NASA vs. Katrina: August 29, 2005

Updated September 7, 2020: It’s Labor Day weekend in the US, and although many of us now call home “office”, the Ars staff is taking a long week to relax and unwind. It’s been 15 years since the end of August when Hurricane Katrina landed in Louisiana, the federal levies failed, and the city of New Orleans changed forever. We plan to revive some of the archive pieces to keep the lights on this holiday, so we’re reviving the look at how NASA launched Katrina at its Mithode assembly facility outside New Orleans. Managed to weather the effect. The story actually started in August 2015 and it looks like a change below.

McCod, LA. On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck, the federal levy failed, and chaos broke out in the Orleans metro area.

Now the damage has been done Well documented. Many people were devastated that Orlin was still almost sitting still 80 percent A decade before the storm’s population. More than 1,200 people have been killed since 1928 – the highest for a U.S. hurricane. And 80 percent of the city was flooded, with the National Hurricane Center estimating an estimated 108 billion. Regardless of the metric, Katrina stands out as the most devastating Atlantic hurricane to hit the United States.

However, the day before Katrina, Malcolm Wood had to go to work.

Wood stayed about an hour away in Piquੂਨn, Mississippi, and fortunately the rest of his family had the means and access to the north of Haitzburg for safety. But unlike most people living in the Mississippi Delta or South Louisiana working in the Greater Orleans, Wood’s company refused to close on the eve of Hurricane Century, despite the first mandatory evacuation of the New Orleans. . This could not happen. For starters, Billions Old and future works were on the line. Wood’s direct co-workers – more than 2,000 collaborators – also made a living. Heck, the whole national task that Wood was probably hanging in the balance, depends on whether his facility, just 15 miles east of the lower 9th Ward, could survive.

So Wood, a great and capable man, who had already worked in the same place for more than 20 years, was ready to complete the job that was given to him. Faced with the direct effects of storms across 400 miles and winds of 120+ miles per hour, he was part of a team of 38 people who had to get out of Hurricane Katrina. on site To protect the company’s 832 acres of waterfront facility. The goal? Keep as much of it as possible and keep it online.

The task was difficult – “We knew the weather station was going to be worse than previous storms,” ​​Wood said. “It looked like a hurricane” – but the claims were out of this world. So Wood traveled about 40 miles to Little Mikhod, Louisiana, and prepared to spend the night at Building 320. Disappointing office space sat at the back Of NASA Mithode assembly facility, where the organization’s fuel tanks have been built since the 1960s.

This will be the first night of the 30’s that Wood & Co. will spend based in Michoacn.

Continue lighting

As you might expect to see in its southeastern United States, NASA Plans in place to reduce the storm. Michaud, in particular, had faced 25 to 30 such incidents in his time before Katrina, given his situation. As Wood explained, ride-out crews are normal and part of the post-storm process. Among their duties, a ride-out crew travels the facilities to any potential areas to identify potential areas of damage, adding any content that could be dangerous, if arrangements and generators at the site Maintains, and ultimately helps navigate whatever results you bring. Convenience back online. If a hurricane seems bad enough (and Katrina qualified), the Ride Out crew will also be the only group on site, a last line of defense against the element. “We’ve had a lot of storms for which we’ve been here and gone, but it’s usually two days, three days and you’re running back,” Wood told Ars. Told. “It was very different.”

Wood claims that some memories go away 10 years after the storm, but he can recall what he felt in the first 24 hours. It started raining overnight on the 28th. It came with such strong winds, that soon you would not be able to stand outside Building 320 and build a generally visible campus – including Building 450, far south of the facilities at that time. Includes an important pamphlet at the end. To keep the 17-foot levy calm, Wood remembers just turning to HyperFocus, which is “fixed on something.”

“There’s a little light in the pumphouse,” Wood said. “By the time I saw that light, I knew the pump was running,” Wood said. “I knew they were watering to prevent it from raining. We didn’t know if we would have a flood, but if you were to stand in front of this building (320), it would be where we see the water rise. If it doesn’t take the first step here, we’re fine. “

Initially, some of Wood’s ride-out companions stood in the Puff House. He inspected whether the caterpillar pumps inside, four devices that can handle 62,000 gallons of water per minute, overcoming rising water levies and flooding the construction site a few hundred yards away from Building 320. But NASA is responsible for protecting the protocol, even for expelling crew members. Once the winds reach a certain force, everyone must be brought within a safe area (in this case, Building 320) and remain locked until the danger is minimized. During Katrina, this tipping point came at 3 o’clock in the morning.

Wood recalls: “We don’t usually leave the pamphlets, but we have to bring them back at midnight,” Wood recalls. “So early in the morning, two boys grabbed a dumper and it was very frustrating – you couldn’t see the road, and it was dark. Katrina was the first time I remembered during my years living here that we lost power from the site. I mean the city lost power – it’s weird. “

From that point on, Wood believes it was really “touching and moving.” Based on past storms, he was convinced that the Ride Team could get the facilities running again if only nature gave them a chance. But Katrina’s catastrophic prospects were tragically evident in the moment, and the Ride Out crew was well aware of this. It was 2005 The Columbia Tragedy That happened just two years ago, and Michoac was expected to re-certify many of the outer tanks as part of a mission to return to space. While everyone knew that the space program would end sometime in the next decade, the loss of Michaud would have a dramatic effect on that time.

“If we lost money, we would shut down NASA’s space program,” says Wood. “We build every vehicle here, so how do you get into space unless you go to New Orleans?” This is the most devastating thing you can do. If Michoac were completely flooded, NASA would have to say, ‘Well, we’re out of the space business right now.’ It would have been years and years of damage. ”

Wood was the facility director at the time, and as he saw, drainage was never an issue. The drainage system of the facility may contain a small amount of water and after some time it will eventually leak out. But if the water was still coming in and the pumps shut down completely, the calculation would suddenly be out of balance.

So that night, the team had to make a decision. It was possible to change the speed of the pumps, but they were water-powered devices, and pushing them too hard put them at greater risk of overheating and failure. In the end, the wood and company chose to push the throttle – it kept working.

“I never thought there would be a risk, but the way it was raining, you can see the roadways and know you were never going to pump it,” says Wood. “We calculated about one billion gallons of water, so we kept pumping because you always had the type of seapage.”

The next morning, Michaud’s ride-on team learned that he had completed his primary task: the facility was not under water. However, it seems that on Old Gentle Road it was the only thing – Michoac’s main construction drag – that was not.

“We didn’t realize we were an island until the next morning (8/30),” says Wood. “We were surrounded by water. During the night and the next morning, we knew it was raining and windy, but you never thought you’d be surrounded by water. We continued our pumps and did the right thing, which we were taught to do. The next day and 30 days after the tribulation, where you see people doing extraordinary things. ”

Images listed by Nathan Mattis