We are fine. We were to return to Slidell on Sunday night (8/28), but obviously could not due to Katrina. My wife's parents had evacuated to Memphis, so Delta flew us there. My father-in-law has rented us a house in Baton Rouge, but we remain in Memphis with the kids for now. Cell = 985 640 0743, hotel = 901 763 0500 room 136. I saw someone from MAF yesterday (I forget the guy's name Paul Navarro or something like that. He has an office on 2nd floor, 101), but he had seen Mike Javery, so both of them are fine.

P.S. I have also spoken to Harry Nelson (evacuated to Jackson, MS) and Mike Morgan (evacuated to Houston). They are both in good shape.

We are fine, evacuated to Baton Rouge.

My email address is earlmp@gmail.com

NASA/Contractor employee message board is now online at NASA Watch

Unable to post HTML here. The URL for the NASA Watch message board is www.nasawatch.com

We are OK. evacuated to Hernando, MS just south of Memphis. We are staying at my sister's house with 3 other families that ran from Katrina. 19 people total in the house. I just heard from Sidney Merkouris (tooling dept.) who stayed in Chalmette and he is on a bus to Houston. No other info on him, but at least we know he is alive. We live in Slidell and have not heard much, but we are safe. God bless all of you and our prayers are with everyone.

The Campbells and dogs are fine. We were in Houston with Michael's sister but came to Shreveport so that my dad and Michael could make a recon mission to assess damage. My parents sustained minor tree damage. We flooded (~1.5') and have more trees down than can be counted, many on the house. Michael is on his way back now and from there we'll either return to slidell or go back to houston. Calls can't come in but text messages can. My number is 504-813-4908 and Michael's is 504-296-6436.

Oh good, nice to know you guys are safe -- tried calling you all day Sunday and Monday before Jay informed me the phones were all messed up.

Any word from the other ELDP'ers? My guess is Hale's place isn't doing to well.

hale's place has been under water since monday, most probably to the roof line. riki tried to call in last night, I tried to call him earlier in the day. i think they're okay but no whereabouts yet.

My wife and I are doiing fine in Oxford MS. I've talked to Tom Conrad in Memphis.

email is rob-mck@hotmail.com

Riki and Jen are safe with her family in Lexington, KY. Their house fared pretty well. They will be going to slidell on saturday for a week to clean up.

Brian Jeansonne fared so well that he has water and gas, so hot showers are not out of the question. He has been called up with the LA Natl Guard to drive a school bus of evacuees out of the city.

Also received a text message from Esma last night. She is fine in Alabama.

Ain't the Internet grand?

Thought I'd check in and let you know that the Shelleys are safe and sound and in the greater Chicago area.

I'm guessing we're going to be here for a while, at least until the power comes on in Abita Springs.

I called into the Corporate number and was told our paychecks were being paid at least until 26 Sep 05, at which point, if the facility is still down, or some other condition warrants, they will be continued.

Just talked to Ruth -- the Davidsons are fine, evacuated to Huntsville and are currently in Little Rock, planning to travel to Galveston over the weekend.

Good to hear from you, JB. Will update the post later to reflect the paycheck info.

Finally saw some pictures of MAF (will post later), showing the green panels of the VAB largely blown off, along with a couple of the roof vents, a few slivers and patches of the VAB siding, and some roof material missing near the northeast corner. The Kistler trailers look to be intact, as does the highbay, Cells M-N-P, and the portion of 103 visible in the picture. A little debris is strewn about the grounds. Amazingly, the metal-shed outbuildings along the tracks behind 103 seem undamaged.

Good news about the Davidsons indeed. It would just be like Hale to be stubborn and not leave; must be Ruth talked some sense into him.

Tom, email me back with your contact info. We have to talk. Seriously.

Thanks for setting this area up for us, Tom. It's great to hear about everyone who chimed in. Casey and I made it out fine. Contrary to all the mismanagement reported in the media, some things about the evacuation went extremely well - like the contraflow. We reached Houston after only 6 1/2 hours on the road. It took us 16 when we left for Ivan. Granted, we left Sunday at 3am this time, but still. We're in Billings MT now; staying with my folks. Right now we are planning on contemplating all manner of future employment opportunities from the seat of a fast motorcycle. Peace out.

Hey Tom,
It's good to hear about all the Michoud people. Lyn, John, Josh, Kate & Beth and I are doing fine in Baton Rouge. We're at Lyn's folks. We got out a lot earlier than everyone else, thanks to Lyn. Unfortunately, since we were out so early, we thought it might come in to Baton Rouge, so we evacuated to Gulf Shores. Bad move. Had to get up early and get out of dodge. Spent the next 4 days in 3 different motels around the south.
I learned about the text messaging on the way back. Did you know text messages will get thru when a voice call won't? Now I have to figure out how to get my voice messages.
My worst hardship here is that dad in law only has dial-up.
Victor - email vratkins "at" cox.net

Good to hear from you, Victor. Might want to check in at NASAWatch, too, as Brian Anderson was looking for you there.

The Aldrich's are OK and currently evacuated to Knoxville, TN. I can be reached at 865.806.0059 and sometimes I can receive cell phone calls 228.324.8641

Kevin

Go to http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/katrina/KATRINA0000.HTM

Lots of high altitude photos of damaged areas (some very good images of Slidell, our house included). There's one frame that shows JazzLand. I don't think we will be having Fall Festival this year!

