Legion of Angels News Archive

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A huge relief effort was accelerating in storm-struck Texas on Monday as the big oil center of Houston struggled to get back to business after it was battered by Hurricane Ike.

About 2,000 people have been rescued from flooded areas in the largest such effort in the state’s history as searchers scoured hard-hit places like the devastated island city of Galveston, which was shredded when the hurricane made landfall on Saturday morning before heading inland to Houston.

Reuters energy correspondent Erwin Seba reported that 12 of the 15 Texas oil refineries that had been shut as a precaution showed no visible signs of flooding or damage — a sign fuel production could resume more quickly than initially thought. But power outages could still hinder their start-up.

Over 4 million people, several refineries and many businesses and gas stations remained without power, but floods were receding as crucial aid such as ice, water and food was being delivered to distribution points.

“Sixty trucks with supplies rolled in earlier tonight. … As we are standing here, deliveries are being made,” Ed Emmett, chief executive for Harris County, which includes Houston, told a news briefing on Sunday night.

He added that six relief distribution points were already up and running and he expected 17 to be in operation by later on Monday.

The relief roll-out appeared to defuse tensions that flared between the Federal Emergency Management Agency and local officials as hard-pressed residents complained about the time it was taking to get supplies to those in need.

Local officials later attributed the rift to confusion over who was responsible for doing what in the relief chain, a situation that led to delays.

The Bush administration came under heavy fire for its botched relief efforts in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Floods have been among the obstacles to rescue efforts and aid operations, but officials said the waters were receding.

“The flood event should be behind us,” Emmett said. Local TV footage showed cattle driven onto roads by flooded fields.

DEBRIS, POWER OUTAGES

Houston Mayor Bill White said all city employees were expected to show up to work on Monday as the country’s fourth most populous city tries to get up and running again.

The city’s two main airports were to resume partial operations on Monday, but with debris still littering its streets and windows blown out of office buildings, as well as power problems, it seemed unlikely the city of more than 2 million people would return to business as usual soon.

That point was underscored by the imposition in Houston of a weeklong dusk-to-dawn curfew.

Power provider CenterPoint Energy reported it had restored power to 380,000 customers, but over 1.7 million or 76 percent of its clients remained without electricity as of Sunday night.

At least three bodies were found in Galveston, which sustained some of the worst damage of the storm. The scale of destruction became apparent as authorities allowed more people to return.

The downtown area, containing the few buildings that survived a hurricane in 1900 that killed thousands, was under a layer of foul-smelling mud and sewage.

“It looks like a war zone. Everything is gone. It’s heartbreaking,” said Susan Rybick, a retiree driving along the seafront with her husband, John.

Ike triggered the biggest disruption to U.S. energy supplies in three years and sent gas prices higher. But U.S. crude oil futures dropped more than $1.59 to as low as $99.59 a barrel on Sunday as traders shrugged off supply concerns.

Source — Yahoo!

(CNN) — As Hurricane Ike bears down on the Texas coast, tens of thousands of anxious residents have loaded their belongings and fled inland.

But at least one man this week steered his Chevy Tahoe against the stream of traffic, toward the wind-whipped coastline and the target of the storm’s fury.

His name is Mark Sudduth and he’s not crazy, although some people might disagree.

Sudduth is part of a small fraternity of storm chasers who plant themselves in the paths of hurricanes to gather photos, video and meteorological data they hope will help scientists better understand these natural disasters.

What sets Sudduth apart, however, is his pioneering use of remote, battery-powered video cameras, packed in watertight cases, to train unblinking eyes on lethal storm surges that are too hazardous to film by hand.

“The stronger the hurricane and the more [news] reporters have to leave, the more important these cameras become,” says Sudduth, who lives in Wilmington, North Carolina. “There’s absolutely zero risk to human life. Plus they can stay there for 15 hours and never have to go to the bathroom.”

For decades, journalists with shaky video cameras have shot footage of approaching storms, only to retreat when the winds, and danger, grew too great. Thanks to his remote-camera system, developed around the time of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, Sudduth may be the first storm chaser to capture live streaming video from inside a hurricane as it blows ashore. His footage has appeared on CNN and numerous local TV broadcasts.

The 37-year-old traces his fascination with hurricanes to his childhood along the North Carolina coast, where big storms blow in from the ocean almost every summer and fall. By the time Hurricane Bertha struck in 1996, he had launched a business to raise awareness about the deadly storms.

Sudduth outfitted an Isuzu Rodeo with weather-measuring equipment and drove it into storms to collect data. But he and his partner began to question the wisdom of their operation in 2004 when Hurricane Charley abruptly shifted course and trapped them inside the vehicle as the Category 4 storm thundered ashore near Port Charlotte, Florida.

