Arctic weather is fine-tuned to defeat human intentions. It's so damned variable! Cold, winds, unexpected thaws: the Arctic has it all!
Several weeks ago, the fiercest storm since 1974 attacked the Alaskan shoreline. People lamented that the absence of pack ice was a true disaster. Some people blamed Global Warming for the ice's absence. Without the protection of the ice, the pounding surf caused by hurricane-force winds was gouging the shoreline. You couldn't even get close to the shoreline, with all the rocks and debris flying through the air.
But now, when it would be really nice to have ice-free seas to make fuel delivery convenient, THAT'S when the pack ice shows up!
Watch. When they lay out the fuel hose from the Icebreaker and start pumping fuel, THAT'S when the pack ice will start shifting. It's all part of the Arctic Maximum Inconvenience Principle:
The iced-in city of Nome on Alaska's western coast may be in luck: A Russian tanker that can plow through thick ice will try to deliver 1.5 million gallons of home heating fuel, gasoline and diesel fuel after a massive storm kept a barge from getting in before winter.
The vessel — which is certified to travel through ice 4 feet thick for long distances — delivers fuel to communities in the Russian Far East. The plan is for it to leave Russia this week and go to South Korea, where it will be loaded with fuel, and then travel to Nome, where it should arrive by late December.
If it can't make it into port, the tanker is equipped with a hose more than a mile for off-loading fuel.
It could save the 3,500 residents of the coastal city from a very costly winter, including predictions of $9-a-gallon gasoline if fuel had to be flown in.
Sitnasuak Native Corporation said Monday it signed a contract with Alaska-based Vitus Marine LLC to have the double-hulled Ice Classed Russian tanker, owned by Russian company Rimsco, deliver the petroleum products.
Sitnasuak board chairman Jason Evans said if the marine tanker succeeds, it will be the first time petroleum products have been delivered by sea in winter to a western Alaska community.
"It really came down to that one vessel that could possibly do the job. It just so happens it was available at the moment we needed it," Evans said.
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