other on research progress.
“With a project like this, with so many specialists, you have to keep informing each other,” said project coordinator Peter Webb.
Each of the scientists working on the Cape Roberts project is a prominent scientist back
home. Here, though, they’re in among a whole group of high-power researchers. But they
share time and space well, and are good-natured about their interactions.
After lunch, the specialists look at the core which was explained in the morning.
They plant small toothpick flags at areas where they want samples taken. In total, the samples
number in the hundreds each day, according to Matt Curren, one of the core curators who
extracts the samples.
Each sample is taken for further analysis. Paleontologists look for fossils in their samples; scientists studying the magnetic field of the earth look at the alignment of particles in their samples; sedimentologists and stratigraphers look at the layering in the sediments.
When the samples have been analyzed, the scientists come back together to discuss what they’ve found.
They compare different types of evidence relating to the age of the core material. The evidence varies widely. Some of it—sedimentary and fossilized— shows what the climate was like, which
the scientists then match up with similar climate sequences from the rest of the world.
“We know what the climate was like in other parts of the world 30-40 million years ago,” Webb said. “The purpose of this project is to try to understand present climate and future climate by looking at the past.”
Antarctica is a special place for doing this type of work because it was the heart of Gondwanaland, the supercontinent from which all landmasses on earth eventually broke off and slowly moved to their current locations.
The scientists also look at the changes in the earth’s magnetic field. They already know the history of shifts in direction and polarity of the earth’s magnetic field. By finding out what the
magnetic field pattern is within the Cape Roberts core, they can match up core sections with periods of time.
After all this work, they learn what the climate was like millions of years ago. But, just as in high school, no science project is complete without a written report. Formal academic science publication can take a long time, sometimes even years. Submission to journals, review, and then actual publication are all both bottlenecks and opportunities for verification of results.
Not so with Cape Roberts. They’ve solved the problem of publication delay by bringing their own
publication to the Ice. Terra Antartica (sic) is an Italian earth science journal which publishes the results of the Cape Roberts Project team. An editor and a graphic artist for the journal are here at McMurdo working full-time to prepare the scientists’ work for release to the wider community of world climatologists.
Before leaving the Ice in mid-December, each researcher must complete an initial report, describing their work on the core and preliminary results. Within 6 months they put out a
final science report, which is also published in Terra Antartica. Less than a year after they begin a season of drilling, the results of research and examination are available to the science world.
What these results reveal is of great import to determining climate change trends.
“The cores are really a proxy for the climate, plants, and topography,” Webb said. Sea level,
average temperatures, plant and animal life, and other information are contained in the core, a cylinder of rock just a few inches thick.
The Cape Roberts Project is a multinational collaboration, in which the U.S., New Zealand, and Italy are the major shareholders (and major funding sources). Also participating are Australia, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The project is going well, in its third and final year of drilling.
“Cape Roberts is successful,” said Italian researcher Marco Taviani, speaking of the time and energy spent, as well as the money and international collaboration efforts.
The project expects to wrap up work and leave the Ice in mid-December. In the meantime, though, they’re hard at work inspecting, marking, analyzing, and collaboration. The phrase Webb sometimes ends meetings with seems to run their lives: “Okay, let’s go look at some more core.”
It’s almost the year 2000, but in McMurdo Station’s Crary Lab it’s closer to 40 million years ago. The Cape Roberts project, in its third year of research, is still in search of layers of rock laid down during the Eocene Epoch, 35-55 million years ago.
Cape Roberts is about climate change. Right now, climate pattern forecasts are made with only a few centuries of data. Cape Roberts researchers hope to add many million years to the known body of climate data.
But this is not Mac Weather’s afternoon forecast. Knowing how climatic trends have evolved over massively long periods of time can help predict what the climate will be like in coming centuries.
In this search back in time, they are looking at material drilled from beneath the sea floor. This seabed core was drilled to a depth of 1968 feet on Friday.
