Mother Nature Tests Emergency Preparedness at North Slope of Alaska

Published: 15 February 2006

Vigilant facility personnel and hardy local utility workers helped avert what could have been a serious data and equipment loss at the Barrow site in ARM’s North Slope of Alaska locale. Wintry weather of 0°F and icing conditions began contributing to power problems throughout the Barrow area in early February. Consistent winds at 20-25 mph finally caused utilities lines to jump from their spools in three places, resulting in “line slap” that tripped a circuit breaker. Snow drifts on the way to the site were as deep as 2 to 2.5 feet, adding to the difficulty in accessing the site. While local utility crews began climbing utility poles, ARM operations staff quickly implemented the site’s emergency response plan for weather-related power failure.

Utility electrical power to the Great White Instrument Shelter, instruments, and the ARM meteorological tower, was lost around midnight on February 7. When on-site ARM staff discovered the power outage the following morning, they immediately implemented planned emergency response measures, which outline the steps required to resume instrument operation after a period of low-temperature storage and special concerns regarding instrument recovery. Finding an initial shelter temperature on arrival of about 15°F, they placed portable heaters and generators in the shelter to maintain the interior temperatures so that instruments, PCs, and other equipment would restart successfully. After just 15 hours, power was restored to the Barrow area, and only minor data gaps were reported at the ARM Barrow site. Data losses were mainly limited to the period of the power outage itself, and no instrumentation was damaged.