“It was just so violent. I thought there was a chance one of us could be killed,” says Sudduth, who witnessed his Isuzu totaled by Hurricane Ivan a month later. “We thought, ‘There’s got to be a better way.’ ”

So the next year, Sudduth developed his remote-camera “storm cases,” as he calls them. An unusual mix of high and low technology, each is equipped with two small, high-resolution cameras that extend from the case on a 60-foot cable and can be mounted on a building or a pole and aimed at the sea. Inside the case is a VCR filled with nine hours of videotape, because tape is less susceptible to saltwater than digital files.

One camera connects to the VCR, the other to a laptop that records about 18 hours of live video. The whole thing is powered by two 75-pound marine batteries, which also weigh down the case to help keep it from blowing away. The outfitted cases cost about $1,800 each and are not unlike the indestructible “black boxes” that record cockpit voices and other data on airplanes.

Sudduth’s storm cases streamed their first live video from Gulfport, Mississippi, during Hurricane Katrina. Sudduth watched the video feed on a laptop from the safety of an inland motel room and saw footage of waves cresting the seawall before the storm surge washed away his equipment.

“We never found the cases,” he says. “Everything was absolutely annihilated.”

Sudduth has had more success with the cases since, capturing live streaming video of Hurricane Rita, Hurricane Wilma and other big storms. (There’s no audio, because the swirling winds just create white noise.) He can compress hours of his remotely captured video footage into a minute or two, creating dramatic short films that show coastal areas being overwhelmed by surging floodwaters.

This year CNN bought two of Sudduth’s storm cases and employed them for the first time on levees in New Orleans during recent Hurricane Gustav.

“We work closely with him to put them where we think we’ll get maximum impact,” says CNN planning director Greg Agvent, who mobilizes the network’s breaking-news teams. For Agvent, the cases help keep his TV crews out of harm’s way during major storms. “No picture is worth that risk,” he says.

Sudduth also maintains a rolling weather station in his Chevy Tahoe, which measures wind speed, rainfall, barometric pressure and other data. He posts the streaming video — available to subscribers only — on his Web site, http://www.hurricanetrack.com/, and e-mails his data to the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida.

“It can be useful to us. We’ll be interested to see his unique data from the storms to come,” says Ed Rappaport, deputy director of the hurricane center. “But it’s dangerous work. We don’t recommend anybody going out and doing this.”

On Thursday, Sudduth and colleague Mike Watkins arrived at the Texas coast, where they planned to set up four storm cases Friday between Galveston and Port Lavaca, then retreat inland to watch their video feeds from the safety of a motel. Forecasters expect Hurricane Ike to make landfall late Friday or early Saturday, packing winds of 100-plus mph.

“Ike will be a huge, huge event,” Sudduth says. “It’s going to push an enormous storm surge [of water] into Texas.”

Filming hurricanes can be adventurous and exciting. But Sudduth also has been chastised by residents who feel he is capitalizing on others’ misfortune. As someone who has traveled the country speaking about hurricane preparedness, he is sensitive to such criticism.

“We’re not profiting from it any more than the fire hydrant company or the people who build ambulances,” he says. “It’s not just about the money shot. We can extract the science from these cameras. If we can match the visual record from the cameras to the meteorological record, we can help answer [scientific] questions.”

Source — CNN

HOUSTON - Cars and trucks streamed inland and chemical companies buttoned up their plants Thursday as a gigantic Hurricane Ike took aim at the heart of the U.S. refining industry and threatened to send a wall of water crashing toward Houston and Galveston.

Nearly 1 million people along the Texas coast were ordered to evacuate ahead of the storm, which was expected to strike late Friday or early Saturday. But in a calculated risk aimed at avoiding total gridlock, authorities told most people in Houston — the nation’s fourth-largest city — to just hunker down.

The storm is so big, it could inflict a punishing blow even in those areas that do not get a direct hit. Forecasters warned that because of Ike’s size and the state’s shallow coastal waters, it could produce a surge, or wall of water, 20 feet high, and waves of perhaps 50 feet. It could also dump 10 inches or more of rain.

“It’s a big storm. I cannot overemphasize the danger that is facing us,” Gov. Rick Perry said at a news conference. “It’s going to do some substantial damage. It’s going to knock out power. It’s going to cause massive flooding.”

Ike is huge, taking up nearly 40 percent of the Gulf of Mexico. The National Hurricane Center said tropical storm-force winds of at least 39 mph extended across more than 510 miles, and hurricane-force winds of at least 74 mph stretched for 220 miles. A typical storm has tropical storm-force winds stretching only 300 miles.

