Thanks to an artesian well and an independent generator (which powered old submarine chillers to keep the air breathable), staff could have lived down here for months.
The superintendent of the Pecos Valley Artesian Conservancy District, Dennis Karnes, can still remember sitting on a well-pipe as a boy and being launched into the duckpond as soon as the farmer opened the valve and natural pressure spewed several thousand gallons a minute of ground water against his legs.