Late Night Ice Water

It was this very night, about this very hour (3 am), off the coast of North Carolina on the USS Jack in 1987 that the fire occurred.

I was at the Feed Station with a student (MM2/SS Frink) when we got the order aft to go to Ahead Flank. I watched Frink start the Number Two Main Feed Pump, when we heard a load buzzing noise, and saw black smoke start to roll out from the bilge below us. No big deal, I thought, just a feed pump bearing failure. I had seen many in my eleven years shifting feed pumps. I told Frink to shut down the Feed Pump, and I grabbed the phone to report the fire in the pump.

"Fire in Number Two Main Feed Pump, pump is secured," I announced firmly to Maneuvering.

There was no response. The buzzing and the smoke continued. By now the pump had begun to coast down. "Maneuvering, did you receive my last?"

Then over the 2MC (intercom system aft), we heard "Fire in Number Two Main Feed Pump... FIRE IN MACHINERY SPACE UPPER LEVEL!! FIRE IN MACHINERY SPACE UPPER LEVEL!!

The ship is divided into five compartments, the after three, Reactor Compartment, Auxiliary Machinery Space, and Engine Room, were collectively know as the Engineering Spaces. The Feed Station is in the Auxiliary Machinery Space Lower Level. There were two ladders that led from the lower level to the upper level, and only the Upper Level had access to the Engine Room and the Reactor Compartment Tunnel which led forward.

My Student and I found ourselves trapped under a major fire in a submarine at over 400 feet deep off the coast of North Carolina. And trapped is the word: the immediate actions in a submarine fire is to isolate the fire after evacuating everyone possible. All personnel left the Upper Level, and then the hatched were shut and dogged (locked). We had air-line breathing masks to breath from, and sound powered phones to communicate with, but as far as expectations for surviving the fire, we had none. We were told that rescue crews would re-enter the compartment in about 20 minutes when they had organized a fire fighting team.

So we watched the copper buss bars over us melt, and rain down on the deckplates; we watched the smoke turn from dark to oily to solid; we listened carefully for any crews to enter the compartment. It got hot, then it got hotter. We squatted down on the deck, then we lifted the deckplates and sat with our legs in the bilge.

Throughout the fire, I had two overwhelming considerations washing over me the whole time: the second was that we were not going to survive, but that the longer we could keep the machinery going, the better chance for the rest of the crew to survive. The Feed Station keeps water going to the Steam Generators, which keeps the Steam Turbines on line, and the Steam Turbines are the engines that keep the submarine going. The Thresher accident showed that modern submarines have to be able to drive the boat to the surface as well as blow ballast, so the engines are necessary for the survival of the crew, and that was high on my mind.

The first thing on my mind was that I could NOT let my student know that I thought our situation hopeless. I had to not only let him think we would be saved, but I had to make it look as routine as possible. I had him simply follow procedures, and tried to shield him from any indication that this was a terminal event on our part.

And, as luck had it, we were saved. It should not have been, but it was. Fifteen minutes later, the fire out, a crew came in to relieve us. I went to the mess decks and had a coffee, then went back on watch. I don't think my student joined me. I would have liked to gone to bed myself, but I had to keep it routine.

And now, years later, I am still experiencing life colored through the lens of those few minutes that night off the North Carolina coast. It is hard to take the minutia of life seriously when you have actually faced your mortality so early in life, and in such a hostile, violent environment. I don't suffer foolishness in my professional relations very easily, which marks me. I rarely maintain a job for more than three years before my inability to navigate the politics or the culture of the workplace causes me to fall on my own sword, or to become too expensive a liability for a top cat.

But then, I always land on my feet. I feel certain that I will find that next job, and I always do. I never let anything stand in the way of getting on with life, even my considerable disability, as I feel I have seen worse. You can find comfort in having seen the Devil already, then he holds no power over you.

There are nights, though, I would rather be sleeping, than sitting up, sipping on a late night ice water and writing in my blog, remembering nights long ago off the coast of North Carolina.