Because of its great size, storm surge and gigantic waves are the biggest risk, said Hugh Willoughby, former director of the federal government’s hurricane research division. The larger the storm, the longer it hits and the higher waves can build.

Traffic was building on roadways leading away from low-lying areas in Galveston County, and officials urged residents to finish storm preparations quickly. Some gas stations were running out of fuel as residents scurried to leave.

Galveston Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas on Thursday ordered a mandatory evacuation for the entire island on which the city sits. An earlier order had covered just the west side of the island, which is unprotected by a seawall.

“This is a very hard call for me to make but our intent is to save lives,” she said. “We believe it is best for people to leave.”

No shelters in Galveston
She said the city of 60,000 — virtually destroyed by a hurricane in 1900 that killed more than 6,000 people and remains the nation’s worst natural disaster — will not open shelters. She advised those who ignore the order to have supplies like food, water and medicine and to secure their homes.

By midday, lines of cars, buses and trucks crowded onto a bridge to leave the island. Others without transportation waited for buses to carry them to hurricane shelters inland.

“I have been through enough storms not to stick around for big ones,” Jeff Henning, who left Galveston County with his family for Florida, told msnbc.com. “I am also well prepared for a return as I know the aftermath is what always wears people down long after the exciting winds have left.”

Others hunkered down. Henning said he knew of a family who planned to ride out Ike with other boat owners at a marina boathouse.

And Keith Andrews, a shipyard worker, said that “I’m just going to batten down and not worry about it. If the Lord wants you, he’s going to take you anyway.”

Mandatory evacuations were also ordered for tens of thousands of people in low-lying areas in Harris County, where Houston is located.

“We’re not talking about gently rising water but a surge that could come into your home,” said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, the county’s chief administrator.

Most of the evacuations were limited to sections outside Houston, as well as nearby bayous and Galveston Bay.

Hoping to avoid the traffic gridlock of three years ago, when Hurricane Rita threatened the area, officials urged the 2 million residents of the city itself and 1 million in other areas of the county to remain at home.

“We are still saying: Please shelter in place, or to use the Texas expression, hunker down,” said Emmett. “For the vast majority of people who live in our area, stay where you are. The winds will blow and they’ll howl and we’ll get a lot of rain, but if you lose power and need to leave, you can do that later.”

Other evacuation orders were issued for all of Jefferson and Orange counties, an area home to more than 320,000 people between Houston and the Louisiana state line, and part of San Patricio County farther south.

Jefferson and Orange were two of three Southeast Texas counties that also had mandatory evacuations as Hurricane Gustav approached about two weeks ago. The region suffered major damage during Hurricane Rita in September 2005.

On Wednesday, authorities began moving people with special needs by bus to San Antonio, about 190 miles from Houston.

Houston flights disrupted
In Houston, gleaming skyscrapers, the nation’s biggest refinery and NASA’s Johnson Space Center lie in areas that could be vulnerable to wind and damaging floodwaters if Ike crashes ashore as a major hurricane.

Airlines canceled flights to the region.

American Airlines is canceling all flights in and out of Houston’s Intercontinental airport as of noon Friday and all day Saturday. Southwest is canceling all flights in and out of Houston’s Hobby airport as of Friday morning.

In Tierra Grande, a low-lying rural neighborhood south of Corpus Christi, residents struggled with the cost of evacuation and the strong pull to stay with their homes and animals. Few, if any, appeared to be leaving.

Diana Acevedo said she and her family considered leaving their double-wide trailer, but they had called around and it was too late to find a place to stay. Looking out at a rickety swingset and tricycle in the front yard, Acevedo said they would pick up loose items and perhaps board windows like some of her neighbors.

“I think it’s going to get really bad,” she said. In previous heavy rains, water filled with sewage from flooded septic tanks has lapped near her door, more than two feet off the ground.

About 1 million people live in the coastal counties between Corpus Christi and Galveston.

Hurricane winds extend 115 miles
Ike is a Category 2 storm with 100 mph winds and could grow to a ferocious Category 4 on the five-step intensity scale with winds of 132 mph before coming ashore late Friday or early Saturday, the National Hurricane Center said.

NBC WeatherPlus meteorologist Bill Karins emphasized that Ike looks like it will make landfall “into the most densely populated region on the Gulf Coast.

“This is a very large hurricane with significant impacts expected far from the eye’s landfall,” he added. “With our weather computers settling on a landfall just south of the greater Houston/Galveston area, the extent of damage will be determined by Ike’s intensity as he moves onshore. A strong Category 3 is predicted by the National Hurricane Center but Ike could just as easily be a Cat 2 or Cat 4.”