The drill site is at Cape Roberts, about 75 miles northeast of McMurdo, just south of Granite Harbor, in the southwest Ross Sea.
It’s a huge team effort, involving over 60 people, including researchers, technicians, and drillers, among others. They’re all looking at what they know about the earth’s structure and applying
it to the question of climate. At the same time, they’re taking advantage of this rare opportunity to look back in time to further their own studies.
The daily schedule in Crary is a mix of routine and adventure. They begin each day by doing a basic classification of the core which arrives late each night from the drill site. In the middle of the morning they report to each other on research progress.
“With a project like this, with so many specialists, you have to keep informing each other,” said project coordinator Peter Webb.
Each of the scientists working on the Cape Roberts project is a prominent scientist back
home. Here, though, they’re in among a whole group of high-power researchers. But they
share time and space well, and are good-natured about their interactions.
After lunch, the specialists look at the core which was explained in the morning.
They plant small toothpick flags at areas where they want samples taken. In total, the samples
number in the hundreds each day, according to Matt Curren, one of the core curators who
extracts the samples.
Each sample is taken for further analysis. Paleontologists look for fossils in their samples; scientists studying the magnetic field of the earth look at the alignment of particles in their samples; sedimentologists and stratigraphers look at the layering in the sediments.
When the samples have been analyzed, the scientists come back together to discuss what they’ve found.
They compare different types of evidence relating to the age of the core material. The evidence varies widely. Some of it—sedimentary and fossilized— shows what the climate was like, which
the scientists then match up with similar climate sequences from the rest of the world.
“We know what the climate was like in other parts of the world 30-40 million years ago,” Webb said. “The purpose of this project is to try to understand present climate and future climate by looking at the past.”
Antarctica is a special place for doing this type of work because it was the heart of Gondwanaland, the supercontinent from which all landmasses on earth eventually broke off and slowly moved to their current locations.
The scientists also look at the changes in the earth’s magnetic field. They already know the history of shifts in direction and polarity of the earth’s magnetic field. By finding out what the
magnetic field pattern is within the Cape Roberts core, they can match up core sections with periods of time.
After all this work, they learn what the climate was like millions of years ago. But, just as in high school, no science project is complete without a written report. Formal academic science publication can take a long time, sometimes even years. Submission to journals, review, and then actual publication are all both bottlenecks and opportunities for verification of results.
Not so with Cape Roberts. They’ve solved the problem of publication delay by bringing their own
publication to the Ice. Terra Antartica (sic) is an Italian earth science journal which publishes the results of the Cape Roberts Project team. An editor and a graphic artist for the journal are here at McMurdo working full-time to prepare the scientists’ work for release to the wider community of world climatologists.
Before leaving the Ice in mid-December, each researcher must complete an initial report, describing their work on the core and preliminary results. Within 6 months they put out a
final science report, which is also published in Terra Antartica. Less than a year after they begin a season of drilling, the results of research and examination are available to the science world.
What these results reveal is of great import to determining climate change trends.
“The cores are really a proxy for the climate, plants, and topography,” Webb said. Sea level,
average temperatures, plant and animal life, and other information are contained in the core, a cylinder of rock just a few inches thick.
The Cape Roberts Project is a multinational collaboration, in which the U.S., New Zealand, and Italy are the major shareholders (and major funding sources). Also participating are Australia, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The project is going well, in its third and final year of drilling.
“Cape Roberts is successful,” said Italian researcher Marco Taviani, speaking of the time and energy spent, as well as the money and international collaboration efforts.
The project expects to wrap up work and leave the Ice in mid-December. In the meantime, though, they’re hard at work inspecting, marking, analyzing, and collaboration. The phrase Webb sometimes ends meetings with seems to run their lives: “Okay, let’s go look at some more core.”
Monday, November 1, 1999
Peace place
Published in North & South
Wellington's Stokes Valley begins at a busy motorway and ends at a bush-covered ridge. The only sign there's anything up there besides the requisite possum horde and occasional pole house dweller is a white and gold spire rising 10 metres out of the trees. A string of fluttering prayer flags stretches from it to a hidden anchor point away from the possums' sharp teeth.
