The aquanauts held walk-through emergency drills intermittently and 

 were thoroughly briefed on procedures to follow in the event of fire, 

 contamination, or flooding. 



Only two emergencies occurred throughout the seven month operation. At 

 the end of the first mission, just as the aquanaut team was preparing 

 to leave the habitat and swim to the PTC, power surge overloaded a small 

 motor creating smoke and fumes from the burned windings. After report- 

 ing the condition to the watch director, the team was ordered to depart 

 for the PTC leaving the resolution of the problem to a repair team from 

 the surface. 



The second emergency involved a hurricane alert. The strength and 

 directional trend of the hurricane necessitated a decision to prematurely 

 decompress one aquanaut team. Within an hour or two after decompression 

 was complete, the hurricane had veered to the west and the team was 

 allowed to dive back down to the habitat with hardly a chance for a 

 cigarette or whatever else they craved the most. 



The greatest single problem during the program was that created by 

 inadequate power generation equipment. 



The problems associated with the generators were the result of assembling 

 a variety of borrowed, leased, and surplus acquired diesel generators, 

 and attempting to maintain them in an isolated part of the world. 



Other problems, in retrospect, were minor largely due to the outstanding 

 support personnel who participated in the program and the fine effort on 

 the part of the aquanauts. 



LOADING AND EVACUATION 



The loading and evacuation process was generally a reversal of the off- 

 loading and installation phase with one exception. It appeared that there 

 was twice the amount of material than we had arrived with, and there 

 possibly was with the Air National Guard airlift that had been active for 

 seven months plus the Coast Guard shipments. 



The vans were removed from the support center without difficulty since 

 the roads were by no means dry as they had been at the start. The support 

 equipment was loaded and secured on the causeway sections, the service 

 barge, and the decompression barge after the decompression system was off- 

 loaded in St. Thomas for air shipment. The umbilicals were recovered and 

 loaded and the habitat raised and floated at its initial holding site, 



11-29 



