Status Report

Internal NASA Senior Management Email: Hurricane Update 30 August 2005

By SpaceRef Editor
August 30, 2005
Filed under ,

From:
To:
Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 9:11 AM
Subject: Michoud and Stennis status

News from the STS-121 scheduling meeting today:

-MAF (Michoud Assembly Facility), the very place where we needed the most intensive work activity for Return To Flight Part 2, was almost directly in Katrina’s path and was hit pretty hard. Lots of damage to facility. Rough estimate is that 60% of workers there lost their homes. Also estimate 4-6 weeks to restore power and water to facility. Since the ET is so key right now, KSC has been asked to ascertain what, if any, ET PAL ramp rework could possibly be done here. Also: the OV-104 demate from ET-120 still set to start tomorrow- unless someone stops us today.

—————————————–
From: Kennedy, James W
Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 7:53 AM
To: NASA Senior Management Team; NASA Senior Secretary Team

SSC info for you. Scott Kerr is working with MSFC to find best way to transport some of our satellite phones to SSC/MAF but currently no airports open for us to fly into. Will continue to work this and other areas we can contribute to our friends on the gulf coast.

From: Griffin, Michael D. (HQ-AA000) [mailto:Michael.D.Griffin@nasa.gov]
Sent: Monday, August 29, 2005 6:42 PM

Sending to Gerst and Kennedy. Jeez, what a mess!

—–Original Message—–
From: Geveden, Rex (HQ-KA000) rex.geveden@nasa.gov
To: Griffin, Michael D. ; Sutton, Jeffrey E. ; King, David A. CC: Throckmorton, David A; Morrell, Paul Acosta, Dean ; Davis, Joseph H; Gregory, Frederick D. ; Parsons, William W.
Sent: Mon Aug 29 17:39:51 2005
Subject: SSC Status

All,

Just heard from Throckmorton at Stennis. He was on a satellite phone borrowed from the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency. Things are pretty bad there. Several buildings damaged, hundreds stranded there because of flooding outside the gate and will be staying overnight. No land lines or cell phones are working. FMEA is setting up a local headquarters to do staging and logistics. Between the Mississippi and federal emergency support, I take it they are fine on food and basics.

Employees have been put on administrative leave, and no word yet on when they would be returning to work. He requested two things: (1) satellite phones if we can get some to them, and (2) assurance that their employees will get paid this pay period.

Jeff Sutton, can you take (1)? David King, please respond to (2), as I believe you have the Agency payroll responsibility down there.

Good news is nobody is hurt. A crew went out at 6:00 EDT to start the damage assessment. We have no way of contacting them, but David will try periodically to call me when he can get his hands on a phone.

Please forward to anyone that needs to see this.

Rex

SpaceRef staff editor.