It's the yellow AA road sign - "Buddhist Monastery" - in a quiet cul-de-sac that directs seekers of truth and tranquillity up Rakau Grove to a giant wooden gate and behind it, Bodhinyanarama, the garden of enlightened knowing.
Beyond the gate is a scene of unexpected exertion and industry: two men - one shaven-headed and in saffron robes, the other in jeans, a T-shirt and gumboots - building a set of dirt-and-log stairs up a bush-covered hill. The monk, Sucinno, directs the visitor further up the hill to see the near-completed stupa, or reliquary. Numerous relics and treasures, gifted by Buddhist faithful, will be enshrined in the stupa to help the donors on their journey to enlightenment.
Donations to Bodhinyanarama are generous and by no means limited to special projects like the stupa. The monks are not allowed to cook food or to take anything which is not freely given; so in exchange for the laity's support in worldly things - clothing, shelter and food - the monks offer guidance along the path of the Buddha. It is part of the Buddha's design for an ideal society, with interdependence between laity and monks and nuns.
New Zealand's Buddhist community numbers nearly 30,000, and it is this web of support that keeps Bodhinyanarama's four monks and one postulant supplied with food, clothing and special projects manpower.
The monastery also hosts retreats and classes on meditation, Buddhism and other spiritual activities, paid for by donation to help cover the cost of lodging and food. Once a month, a monk travels to Auckland to meet people at the city's Buddhist centre. There is also a retreat centre on the Coromandel peninsula and other meditation centres throughout the country.
Anyone can park their preconceptions at the gate and hear the monks explain the principles of Buddhism - a religion "without a god" founded more than 2000 years ago by Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) in northern India. In Thailand, where Sucinno was a monk for 14 years, his role seldom called for teaching Buddhist history and tenets. Here, he says, he spends much of his time explaining the Buddha's "four noble truths": all existence is suffering; the cause of suffering is desire; freedom from suffering is nirvana; and the means of attaining nirvana is prescribed in the "eightfold path" that combines ethical conduct, mental discipline and wisdom.
Wellington's Stokes Valley begins at a busy motorway and ends at a bush-covered ridge. The only sign there's anything up there besides the requisite possum horde and occasional pole house dweller is a white and gold spire rising 10 metres out of the trees. A string of fluttering prayer flags stretches from it to a hidden anchor point away from the possums' sharp teeth.
It's the yellow AA road sign - "Buddhist Monastery" - in a quiet cul-de-sac that directs seekers of truth and tranquillity up Rakau Grove to a giant wooden gate and behind it, Bodhinyanarama, the garden of enlightened knowing.
Beyond the gate is a scene of unexpected exertion and industry: two men - one shaven-headed and in saffron robes, the other in jeans, a T-shirt and gumboots - building a set of dirt-and-log stairs up a bush-covered hill. The monk, Sucinno, directs the visitor further up the hill to see the near-completed stupa, or reliquary. Numerous relics and treasures, gifted by Buddhist faithful, will be enshrined in the stupa to help the donors on their journey to enlightenment.
Donations to Bodhinyanarama are generous and by no means limited to special projects like the stupa. The monks are not allowed to cook food or to take anything which is not freely given; so in exchange for the laity's support in worldly things - clothing, shelter and food - the monks offer guidance along the path of the Buddha. It is part of the Buddha's design for an ideal society, with interdependence between laity and monks and nuns.
New Zealand's Buddhist community numbers nearly 30,000, and it is this web of support that keeps Bodhinyanarama's four monks and one postulant supplied with food, clothing and special projects manpower.
The monastery also hosts retreats and classes on meditation, Buddhism and other spiritual activities, paid for by donation to help cover the cost of lodging and food. Once a month, a monk travels to Auckland to meet people at the city's Buddhist centre. There is also a retreat centre on the Coromandel peninsula and other meditation centres throughout the country.