At 8 p.m. ET, the storm was centered about 370 miles southeast of Galveston, and was moving to the west-northwest at 12 mph, after ravaging homes in Cuba and killing dozens of people in the Caribbean.

“The center of Ike should be very near the coast by late Friday,” the hurricane center reported. “However, because Ike is a very large tropical cyclone weather will deteriorate along the coastline before the center reaches the coast.”

Hurricane warnings were in effect over a 400-mile stretch of coastline from south of Corpus Christi to Morgan City, Louisiana. Tropical storm warnings extended south almost to the Mexican border and east to the Mississippi-Alabama line, including New Orleans.

In Louisiana, where Gustav was blamed for 29 deaths, officials closed flood gates and state offices along the coast.

“Today would be a good time for folks to fuel up their cars, just to make sure they have sufficient supplies,” Gov. Bobby Jindal said, adding the state corrections department had evacuated about 1,400 prisoners from Cameron and Calcasieu parishes in the state’s southwest.

‘Dirty’ side of the storm
Forecasters expect the storm to make landfall somewhere between Corpus Christi and Houston, creating the potential for heavy punishment for Houston even if it’s not hit directly.

If current projections of the storm’s path hold up, the area surrounding Houston would be lashed by the eastern or “dirty” side of the storm, said meteorologist Jeff Masters, co-founder of the Weather Underground forecasting service. This stronger side of the storm often packs heavy rains, walloping storm surge and tornadoes.

“I expect a lot of damage in Houston from this storm,” said Masters, adding that Ike could cause a “huge storm surge” affecting at least 100 miles of the Texas coast.

Houston officials were expecting some flooding, the question is how much.

Patrick Trahan, spokesman for the city of Houston, said that “based on the current forecast (we) would expect to see some flooding based solely on the surge in some low-lying areas.”

The surge in Galveston Bay could push floodwaters into Houston, damaging areas that include the nation’s biggest refinery and NASA’s Johnson Space Center, which closed down Thursday as a precaution.

Port, refineries threatened
The Port of Houston, the nation’s second largest port, shut down operations Thursday afternoon and was to remain closed until Monday.

The oil and gas industry also watched the storm closely, fearing damage to the very heart of its operations. Nearly the entire oil and gas output in the Gulf of Mexico was shut off as a precaution.

Some 11 refineries along the coast have shut down their operations, accounting for 2.8 million barrels per day or more than 16 percent of the nation’s fuel production capacity.

Supply concerns sent wholesale gasoline prices soaring to record levels between $4 and $5 a gallon Thursday. That means retailers will pay more for gasoline, and consumers can expect hikes at the pump. How much gas prices rise, analysts say, depends largely on how long refineries remain shuttered after the storm passes.

“The worst case scenario for the hurricane season is what we’re looking at with Ike,” said Chris Jarvis, senior analyst at Caprock Management. “This is the one area that is very much the Achilles’ heel of the energy complex.”

Texas is home to 26 refineries that account for one-fourth of U.S. refining capacity, and most are clustered along the Gulf Coast in such places as Houston, Port Arthur and Corpus Christi. Exxon Mobil Corp.’s plant in Baytown, outside Houston, is the nation’s largest refinery.

Refineries are built to withstand high winds, but flooding can disrupt operations and — as happened in Louisiana after Hurricane Gustav — power outages can shut down equipment for days or weeks.

Dow Chemical and BASF have huge operations that were being shut down as a precaution as well.

In the Florida Panhandle, Ike pushed up storm surge that flooded a highway on Okaloosa Island as the storm passed in the Gulf. U.S. Highway 98 was closed, and was expected to stay closed through Saturday. The Panhandle, where surf was up to 5 feet higher than usual in some places, also was under a high surf warning, and emergency officials urged beach-goers to stay out of the rough water.

Source — MSNBC

(CNN) – The Texas and Louisiana Gulf coasts hunkered down early Tuesday as Tropical Storm Edouard gained strength with landfall only hours away.

Winds from the storm’s outer bands were lashing parts of the shoreline before dawn Tuesday and some additional strengthening was expected.

At 5 a.m. ET Tuesday, the center of the tropical storm — the fifth one this season — was about 50 miles (80 km) southeast of Port Arthur, Texas and about 85 miles (135 km) east of Galveston, Texas, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

Edouard was moving west at nearly 12 mph (19 km/hr), while its maximum sustained winds were near 65 mph (100 km/hr), with higher gusts, the center said. Tropical storm force winds extended up to 70 miles (110 km) from the center.

