Hurricane Ike makes landfall – oil refineries and more at risk

As of noon, a bit of downward revision; 7.5 overall and 6.5-7 for Houston, it appears

Updated 12:30 p.m. Saturday

The eye officially coeme on shore at about 2:10 a.m., according to the National Hurricane Center. The National Hurricane Center says it officially fell 1 mph short of Categore 3 status, which is small potatoes. With high tide at about the same time as the eye made landfall, this could have been a likely disaster of great magnitude, but it appears we have dodged the worse.

The map above comes via Wired and illustrates major oil/petrochemical facilities at risk. The worst of the storm surge is predicted to hit right in the area of the Houston Ship Channel.

Gas prices?

Best scenario is 7-10 days on restarting the shut-down refineries.

Worst-case scenario? A month or more.

Given that the ship channel had at least a 10 percent chance of a storm surge of 23 feet or more, we could have ahd serious effects not only on gas prices, but as the Port of Houston is one of the nation's three busiest ports, on a variety of goods imported from China and elsewhere.

But, the storm surge was not measured above 15 feet anywhere, and not even that high in Houston itself. Probably no major damage to piers in the port. Heaviest storm surge appears to be in the Beaumont-Port Arthur-Orange area.

Refineries now shut down in Houston and the surrounding area produce about one-fifth of U.S. oil products. The effects will be felt throughout the central states.

My guess on refineries is 10 days max in Houston itself, but possibly two weeks or more in Beaumont-Port Arthur-Orange.

The worst of the storm surge appears to be from Baytown east, as far east as Port Arthur; indeed, the Beaumont-Port Arthur-Orange area may suffer almost as much damage as Houston. The eye passed just about dead center through Galveston Bay after crossing the island; I'll put the storm surge in the ship channel area at an "8" on a 1-10 scale, based on what radar I see.

Shipping? A lot of known effects. Wal-Mart and Home Depot both have major distribution centers in metro Houston, at Baytown.

One pier at Galveston is already confirmed as damaged, as a storm surge of about 20 feet hit the island.

Obviously, hurricane winds and the storm surge have the port shut down as we speak. Whether shipping facilities will be severely damaged remains to be seen.

Skyscrapers have reported some damange in downtown Houston, as Ike had strong winds aloft as well as at the surface.

Electricity? As of early Saturday, almost 2 million customers were already without electric power. I would guess that Galveston Island will remain without power at least 72 hours, and that's very conservative.

Note: That is customers and not people... almost 5 million people are without power.

Conservative, indeed, on the island! Galveston City Manager Steve LeBlanc says it could be weeks before all power is restored on the island.

On the mainland, I would say Wednesday before Harris County is lit back up.

Overall, in dollar costs, Ike could be the U.S.'s third-most-destructive hurricane ever, after 1992's Andrew and Katrina in 2005.

I am not sure if this will hold; I will at least keep it in the top 10.

The human cost? One storm surge drowning in Corpus Christi, so far.

The continued pounding?

Information below from the National Hurricane Center:

It is likely to remain at hurricane strength by noon Central time. And, more likely to still be a tropical storm than a tropical depression by midnight Saturday/Sunday.

Tropical storm warnings cover the entire eastern half of Texas, including up here in Dallas. Tornado watches over half of Louisiana and all of lower east Texas. Almost all of coastal Louisiana is suffering a storm surge, including areas not yet recovered from Hurricane Gustav.

Up here in Dallas, it looks like it is going to start bending to the northeastward enough to spare us serious fallout; we started getting light rain about noon and winds are still below 25 mph on top gusts.



Update: More storm damage reports from the AP, AFP and elsewhere as of 3 a.m.:
• Landmark Houston restaurant Brennan’s burns;
• Already six feet of water in the Galveston County Courthouse;
• Multiple unextinguished, and currently unextinguishable, fires in Galveston;
• Nearly 40 percent of Galveston residents refused to evacuate, many invoking monotheistic religious fatalism;
• Electricity failed in Galveston as of 1 a.m.; that also means no potable water without power to run water supply equipment, as well as commingling of storm surge water;
• Port Arthur and other towns on the upper end of the Texas Gulf Coast could join Galveston underwater;
• At 3 a.m., the count on those without electricity was now 1.3 million;

From the AFP story, comes a preliminary estimate on possible damage costs:

Jack Colley, from the Texas Department of Emergency Management, said officials estimated the storm's economic impact would be "somewhere in between the 80-billion dollar and 100-billion-dollar range."

On the front lines, the Houston Chronicle (photo above of mingled fire and flood in Galveston) says we could run short of gas up here in Dallas, as Chris Newton, president of the Texas Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association, said tanker trucks can't safely travel in winds over 40 mph. (Ike is expected to still be at tropical storm strength when it gets up to us, and its outermost tentacles are just starting to do that.)

Dallas/East Texas update: Scattered power outages in East Texas; none here in the Metroplex. Trees waterlogged from Gustav are falling in some places in east Texas. And, across the state line, flooding as far east as Lake Charles, La., which has a bit more effect on oil prices.