Anyone can park their preconceptions at the gate and hear the monks explain the principles of Buddhism - a religion "without a god" founded more than 2000 years ago by Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) in northern India. In Thailand, where Sucinno was a monk for 14 years, his role seldom called for teaching Buddhist history and tenets. Here, he says, he spends much of his time explaining the Buddha's "four noble truths": all existence is suffering; the cause of suffering is desire; freedom from suffering is nirvana; and the means of attaining nirvana is prescribed in the "eightfold path" that combines ethical conduct, mental discipline and wisdom.
Sunday, October 31, 1999
A trip back in time
Published in the Antarctic Sun
A small prefabricated wooden house, built on the coast of Ross Island, home for several Antarctic explorers over a couple of winters. No, not the lowercase dorms, but the Cape Evans hut.
The hut was used by two expeditions to the Antarctic. It was built by Captain Robert Scott’s 1910-1912 expedition to the South Pole. The building itself, built from pre-constructed parts, was erected in two weeks.
The hut was a base for groups to lay supply depots on Scott’s planned route to the Pole. They also explored the coast of Antarctica. On May 13, 1911, the group settled down in the hut for the winter.
That winter the hut was the base for the winter trek to Cape Crozier to get emperor penguin eggs for research. That voyage, covering 130 miles over 36 days, became an ordeal written about by Apsley Cherry-Garrard in his book “The Worst Journey in the World.”
The three men, Cherry-Garrard, “Birdie” Bowers, and Bill Wilson, man-hauled sledges 65 miles across sea ice and the Ross Ice Shelf to a penguin rookery, freezing and starving most of the way.
After retrieving six penguin eggs and killing several penguins for food, the men broke three of the eggs on the precarious return to their camp at Cape Crozier.
It was a trip of which Cherry-Garrard wrote, “We on this journey were already beginning to think of death as a friend.”
But it got worse, and they weren’t dead. A storm blew away their tent, wrecked their stone shelter, and nearly killed them. After the storm, they were lucky enough to find their tent—their only shelter for the return journey. They regularly fell asleep while walking back, frozen and exhausted. Their clothes froze solid, making movement difficult; upon their return to the Cape Evans hut, their clothes were cut off them, too frozen to remove normally.
The three remaining penguin eggs survived the journey to Britain, where they languished in obscurity, useless to science and lost to archivists of polar curiosities.
A later party also used the Cape Evans hut: part of Shackleton’s famous failed expedition. While the leader and his men were stuck in the Weddell Sea, another group was supposed to lay supply caches between the Pole and Ross Island. They were unable to find a safe place to winter elsewhere on Ross Island, so they used the Cape Evans hut. They thought they had secured the ship carefully for winter, using two anchors and seven steel cables to hold it securely in place.
They began to off-load the ship, leaving the main part of the stores on board. Before many supplies could be put ashore, though, a huge storm kicked up and blew the ship out to sea, stranding 10 men on Ross Island—four at Cape Evans, and six at Hut Point. The rest of the group were still on the ship.
The 10 men on the island soon joined forces and began to improvise for the winter. Fortunately for them, Scott’s expedition had left a lot of basic stores, like flour. They made clothes out of canvas tents, and began to lay supply depots, unaware of the disaster befalling Shackleton and the others a continent away. Survival was by luck; during the setting up of supply caches, two men became unable to walk, and the others were so weak they only made headway when there was a powerful wind at their backs.
Upon their rescue in January 1917, they discovered that the world had “changed almost beyond recognition” between their last word from the outside, in December 1914.
To find out about trips to Cape Evans, call the Recreation department at 2443.
A small prefabricated wooden house, built on the coast of Ross Island, home for several Antarctic explorers over a couple of winters. No, not the lowercase dorms, but the Cape Evans hut.
The hut was used by two expeditions to the Antarctic. It was built by Captain Robert Scott’s 1910-1912 expedition to the South Pole. The building itself, built from pre-constructed parts, was erected in two weeks.
