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Riding Out the Storm
By Kenneth Silber
Staff Writer
posted: 11:10 am ET
14 September 1999
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rideout_teamA "hurricane ride-out team" of about 120 people remains in place at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) as Hurricane Floyd approaches the southeastern United States. Officials will decide shortly whether the team should stay -- or follow the roughly 16,000 employees that evacuated yesterday from the space center and the adjacent Cape Canaveral Air Station. The ride-out team's responsibilities include fire safety, security, and critical systems protection. "The plan for the moment is to stay," said George Diller, a NASA spokesman and member of the ride-out team, who was reached by telephone earlier this morning. Reached again at 11a.m. Eastern time, Diller said a decision would be made in an hour or so. Diller and the other team members are in the Hurricane Control Center, a windowless building on the Kennedy Space Center grounds. Asked about the weather, Diller reported that it was "not bad." Having stepped out from the building this morning, he stated that there was "kind of a broken cloudiness with some sunshine. The wind has not picked up appreciably." Early Tuesday, Hurricane Floyd was reported to have shifted course slightly, with forecasters saying it is more likely to make landfall in South Carolina than in Florida. However, even by brushing past the Florida coast, the huge storm could subject the space facilities to strong winds. "It does appear to be taking its first turn a little more north," said Diller, who added that he expected further reports around midday. The control center is about 2 miles from the massive Vertical Assembly Building, which currently houses the space shuttle Atlantis. The other space shuttles are in hangars known as Orbiter Processing Facilities, and components of the International Space Station are in a building called the Space Station Processing Facility. The shuttles alone are worth roughly $8 billion. The Vertical Assembly Building is able to withstand winds up to 125 mph, while the other facilities housing spacecraft can handle winds of only 105-110 mph. Hurricane Floyd has packed winds of more than 150 mph while moving over the Atlantic. Cliff Lethbridge and Glen Golightly contributed to this story.
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