NASA mission controller braves flooding Thursday to keep space station astronauts safe - Houston Chronicle

A mission controller at NASA's Johnson Space Center braved flooding in Houston for two hours on Thursday night to make it to her job keeping astronauts safe.

Kayla LaFrance, who works with the International Space Station, was headed to her overnight shift at Johnson when she encountered vast amounts of flooding throughout the Houston area. She detailed her struggle Thursday on Twitter.

Her trip to work usually takes nine minutes. It took her two hours to get there Thursday.

"I left for work two hours and I just got to work," LaFrance said. "I had to do a lot of (U-turns), but the water finally came down and I was able to get out of the area I was trapped."

Mission controllers are in charge of keeping astronauts and the space station safe at the Houston center.

Holly Griffith, a Johnson engineer who used to work in mission control, applauded LaFrance's efforts.

"Y'all -- she was trapped for 2 hours in high water AND STILL WENT TO WORK FOR HER FLIGHT CONTROL SHIFT IN ISS MISSION CONTROL," Griffith tweeted early Friday morning.

LaFrance's struggles began at about 11 p.m., when she posted the first video from inside her car. At Gemini Street and Eldorado Drive in Friendswood, LaFrance's video shows water streaming through the streets and several people trying to drive through it.

LaFrance has a lifted truck, she said on Twitter, and there were areas near the space center even she refused to drive through.

"I'm not putting my truck through that. This is how I'm supposed to get to work," she said over the sound of flowing water in the streets. "As you can tell I'm not making it."

Forty minutes later, she posted another video from her car, saying she had watched multiple cars drive into the streets and get stuck while she was sitting in a parking lot, trapped.

"Saturn Road is blocked off, of course Gemini is blocked off, I'm afraid to go back to Bay Area (Blvd) and Feather Craft (Lane)," she said. "It's not blocked off but its flooded."

She finally made it to work just after 12:30 p.m.

"My feet are soaked, I'm soaked -- yea this was kind of a fun adventure," she joked.

Alex Stuckey writes about NASA and science for the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her at alex.stuckey@chron.com or Twitter.com/alexdstuckey.

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