This article has been jointly published by NBCNews.com and InsideClimate News, a nonprofit, independent news outlet that covers climate, energy and the environment.

Coast Guard crews are known for keeping their cool under stress. But when Lt. Samuel Krakower stepped into the engine room of the cutter Polar Star last Jan. 16 — midsummer in Antarctica — the scene was frantic.

Icy water was pouring through the hull of the rugged ship, a 42-year-old workhorse on its annual mission to cut a channel through thick ice to the United States’ research hub at McMurdo Station in Antarctica.

Twenty gallons of water flooded in every minute, rising toward the feet of the ship’s engineers as they stood on a raised platform, working urgently to seal a leaking shaft between the ship’s propellers that had been knocked loose by a chunk of ice.

“Everyone was in panic mode,” Krakower recalled. The crew was able to stop the leak for long enough to apply a sealant to the gap, fashioning a fix in 30 hours that could have taken weeks in dry dock.

The narrowly averted disaster is emblematic of the broader dangers facing the Coast Guard’s entire polar mission.

The American icebreaker fleet is in a perilous state, with only two operational polar icebreakers. Equipped with strengthened hulls, they are charged with gathering scientific data, rescuing ships stuck in ice and responding to oil spills in the most remote parts of the globe. They also protect U.S. interests in the vast polar regions, where climate change is melting sea ice — opening the Arctic to new commercial opportunities while also raising military tensions.

“We often count on the fact that the United States can stand on its own. Here is one area where we simply can’t.”

Just one of the two U.S. icebreakers — the Polar Star — can break the thickest ice, and it’s 12 years past its expected end of life. The Coast Guard’s most recent review found that it needs six new icebreakers to fulfill its mission, and that it needs one delivered as soon as possible to replace the Polar Star. It will take years to design and build replacement icebreakers, which will cost billions of dollars.

An emperor penguin stands in front of the Coast Guard cutter Polar Star in McMurdo Sound near Antarctica on Jan. 10, 2018. Chief Petty Officer Nick Ameen / U.S. Coast Guard Pacific Area

Despite decades of warnings from studies and blunt congressional testimony, and considerable bipartisan political support, progress has been painfully slow. Efforts to grow the icebreaker fleet began under the Obama administration, and, in a rare example of continuity, gained momentum under President Donald Trump, who proposed $750 million for a new ship, which the Senate approved earlier this year.

But over the summer, heading into midterms, the House stripped that funding and diverted it to another presidential priority: the construction of a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. Now, lawmakers returning for a lame-duck session must decide how the money will be spent; Congress has until Dec. 7 to finalize the budget or face a partial government shutdown.

"America's only heavy icebreaker, the Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star, is more than 40 years old and must be replaced by the new Polar Security Cutter," said Vice Admiral Daniel B. Abel, U.S. Coast Guard deputy commandant for operations. "We need the first new Polar Security Cutter immediately to meet America's needs in the Arctic."

The White House did not respond to requests for comment. The Trump administration previously released a statement saying it wants both the wall and the icebreaker to receive funding.

Mounted Border Patrol agents in front of border wall prototypes in San Diego on March 13, 2018. Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images file

Experts who have long watched this process are hoping funding for the icebreakers finally comes through, before it’s too late. Even on an optimistic schedule, the earliest a new heavy icebreaker could be in the Antarctic is at least five years from now, and an additional icebreaker for the Arctic would take about 10 years. Russia, in contrast, has invested far more to protect its larger Arctic interests — it has a fleet of about 40 icebreakers and is building more.

The state of the current U.S. fleet “says that the largest, strongest, most powerful nation in the world is not prepared to deal with its own issues in the polar regions,” said Michael Sfraga, director of the Polar Institute at the Wilson Center, a non-partisan research and policy group. “We often count on the fact that the United States can stand on its own. Here is one area where we simply can’t.”

On the Polar Star, close calls and no backup

This year’s close call on the Polar Star was just one of many times in the past decade when the icebreaker could have been lost on its Antarctic mission.

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Two years earlier, one of the ship’s generators shorted out and began smoking. An engineer used a surfboard repair kit to fashion a replacement part. It was one of four times on that four-month trip that was classified as a “general emergency,” meaning that the crew and ship were in serious danger, according to the Coast Guard.

The beating the Polar Star takes on its annual Antarctic voyage keeps it docked much of the rest of the year while engineers repair the damage. The ship withstands enormous pressure as it plows through 6-foot-thick sea ice at a walking pace of 3 mph.

That leaves the Healy, a less powerful middleweight icebreaker, to handle the Arctic. It was built in 2000 and is expected to last for another 12 years, but it mostly plays a scientific role, including collecting data on climate change.