CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. A hurricane alert was in effect at NASAs coastal Florida spaceport Friday as tornadoes spawned by Tropical Storm Gabrielle swirled around the Kennedy Space Center area.
A day after reopening in the wake of Tuesdays terrorist attacks in New York and Washington D.C., NASA and contractor workers here braced for dangerous weather as Gabrielle made landfall in southwest Florida.
"Were basically preparing for heavy rain and strong winds," said KSC spokesman Joel Wells.
Spun up in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this week, Gabrielle was packing near-hurricane strength winds of about 70 mph (112 kilometers per hour) as the central part of the storm hit Venice and then began making its way across the Florida peninsula.
In effect on Floridas west coast: a hurricane watch from Chokoloskee to Tarpon Springs, and a tropical storm warning from the Florida Keys to the Suwannee River north of Tampa.
A tropical storm warning also was in effect from Jupiter Inlet to St. Augustine on the East Coast of the state, and several pop-up tornadoes were spotted in the county surrounding the homeport of NASAs $8 billion shuttle fleet.
A tornado touched down at a Patrick Air Force Base runway about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of the space center. Other funnel clouds were spotted in the city of Cocoa about 20 miles (32 kilometers) southwest of the spaceport.
And swirling winds within storms passing north and east of KSC raised the possibility of tornadoes developing in Oak Hill, Titusville and Christmas, respectively.
Rainstorms and stiff winds swept across KSC, where heightened security levels still were in place in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
With the possibility that winds could top 57.5 mph (92 kilometers per hour), NASA managers at KSC were operating at Hurricane Condition 4, the lowest of four severe weather alert levels at the spaceport.
Forecasters, however, expected Gabrielle to lose strength as it crossed the center of the state and passed out over the Atlantic Ocean, with its possible exit point right around Titusville and KSC. Only heavy rain and strong winds, consequently, were expected at the spaceport.
KSC workers were securing loose items and moving equipment inside as windy rainstorms swept across the 140,000-acre (56,000 hectares) federal enclave.
Sandbags were being placed outside the entrances to mission-critical and low-lying buildings as well as those that house space shuttle and International Space Station flight hardware.
With no shuttle launch scheduled until late November, all four of NASAs winged orbiters were housed within either processing hangars or the KSC Vehicle Assembly Building.
The 52-story assembly building and the hangars are designed to withstand winds up to 125 mph (200 kilometers per hour) and 105 mph (168 kilometers per hour), respectively.
The story was much the same at nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, where no commercial or military rocket missions are scheduled until October. Consequently, no rockets were exposed to the storm on beachside launch pads.
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