The hut was a base for groups to lay supply depots on Scott’s planned route to the Pole. They also explored the coast of Antarctica. On May 13, 1911, the group settled down in the hut for the winter.
That winter the hut was the base for the winter trek to Cape Crozier to get emperor penguin eggs for research. That voyage, covering 130 miles over 36 days, became an ordeal written about by Apsley Cherry-Garrard in his book “The Worst Journey in the World.”
The three men, Cherry-Garrard, “Birdie” Bowers, and Bill Wilson, man-hauled sledges 65 miles across sea ice and the Ross Ice Shelf to a penguin rookery, freezing and starving most of the way.
After retrieving six penguin eggs and killing several penguins for food, the men broke three of the eggs on the precarious return to their camp at Cape Crozier.
It was a trip of which Cherry-Garrard wrote, “We on this journey were already beginning to think of death as a friend.”
But it got worse, and they weren’t dead. A storm blew away their tent, wrecked their stone shelter, and nearly killed them. After the storm, they were lucky enough to find their tent—their only shelter for the return journey. They regularly fell asleep while walking back, frozen and exhausted. Their clothes froze solid, making movement difficult; upon their return to the Cape Evans hut, their clothes were cut off them, too frozen to remove normally.
The three remaining penguin eggs survived the journey to Britain, where they languished in obscurity, useless to science and lost to archivists of polar curiosities.
A later party also used the Cape Evans hut: part of Shackleton’s famous failed expedition. While the leader and his men were stuck in the Weddell Sea, another group was supposed to lay supply caches between the Pole and Ross Island. They were unable to find a safe place to winter elsewhere on Ross Island, so they used the Cape Evans hut. They thought they had secured the ship carefully for winter, using two anchors and seven steel cables to hold it securely in place.
They began to off-load the ship, leaving the main part of the stores on board. Before many supplies could be put ashore, though, a huge storm kicked up and blew the ship out to sea, stranding 10 men on Ross Island—four at Cape Evans, and six at Hut Point. The rest of the group were still on the ship.
The 10 men on the island soon joined forces and began to improvise for the winter. Fortunately for them, Scott’s expedition had left a lot of basic stores, like flour. They made clothes out of canvas tents, and began to lay supply depots, unaware of the disaster befalling Shackleton and the others a continent away. Survival was by luck; during the setting up of supply caches, two men became unable to walk, and the others were so weak they only made headway when there was a powerful wind at their backs.
Upon their rescue in January 1917, they discovered that the world had “changed almost beyond recognition” between their last word from the outside, in December 1914.
To find out about trips to Cape Evans, call the Recreation department at 2443.
Highway 1 revisited
Published in the Antarctic Sun
Steve Bruce has been coordinating the renovations to McMurdo Station’s Building 155 since the beginning of February. Tomorrow, the day the new offices will be repopulated, Steve is leaving town.
He leaves behind a major section of the million-plus dollar project, complete except for the finishing touches. The renovation work will continue during next winter, and extend into other parts of the building.
Though the improvements to Highway 1—McMurdo’s busiest hallway— are obvious to anyone who saw the area before last winter, a lot of the changes affect more than the appearance.
Mark Neeley, the head of engineering at McMurdo, is quick to note other improvements. “There’s probably at least that much work that you don’t see.”
The work was part of an effort to bring Building 155 up to par with modern construction standards. It was built by the Navy in the late 1960s. “This building’s been here a while,” Neeley said. “Bringing a building like this up to existing codes is really a task.”
The first stage of renovations saw improvements to the kitchen’s food preparation area. The second phase, gutting Highway 1 and redoing it entirely, was this winter’s work, along with the kitchen’s dry storage, and freezer units, including refrigeration compressors.
The changes provide a laundry room, new computer training room, new barber shop, and increased office and storage space. It also makes the hallway more spacious and offers what
Bruce called “parka parking,” as well as a handwash station for people to use before meals.
