3 million Texans told not to return home: Rita spares oil industry
AUSTIN (USA), Sept 24: The governor warned nearly three million Texans who fled Hurricane Rita not to head back home yet on Saturday as the state scrambled to avoid the traffic nightmare that marked the evacuation.
“Please stay where you are,” said Gov. Rick Perry. “Be patient, stay put.”
Perry said people had already started returning to the densely populated Houston area and he urged drivers to stay off the road while search-and-rescue crews assessed the damage.
State officials planned to announce the return plan later on Saturday, but needed more time to replenish fuel supplies and restock food at grocery stores, Perry said.
“It appears that Houston and Galveston were spared the worst, but I want to re-emphasize to Texans in that area to remain in their homes, to remain in their places of safety,” Perry told reporters.
“There are still concerns over flooding, fallen debris.”
The highways leading out of Houston became clogged with 160-km traffic jams on Thursday and Friday when initial projections of the powerful storm’s path forced an evacuation from Houston and elsewhere along the Gulf of Mexico.
Traffic came to a complete halt as major roadways became parking lots and motorists ran out of gasoline, cars overheated and one bus caught fire, killing 24 elderly evacuees.
During the evacuation, the Texas Department of Transportation came under criticism for being slow to open both inbound and outbound routes to speed the departure of 2.8 million people from the Houston and coastal areas.
With search-and-rescue crews coming to and from the area, Perry said it seemed unlikely that state officials could turn the major roads leading to Houston into one-way traffic.
OIL INDUSTRY: The US oil industry, still reeling from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, appears to have escaped the worst of the damage that was feared from the furious winds and rain of Hurricane Rita.
Oil companies said it would be some days before they can evaluate Rita’s full impact, but expressed cautious hope that refineries on the Texas and Louisiana coast would emerge relatively unscathed.
“It’s already safe to say that the damage from Rita is far, far less extensive than it was for Katrina,” said Robert Hartwig, chief economist at the Insurance Information Institute.
Consultancy AIR Worldwide said insurance losses from Rita in parts of Texas and Louisiana would range from 2.5 to five billion dollars, far less than the 17-25 billion dollar bill it estimates for Katrina.
“In addition to being a smaller and less intense storm, Rita’s strongest winds impacted an area with far fewer insured properties than Katrina,” AIR Worldwide vice president Jayanta Guin said.
“Fortunately, the heavy commercial and industrial areas of Port Arthur and Beaumont (both in Texas) — with their numerous refineries — were to the left of the storm’s track, where wind speeds are lower, so we do not expect to see significant structural damage to the refineries.”
Nevertheless, Rita has revived fears of higher petrol and heating oil prices heading into the US winter in an industry still struggling to overcome the fearsome impact of Katrina.
Four refineries on the Gulf of Mexico coast remain offline after Katrina slammed into the region more than three weeks ago. Rita forced 16 refineries to shut down as a precaution, government figures showed Friday.
Production of crude and natural gas in the Gulf itself was only just picking up after Katrina. When operating at full tilt, the region provides a third of US crude oil. But on Saturday, after 745 rigs and platforms were evacuated in the days before Rita roared ashore, 100 percent of crude production and 75 percent of natural gas output was shut down in the Gulf.
Even in good times, US refineries struggle to meet roaring demand in the world’s biggest oil-consuming nation.—Reuters/ AFP
AUSTIN (USA), Sept 24: The governor warned nearly three million Texans who fled Hurricane Rita not to head back home yet on Saturday as the state scrambled to avoid the traffic nightmare that marked the evacuation.
