7 weeks ago Chile was hit by a massive winter storm that dumped huge amounts of rain at lower elevations and snow higher up. This caused many disruptions to life here, with flooding, washed out roads, and many hardships.
The crew at LCO knew it was coming, so they went down to a skeleton crew who rode out the storm, but were stuck on the mountain for nearly 2 weeks until access could be restored. The mountain lost power, water, and internet. As part of managing this, MagAO-X was unplugged and left to hibernate while the rest of the observatory recovered.
Katie and I arrived today to begin plugging MagAO-X back in and bring it back to life. We’ll also take care of a few odds and ends while we’re here.
On the drive up it looked like we had arrived at the wrong place. Lush greenery and stunning wildflowers. The picture above doesn’t really do it justice. The picture below shows it a little better, but also captures the remains of one of the landslides that blocked the highway from La Serena to LCO.
By now the highway is mostly back to normal, though were several lane closures for crews still doing cleanup. The road from the highway to LCO is a different matter. Above you can see where it was totally washed out, and we had to take a freshly plowed dirt road through the wash downstream. No water there, but we saw many puddles, ponds, even a small lake, along the road.
Upon arriving, we discovered just how close we were to disaster. Water had clearly gotten into the cleanroom and run along the floor. However, it appears to have only touched one leg of the instrument and missed our electronics. Phew.
After arriving we did some glycol maintenance and got it flowing again, mopped the floor, and plugged everything back in and turned on the computers. So far so good. Tomorrow morning we’ll start moving things and close the loop.
This is a short trip so we’ll keep the rules simple: song of the day is required as usual.