The hurricane center said the storm was moving west-northwest in the Gulf of Mexico and probably will be near hurricane strength when its center reaches the coast near the Texas-Louisiana state line before midday.

A tropical storm warning was in effect from the mouth of the Mississippi River west to Port O’Connor, Texas. The warning means that tropical storm conditions are expected in the warning area within 24 hours.

A hurricane watch, which means hurricane conditions are possible within 36 hours, was in effect from west of Intracoastal City, Louisiana, to Port O’Connor.

The U.S. Census Bureau on Monday said more than 5.4 million people could be affected by the storm, which started as a depression in the Gulf of Mexico early Sunday afternoon.

Edouard is expected to dump up to 5 inches of rain along the Louisiana coast, and “maximum amounts of 10 inches are possible over southeastern Texas,” the hurricane center advisory said.

As the storm approached, Galveston Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas said the city has activated its emergency management center.

The Gulf Coast city’s Web site warned residents to create an evacuation plan in case they have to flee the storm.

Thomas said Galveston’s city hall will be closed Tuesday for the storm, but emergency workers would be working and ready.

Authorities in Houston, about 50 miles north of Galveston, also said they were prepared for the storm.

“Everything is in place,” said Ed Emmett, director of the office of Homeland Security in the county that encompasses Houston.

Emmett said 200 buses, 19 ambulances, numerous shelters and helicopters were ready in case there is need for the evacuation of homes or hospitals.

Source — CNN

(CNN) – Tropical Storm Edouard is not expected to make landfall in Texas until Tuesday morning, but forecasters warned the storm could spawn tornadoes as soon as Monday evening.

Forecasters expanded warnings early Monday along the Gulf Coast in Texas as Edouard picked up speed.

A tropical storm warning was in effect from the mouth of the Mississippi River, just south of New Orleans, Louisiana, to Port O’Connor, Texas.

A warning means that tropical storm conditions are expected within the warning area within 24 hours.

A hurricane watch, which means hurricane conditions are possible within 36 hours, was in effect from west of Intracoastal City, Louisiana, to Port O’Connor.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida, said in its 2 p.m. ET advisory, “Isolated tornadoes are possible over portions of southern Louisiana and the upper Texas coast later today and tonight.”

Despite the threat of inclement weather, Edouard seemed to be causing few problems in the Gulf of Mexico, where employees on thousands of oil rigs and platforms produce and search for oil.

The price of oil dropped $3.69 Monday to settle at $121.41 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

“That’s going to be a nonevent,” said Tom Orr, head of research for Weeden & Co. “It’s moving away from oil-producing facilities.”

Some companies reported minor disruptions and small-scale evacuations, but others said Edouard posed no threat to their workers, some of whom are more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) offshore.

ConocoPhillips said Edouard is not disrupting its exploration or production activities. Shell Oil reported that it had evacuated about 40 personnel from its operations in the western Gulf, but the company didn’t expect any impact to its production activities.

Rowan Cos., a drilling outfit with nine rigs in the Gulf, left most of its workers in place, except on its rig about 30 miles off the coast of Galveston, Texas. Employees also were preparing for flooding at a company shipyard in the Sabine Pass, on the Texas-Louisiana border.

Rowan spokesman Bill Provine said Monday morning that one of its rigs was in Edouard’s eye and employees were reporting winds of about 35 mph.

“They’re probably shooting pool or probably eating,” Provine said of the rig workers. “It’s not a big deal.”

Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. also expects to evacuate a rig outside Galveston, said Senior Vice President Gary Krenek.

Richard LeBlanc, spokesman for ENSCO International Inc., said the storm formed too quickly to evacuate workers but said oil rigs in the Gulf were designed to withstand tropical storms.

“We’ve certainly ridden out much tougher storms than this,” he said.

Edouard’s center could be “very near the upper Texas coast or the coast of southwestern Louisiana by Tuesday morning,” according to the hurricane advisory.

“Edouard could be nearing hurricane strength before reaching the coastline,” it said.

The storm started as a depression Sunday in the Gulf of Mexico.

At 2 p.m. ET, the center of the tropical storm — the fifth one this season — was about 145 miles south-southeast of Lafayette, Louisiana, and about 240 miles east-southeast of Galveston, the hurricane center said.

The storm was moving west-northwest at nearly 8 mph. Its maximum sustained winds were near 45 mph, with higher gusts, the hurricane center said.

Tropical storm-force winds extend up to 45 miles from the center.

Edouard is expected to dump up to 5 inches of rain along the Louisiana coast, and “maximum amounts of 10 inches are possible over southeastern Texas,” the hurricane center said.

Source — CNN