How NASA Defended Its Assembly Facility From Hurricane Katrina

An anonymous reader writes: Tomorrow marks the 10-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's arrival in New Orleans. Though that time was filled with tragedy, there were survival stories, and a new article gives an insider's account of how NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility weathered the storm. Michoud was their key fuel tank production location, and if it had been lost, the space program would have gone off the rails. A 17-foot levee and a building with four water pumps capable of moving 62,000 gallons per minute stood between the storm and catastrophe for NASA's launch capabilities. "Water was merely the primary concern of the first 24 hours; Hurricane Katrina left its mark on the facilities even if Michoud was the rare speck of land to escape flooding. Roofs were lost to strong winds, one building even blew out entirely. External Tank 122 took some damage." Members of the "ride out" team spent much of the next month at Michoud, working long days to inspect and repair issues caused by the water. They maintained the facility well enough that it became a base for members of the military doing search and rescue operations. Amazingly, they did it all without any injuries to the team, and NASA didn't miss a single tank shipment.

Comments

Because its not just a NASA facility

[nimbius]

The facility was originally constructed in 1940 at the village of Michoud, Louisiana on behalf of the United States government for the war production during World War II. The site was a production site for the Korean war as well as the bulk of the US space race. the US Army Corps of Engineers knew exactly what they were about when evaluating it from a strategic perspective. This thing was a big chunk of the US space race (a wholly owned subsidiary of the cold war.) during Katrina, so it wasnt your average office park. most importantly, facility ride-out crews pumped more than one billion gallons of water out of the facility because that was what it was designed to withstand. They actually won an Exceptional Bravery medal from NASA for this.

New Orleans on the other hand was crumpled like a beer can under the might of Katrina, and smelted in the incompetent furnace that was the Bush administration. the new levy cost us 14 billion dollars. or coincidentally, almost 1 year of NASA budget.

Re:Because its not just a NASA facility

[JackieBrown]

New Orleans on the other hand was crumpled like a beer can under the might of Katrina, and smelted in the incompetent furnace that was the Bush administration.

You mean because of the governor and mayor, right? Bush had to wait until the state authorize the use of the military to jump in. Or do you want the president to have the power to jump in and take control of a city?

His failure - if you have to find one - is that he didn't publicly chastise the governor until the governor was shamed into doing that. Unfortunately, that was not his style - otherwise he would have blamed 9/11 on the Clinton administration since that is when most of the preparation and planning took place.

Re:Because its not just a NASA facility

[Coren22]

Was it ever determined to be incompetence of the Bush administration, or are you just spouting off?

At the time, the stories coming out were that there was a delay in the request for assistance, which is required before the federal government can come help. If they didn't request assistance and the feds showed up, people would be complaining about a federal invasion. Also, when whole swaths of land are ravaged, getting into the area to help is rather difficult, and can take time in the case of a hurricane as they hit an enormous amount of area, not just a little city.

But it is always more convenient to blame your political opponent, even if it is lazy.

Re:Because its not just a NASA facility

[felrom]

Pay no attention to the 130 years of Democrat rule of the city leading up to Katrina. All the fault for the city's unpreparedness lies with a single Republican who had no authority to intervene.

If I rolled my eyes sufficiently for the amount of derp packed into your comment, I'd probably get dizzy and fall over.

Re:Because its not just a NASA facility

[gstoddart]

Was it ever determined to be incompetence of the Bush administration, or are you just spouting off?

"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job"

Yes, as a matter of fact. Bush was too incompetent to know his flunky was too incompetent:

the Democratic lawmaker cited several e-mails that he said show Brown's failures. In one, as employees looked for direction and support on the ravaged Gulf Coast, Brown offered to "tweak" the federal response.

Two days after Katrina hit, Marty Bahamonde, one of the only FEMA employees in New Orleans, wrote to Brown that "the situation is past critical" and listed problems including many people near death and food and water running out at the Superdome.

Brown's entire response was: "Thanks for the update. Anything specific I need to do or tweak?" (Copies of e-mails posted by critic -- PDF)

On September 12 Brown resigned, 10 days after President Bush told him, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

And, in case you don't scroll far enough in that article:

Brown took over FEMA in 2003 with little experience in emergency management. He joined the agency in 2001 as legal counsel to his friend, then-FEMA director Joe Allbaugh, who was Bush's 2000 campaign manager. When Allbaugh left FEMA in 2003 Brown assumed the top job.

Before joining the Bush administration, Brown spent a decade as the stewards and judges commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association.

So, a man without proper experience failed to act and then offered to "tweak" the response, as if it was a minor thing.

So how about you stop thinking of this as a partisan issue. It really does come down to an unqualified crony of Bush failing to act, and Bush acting like it was all going according to plan.

But it is always more convenient to blame your political opponent, even if it is lazy.

Yes, yes it is. Only in this case it's you doing that.

Re:Because its not just a NASA facility

[nimbius]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Unfortunately most of the criticism, and failure, rests squarely within the Bush administration, all flair, bravado, and style aside.

*BUSH* administration?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you mean "Nagin administration"? And "Blanco administration"?

Or does the fact those two have a "D" after their names mean you can't blame the people actually in charge when Katrina hit? You know, the clowns who let literally acres of buses get flooded out because they were too stupid to use them to evacuate people?

Because Florida got hit with three hurricanes right in a row in 2004 - Charley, Ivan, and Jean all hit between Aug 13 and Sep 26, 2004.

And there was no problem with the response to that, now was there?

Bush was in charge then too.

What was the difference? Bush was in charge in Florida, too - Jeb Bush.

Oh, and when the response to Hurricane Andrew in Florida was horrible? Guess the party of Florida Governor Lawton Chiles...

There were issues with Post Katrina ET's

[trout007]

We had issues with Post Katrina ET's because many of the technicians were displaced after Katrina and they lost institutional knowledge. The Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate (GUCP) was not installed within the tolerances and we had problems for the rest of the program with leaking hydrogen gas from this connection which caused quite a few scrubbed launches.

http://llis.nasa.gov/lesson/60...

Re:what's the opposite of Progress?

[bev_tech_rob]

TL;DR version: Survived Katrina, didn't survive Congress

You apparently didn't read the complete article. They are now busy building components for the Space Launch System. They are still very much alive. Good for them!