CAPE CANAVERAL - Just over 100 workers volunteered to stay behind at the evacuated Kennedy Space Center yesterday to ride out Hurricane Floyd, which NASA feared could destroy the launch pads and shuttle hangars.

Forecasters warned the storm could pass 40 miles offshore, bringing wind of 114 mph this morning.

NASA evacuated its approximately 12,500 workers Monday and closed down the space center. It also reduced its skeleton staff to 102, instead of the usual 120.

"Everybody else is gone. It's kind of eerie out here," NASA spokesman George Diller, one of the volunteers, said by telephone from a fortified building at the space center. "I kind of can feel the concern growing."

NASA feared not only the wind, but the storm surge. The space center is only 9 feet above sea level. And its space shuttle hangars and launch pads are designed to withstand wind of no more than 125 mph.

All four shuttles, worth $2 billion apiece, are parked indoors. At the nearby Cape Canaveral Air Station, four rockets stood exposed on launch pads.

The next shuttle mission is scheduled for the end of October but will probably be delayed because of the interruption in work.