The Almost-Hurricane, and other arguments

OK, it wasn't exactly a hurricane. But locals tell me it was the strongest wind in memory, and it did its share of damage, with phone lines down, electrical power out, at least one chimney blasted, windows broken, and the slaughterhouse shredded and effectively gone.



The boat belonging to the carabineros, the national police, was porpoising terribly in midmorning today, and we who passed by suspected that it would slip its surly bonds and become just another wreck before the storm was over. And when I went by late this afternoon, that boat was on the beach.



The last foto is the delivery of the galvanized pipe for the gas line to be installed later this week. It was a bit much to haul on the overhead rack of my pickup so José used his truck. The gas line here is not the "black pipe" we are used to in North America. Instead, the practice is to paint the pipe with an anticorrosive paint, let that dry, and then assemble the gas line, then cover it with a tight wrapping of tarpaper. Should be a foto of that here somewhere. I suspect that leaves a lot of opportunity for weak points in the system but I suppose it is the best they can do down here.







And the local best has proven in the recent past to be none too good, particularly where firestopping design is involved. When the lads started preparation for the furnace room they removed the corrugated steel from the existing structure....exactly what I did not want them to do but evidently that didn't get communicated between builder José and the workers. The design was supposed to install the fibercement board over the corrugated steel for optimum fire resistance, rather than having just the 8mm fibercement placed directly against the combustible felt paper and OSB with no air gap. It does not surprise me that so many buildings around Natales have been destroyed or damaged by fire. And that includes the most prestigious hotel in the city, just a few months ago.

After all, we are still in Chile. A tremendous bureaucracy, but little in the way of productive utility, or the benefit of cost-effectiveness trade-studies, or real technical substance or, evidently, the probable outcomes of much administrative and legislative foolishness (in this there is an attempt to emulate the worst of the West). A hungry and expensive bureaucracy, and one that, in some corners of the country, does not stoop to compliance with its legal requirements (as is the case of the legal system, it turns out, which in the case of Punta Arenas has determined that it is above the law itself).

One of the elements of local culture that escapes the casual visitor is the extent to which myth and nonproductive tradition conspire against the potential for greater good. I often see the shrugging of shoulders and hear "Es lo que hay" - "it's what there is." As if alternatives proven useful elsewhere should not even be considered. I am reminded of an Alvaro Vargas Llosa book on the subject, but let's not go there right now. After all, I am still a guest. A critical guest, but a guest nonetheless.