No Wind Will Be Huffing, Puffing, Blowing This New EOC Down
This June, NASA’s Johnson Space Center broke ground on a new Emergency Operations Center (EOC), which, when complete, will be engineered to withstand a potential strike from a category 5 hurricane. Considering that the Gulf of Mexico is located just literally across NASA Parkway, this evolution can’t happen soon enough.
Currently, EOC operations are comfortably ensconced in Building 30 as construction gets underway on the new 17,000-square-foot building, which will house more than the center’s hurricane ride-out team during a storm. The fortress-like facility will serve as the backdrop for adequate and redundant communications for command and control during a disaster or an emergency incident, as well as to allow for easier command and control of day-to-day operations.
“The new addition will provide a secured, hardened, and centralized location for the JSC Incident Commander and staff to operate and coordinate with key JSC staff and community emergency responders during a disaster or an emergency event,” said Todd Pryor, project manager in the Projects Branch of the Facilities Management and Operations Division at Johnson. “Additionally, the project will consolidate the JSC Protective Services Division assets into a singular facility, as well as optimally incorporating the Office of Emergency Management, Physical Security, Fire Protection Services, Occupational Health, and the Operations Control Center.”
Latest rendering of the new Emergency Operations Center (EOC), with the existing Building 25 in the foreground. The new EOC will connect to it and be considered Building 25W, technically.
Ease of collaboration and efficiency are all wonderful things, but let’s get to the real question: How on Earth (pun intended) is this building supposed to withstand the worst of Mother Nature’s intentions?
“The new EOC is designed to withstand a cat 5 hurricane, as well as being elevated out of the 500-year floodplain,” Pryor said.
To accomplish this feat, the finished floor elevation of the EOC will be approximately 25 feet tall, making it the highest building on-site when it’s done. It will also be fully bricked, allowing for no weak spots in any of the walls. All these features, including a state-of-the-art Emergency Dispatch Center with expanded capabilities to adapt to changes in emergency response, will enable the center’s hurricane ride-out team to stay behind when the rest of the center is shut down and employees nearby are forced to evacuate. There’s good reason to do it, too, even if staying seems like a risky proposition.
“The hurricane ride-out team stays on-site to secure the center and shut down all of the facilities’ systems (power, steam, water, chillers, etc.) if required,” Pryor said. “This gives us the flexibility to make these decisions later in the hurricane track and allow us to keep the systems up if the hurricane changes path before landfall. The ride-out team also becomes a damage-assessment team after the hurricane passes, as well as a recovery team.”
And while our collective stomachs may feel weak at the idea of riding out such catastrophic events … weak will never be a descriptive term used for this secure structure.
As of now, completion for the new EOC is penciled in for the start of the 2022 hurricane season.
Project Manager Todd Pryor stands at the site of the new Emergency Operations Center, which will add an annex onto Building 25. Image courtesy of Todd Pryor.
Meet the man behind the (building) plan: Todd Pryor
College/major: 1993 Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from The Ohio State University, with a double major in marketing and logistics.
Work history: I started at JSC as a co-op in 1991 and spent my first 10 years in the Transportation Branch in the Logistics Division. Currently, I work in the Projects Branch of the Facilities Management and Operations Division, where I have spent the last 20 years working as a design and construction project manager. I will receive my 30-year Time of Service Award this fall!
Favorite part of your job: I love taking something from a project description — just a couple sentences on a piece of paper, and getting all the requirements, actually designing it, and building it. I love seeing the finished product of a building … and I also like knowing that there’s going to be a building there, that I was a part of, long after I retire.
What do you like to do in your spare time? I’m an avid outdoorsman, and love spending time hunting and fishing with my close friends (most of which all work at JSC, and I have been friends with for 30 years).
If it can be said that there’s a silver lining from the pandemic, what has it been for you? It really made me realize how much my family and friends mean to me. Like a lot of folks, my family and I really haven’t done much since COVID hit. It was really hard not being able to be with the people I care about. However, now that the vaccines are out, that’s all starting to change. As a matter of fact, my mom is here visiting right now. It’s been over a year-and-a-half since I’ve seen her, so it’s just awesome!
Fun fact about you: Well I don’t think anyone that knows me would disagree that I’m a very boisterous guy and am always up for a good time. Also, they would not believe it if I didn’t take this opportunity to say … go Bucks!
What other people are saying:
“Todd is one of the unsung gems at JSC. His fingerprints are all over the center, and he has been responsible for Building 26, Building 45N (our new clinic), and the Building 31 Asteroid Sample and Advanced Curation Facilities, just to name a few of his accomplishments.
He has been fantastic to work with, and everyone he works with enjoys working with him. He is always looking for a win/win solution and is a real asset to JSC.” – Alan Mather, Chief of Protective Services at Johnson
