Hurricane Center in Key West Built to Stand Its Ground

Willie Drye
for National Geographic News

June 5, 2006

National Weather Service (NWS) forecasters in the island city of Key
West, Florida, wondered for years whether their office would stand up to
a bad hurricane.

Now, as experts call for a "very active" 2006 hurricane season, NWS staff can rest assured that their workplace is built to withstand the worst storms the Atlantic Ocean can throw at them.

Last fall the entire team moved into a new ultra-modern office building at the edge of Key West's picturesque historic seaport district.

The outer part of the facility was designed to hold up against winds of 165 miles (265 kilometers) an hour.

And if the fiercest of hurricanes manages to penetrate the structure's exterior walls, the staff can retreat to an interior bunker that will protect them from winds of up to 255 miles (410 kilometers) an hour.

The ground floor of the building is 14 feet (4.3 meters) above sea level—high enough to be above most hurricanes' storm surges.

"The staff can carry out their mission without worrying about personal safety," said Jon Rizzo, an NWS meteorologist based in Key West.

Lives at Risk

The island of Key West sits at the southern end of the Florida Keys (explore an interactive Keys map).

This island chain extends about 150 miles (242 kilometers) into the Atlantic Ocean and forms part of the boundary between the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico (see a Florida map).

The last time Key West took a direct hit from a very powerful hurricane was September 1919, when a storm with winds exceeding 130 miles (209 kilometers) an hour made landfall there.

But dozens of hurricanes have plowed past the island in the decades since then, and the most powerful hurricane to strike the U.S. made landfall in the Keys in 1935 about 85 miles (137 kilometers) northeast of Key West.

NWS, which is now part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has operated a weather forecasting service in the city under various federal agencies since 1870.

The previous NWS office was based at Key West International Airport, which is on the island's southern shore across the street from the Atlantic Ocean.

When hurricanes blew into town, the roof leaked, water blew in beneath the doors, and forecasters sometimes felt they were risking their lives to do their jobs.

For a while federal officials talked seriously about closing the Key West office and using the NWS station in Miami to forecast weather for the lower Florida Keys.

But local leaders, residents, and emergency management officials protested loudly.

Mariners working the busy Gulf shipping lanes have relied on weather information from forecasters in Key West for more than a century.

Also, maintaining an office for local forecasters is critical, advocates say, for providing up-to-the-second information when Keys residents have to evacuate because of a hurricane.

The Keys have only one highway linking the islands to the mainland, and moving tens of thousands of residents and tourists to safety as a storm approaches is a tricky task that requires precise timing.

Billy Wagner is the emergency management director for Florida's Monroe County, which includes the Keys.

"When we have to respond to a major hurricane and have to start evacuation and phase it out, [local NWS forecasters] play a part in guiding us and preventing people from being trapped on the highway," he said.

"Dramatic" Difference

Federal officials dropped plans to close the office, and NWS instead obtained a parcel of land from the U.S. Navy and hired a pair of architectural firms to design a new building.

The staff moved into their new offices in October 2005—just before Hurricane Wilma roared past the Keys offshore and put much of the region underwater with its storm surge (watch related video: "The Path of Wilma's Wrath").

The difference in the new building during Wilma was dramatic, some staff reported.

"The weather wasn't in the building," Rizzo said. "We didn't have rain leaking in through the roof or around the doors. There's more space."

The 5.2-million-U.S.-dollar office is designed to be self-sufficient if a hurricane takes out the city's electricity and water supply.

A thousand-gallon (3,800-liter) tank holds drinking water, and a 13,000-gallon (49,000-liter) cistern beneath the building collects rainwater and condensation from the air conditioning unit.

Water from the cistern is used year-round to flush toilets and water the grass on the 1.9-acre (0.8-hectare) lot.

The building's design was a joint project of the architectural firms Guidry Beazley Architects of Lafayette, Louisiana, and Eskew+Dumez+Ripple of New Orleans.

"Given all the safety issues, we wanted to make a building they could occupy and work in 24 hours a day and enjoy working there," said architect Charles Beazley.

The office's outward appearance borrows elements from the neighboring historic district and Key West's nautical heritage.

Some parts of the exterior are made of cedar paneling, which eventually will turn gray from weathering and echo the appearance of many of the city's historic residences.

The entrance includes a flagpole that emulates a ship's mast and a soaring roof that calls to mind a ship's prow.

"The way the roof is sloped out to the front is a reference to wind and to ships," Beazley said.

Willie Drye is the author of Storm of the Century: The Labor Day hurricane of 1935, published by National Geographic.

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