“Very nice,” said the first new occupant of Highway 1, hairstylist Kim Fabre. “We’ve made it a little bit our own here with the palm tree,” she said, referring to the decorations already up in her shop.
“The walls are brighter,” said recreation coordinator Liz Evenson. Housing is enthusiastic, too. “It’s going to be wonderful,” said Heidi Kampe.
A large part of the work involved the infrastructure and building code changes. Plumbing was torn out and redone, as was almost all of the electrical wiring. Walls were replaced with more
durable, as well as more fire-resistant, material.
“This was half of the job—maybe the larger half,” Bruce said. And it wasn’t the only thing happening in town.
“We had quite a bit of work going on this winter outside of this project,” Neeley said, mentioning as an example the new Cape Roberts core storage facility in Crary Lab.
Over a dozen workers took part in the winter project, organizing and using materials delivered on the supply ship Greenwave in February. The staging area was in a small building called the Playhouse.
“We don’t have a good large warehouse where you can store stuff,” Bruce explained.
Major changes are in the works for the serving and eating areas of the galley next winter, too. The plan is to open out the seating area to the exterior walls, add windows along the walls, and put in a cathedral ceiling—including skylights.
Bruce is happy with the way things went over the winter, and is looking forward to his departure for warmer climes.
“A good thanks to all the hands that worked on it,” he said.
Steve Bruce has been coordinating the renovations to McMurdo Station’s Building 155 since the beginning of February. Tomorrow, the day the new offices will be repopulated, Steve is leaving town.
He leaves behind a major section of the million-plus dollar project, complete except for the finishing touches. The renovation work will continue during next winter, and extend into other parts of the building.
Though the improvements to Highway 1—McMurdo’s busiest hallway— are obvious to anyone who saw the area before last winter, a lot of the changes affect more than the appearance.
Mark Neeley, the head of engineering at McMurdo, is quick to note other improvements. “There’s probably at least that much work that you don’t see.”
The work was part of an effort to bring Building 155 up to par with modern construction standards. It was built by the Navy in the late 1960s. “This building’s been here a while,” Neeley said. “Bringing a building like this up to existing codes is really a task.”
The first stage of renovations saw improvements to the kitchen’s food preparation area. The second phase, gutting Highway 1 and redoing it entirely, was this winter’s work, along with the kitchen’s dry storage, and freezer units, including refrigeration compressors.
The changes provide a laundry room, new computer training room, new barber shop, and increased office and storage space. It also makes the hallway more spacious and offers what
Bruce called “parka parking,” as well as a handwash station for people to use before meals.
“Very nice,” said the first new occupant of Highway 1, hairstylist Kim Fabre. “We’ve made it a little bit our own here with the palm tree,” she said, referring to the decorations already up in her shop.
“The walls are brighter,” said recreation coordinator Liz Evenson. Housing is enthusiastic, too. “It’s going to be wonderful,” said Heidi Kampe.
A large part of the work involved the infrastructure and building code changes. Plumbing was torn out and redone, as was almost all of the electrical wiring. Walls were replaced with more
durable, as well as more fire-resistant, material.
“This was half of the job—maybe the larger half,” Bruce said. And it wasn’t the only thing happening in town.
“We had quite a bit of work going on this winter outside of this project,” Neeley said, mentioning as an example the new Cape Roberts core storage facility in Crary Lab.
Over a dozen workers took part in the winter project, organizing and using materials delivered on the supply ship Greenwave in February. The staging area was in a small building called the Playhouse.
“We don’t have a good large warehouse where you can store stuff,” Bruce explained.
Major changes are in the works for the serving and eating areas of the galley next winter, too. The plan is to open out the seating area to the exterior walls, add windows along the walls, and put in a cathedral ceiling—including skylights.
Bruce is happy with the way things went over the winter, and is looking forward to his departure for warmer climes.
“A good thanks to all the hands that worked on it,” he said.
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