The last update I did was about the first flight not coming in last Monday when it was supposed to. We had a pretty gnarly little storm system come through that lasted for the better part of a week that caused all kinds of delays getting planes in. We actually had our first official "Condition 1" weather in town, then followed quickly by a couple more Con 1's. When a Con 1 condition might be called they have the Search and Rescue(SAR) team string up rope lines from the dorms to the galley and medical. So if it's really bad out and you need to get to medical or the galley to eat you can use the rope lines so you don't get lost. If you do that you have to travel in groups of 2 or more. You also have to call the firehouse before you leave and let them know where you're going and how many people are going. Then when you get to your destination you call the firehouse back and let them know you made it. If you forget to call back in they'll start sending out the SAR team to look for you. It seems silly when you're only going a couple hundred feet from one building to another, but you really can't see more than a couple feet when its a white out. So you could be walking away from something you think you're walking toward and end up in a world of hurt, especially when the winds are really pounding and it's -50 or -60, no good.
The first flight that was supposed to come in Monday finally made it on Thursday. So after that first flight made it the next one that was originally supposed to come in Thursday was pushed back to the following Monday because of the storms. So that flight came in last night, and then the flight after that came in this afternoon. There were originally supposed to be 3 cargo flights as well but from what I heard they're only going to be able to squeeze in 1 cargo flight tomorrow and the last handful of people will leave on that flight. Then that will be it for the Winfly flights and the C-17's go back to the U.S., then they come back at the end of September for "Main body", or the main body of flights. I'll be leaving on that first flight of main body on October 1st.
So we've gotten most of the new people in now. The population was 152 and now it's somewhere around 400 I think. It's so different with all the new people around. Things are noisier, and there are people everywhere now. I'm also waiting to get sick, we've been isolated to the same small group of people for quite a while now. So we're all used to each others germs, but apparently it's pretty common to get sick after the new people show up and bring their nasty germs with them. The new people did bring more freshies with them though. So I've had a number of pears, nectarines, plums and even a banana and an orange. Wooohooo!
You just can't escape the snow, even indoors...
This is the first people coming in from that first flight. I took several video clips rather than one really long video, so I stuck them all together. I'm not exactly a video editor so the edits are rather abrupt, but the best part is that if you don't like it, you can, suck ittttttt :)
