Two more NASA centers close for Floyd

Wallops Flight Facility

September 16, 1999
Web posted at: 4:16 p.m. EDT (2016 GMT)

By Robin Lloyd
CNN Interactive Senior Writer

(CNN) -- Two NASA facilities in Virginia closed Thursday just as Hurricane Floyd unleashed fierce winds and torrents of rain that flooded area roads and blocked some major evacuation routes.

Skeleton crews were left at the Langley Research Center in Hampton and Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island to manage emergencies, including the loss of electricity at Langley.

"There's a lot of flooding throughout the roads," said Art Lee, a safety engineer at NASA Headquarters who talked with those who remained at the facilities.

"A lot of the roads are impassable and flooded out, including I-64 coming out of Langley and Highway 58 from Norfolk going north up to I-95."

Wallops staffers attempted to get power restored to the facility, which serves as a launch site for small rockets that put up commercial and Department of Defense satellites, Lee said.

NASA develops aircraft and aeronautics features at Langley and its wind tunnel, located inland within Langley Air Force Base.

Wallops staffers benefited from preparations still in place from Hurricane Dennis, which swept the Atlantic Coast earlier this month.

"With the second storm coming through, they were more prepared than ever," Lee said.

Wallops watchers anxiously awaited the mid-day arrival of high tide, which could bring storm surges and flooding even though the rains had let up slightly. The wind continued to whip through the facility, Lee said.

Staffers at both facilities were sent home Wednesday afternoon when heavy rain started to fall, but the centers are expected to reopen Friday as the hurricane likely will have moved north.

Wallops workers prepared for the storm earlier this week by placing all NASA aircraft and mobile tracking systems in hangars and securing rocket launch facilities. There were no rockets on any launch pads.

Langley employees sandbagged some areas of the center.

Meanwhile, the Kennedy Space Center in Florida reopened Thursday relatively unscathed by Floyd, with just some beach erosion, missing panels from the Vehicle Assembly Building and tipped over portable toilets, said Bill Johnson, a KSC public affairs official.