Hey,
This is Doug Webb, we're fine and currently in Kingston TN. I made it back to Slidell on Thursday (the 1st) and everything I saw in Slidell was FAR BETTER than what you are hearing on TV. Of course I only drove down parts of front street, and most of gause, but I saw no evidence of widespread flooding, no broken windows, and no buildings blown down. Lots of sign damage, awnings torn up, gas station canopies down, etc. As well as some LARGE trees that had crushed parts of houses. But if you didn't have a large tree in your yard, your house probably did pretty well.

I heard from people that had been there for days that parts of Slidell in Old Towne and Oak Harbor may have flooded worse. So parts of Slidell may be bad. I just didn't happen to see any of them.

I also know that Chad Purser and family is safe in Baton Rouge.

My current phone number is 865-376-3988.

Does anyone know anything about Kevin Davis or Jim Doll? They lived in New Orleans itself...

I hope everyone else is well.

Doug

This is Andy. Me and my wife made it out safely on Sunday morning to Houston. Currently we are staying with my parents at Mentor, Ohio. I talked to Brian Dejan. He was at Houston but will staying at friend's house at Dallas.

Damage assessment notes:

There was a report early on I saw on space.com which had quoted Harry Wadsworth as saying Michoud got 2 ft. of water. This, of course, would have flooded a lot of the machinery, including the stir friction weld pit and the FP pit. Does anyone know if this is true? Picture #6 from the link Tom has up shows what appears to be the remains of flooding in 103.

Picture #7 shows the roof of 103 has holes in it in the vicinity of the new MTS weld machine. I'd expect it is probably far enough from anything that this is just cosmetic, though there may have been leaks over a wide area from it.

Picture #7 also has a view of building 101, and it appears a large section of the roof at the West end looks different- I can't tell if the covering is disturbed or if this section is finished differently from the rest.

Looks like the Flash feature gives different IDs for different photos.

The frame to look at is 100_0117.JPG

Hey Rich, aren't you sorry you moved to Arizona and missed all this fun now!?!??!? Think of the ABSOLUTE LACK of light pollution here now!!!!
:-) Hope you're doing well.

Doug

Hey Doug,

Actually, we've been amazed at this happening 4 months after the move. Survivor's guilt is real, it turns out.

Has anyone heard from Eric Enright or Lyle Ferguson? They both lived near the levee breach. I have tried to get in touch with Eric to no avail.

But yes, there is something to be said about being in the middle of the mountains in a desert during hurricane season. Rosa is days from due, and I don't like thinking about what would have happened. Our house there is well flooded and the tennants went to AL. I just saw a rescue off the roof of the church down the street on MSNBC a little while ago. The NOAA home page has a link to a series of high quality aerial photos they did/

I have been thinking about all of you this week. Going into work and doing things there as usual while this is going on has been very strange.

-Rich

Yeah, I imagine the pits are probably filled with or without a generalized flood, since they've lost power, unless there is a portable generator running the pit pumps or a gasoline-powered pump keeping them empty. Remember how the excavations for the pits had a tendency to fill themselves?

There was a big hole above the 40' door, next to the UWS. The UWS probably got quite wet during the storm. As for the west end of 101, I think what you're seeing are the three or four long narrow protuberance thingies on the roof -- I don't know what they are, maybe ducts or cable runs, but they've always been there...you could see them from the crossover.

Denise Clayton and family evacuated to relatives in Indianapolis for now. Trying to look at it as a vacation. Have heard from or of others in our department that are safe in various locations. Mike Bankester, Bill Mattheessen, Mark Peno, John Variello, Kristy Silbernagel, Karen Goga, Danielle Larson. Also Pam Anderson-Behrens is safe too.

Denise

Brenda and I are in Shreveport, La., We were able to get into Slidell on Thursday and found things much better than expected, our house survived. we will try to go back this Wed. to check on things. FYI www.wwltv.com has good intel on Slidell. Go to local news St. Tammany east.
Good luck to all.
Tom

Hey,
I notice that Greg Schieleit's name has been added to the list at the top of this page. Really glad to know he's ok. But I don't see a post by him. Who heard from him?

Greg, if you read this, do you know anything about Jimmy or Kevin?

If anyone wants to email me, I'm at dswebb1@charter.net. Thanks.

Take care everyone.

Doug

Hey,
I just noticed that Kevin Davis' name is now on the list too. GREAT!

Kevin Mars, if you happen to read this, have you heard anything from David Page? I drove by where their house is, and it looked like the neighborhood was in pretty good shape, but I wonder if they evacuated or not...

Doug

Hey all,

As some of you are already aware, those of us on CEV from Michoud reported into the LM Houston office for work on Sept 6th, so we'll be working here for the next several months at least.

As far as me, I evacuated to Shreveport, LA Sunday before the storm, had my most prized possessions stolen out of my jeep on Monday night (all work/home clothes, guitar, skydiving equipment, bike helmet, jeep radio, personal paperwork, etc) which I still can't get any insurance to cover. Owell. Went to stay in Clinton, AR on Friday for the whole weekend, then drove to Houston last Monday. Those of us working here at Houston have had our work e-mails going again, and I can be reached at james.j.layton@lmco.com. Good luck to everybody,

Jay

It's good to hear that all are safe and well. I have spent the last five weeks traveling from one place to another. I am in League City Texas now with friends and will be returning to Louisiana in one weeks time. My home, like many others who lived in the New Orleans area, unfortunately did not survive the storm. And so begins a new chapter in all of our lives. It will be interesting to see what happens next.