The 3rd largest oil refinery in the US is in the path of Rita.

It is a BP refinery in Texas City, Texas. The projected path is currently for Freeport. Texas City is really close by. There was a spike in prices after a fire there. Imagine this.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/032505_world_stories.shtml



http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/storm_graphics/AT18/refresh/AL1805W5+gif/024155W_sm.gif

Let's see if the Chimp does something for Houston if the unthinkable hits.

But we have a great national surplus of cash for emergencies such as this. :sarcasm:

five dollars six dollars a gallon naiton wide, that means five dollars for milk and at least five for my chicken... hmm damn I can't grow squat on an apartment

IIRC. It was up over $4 after the hurricane and the tanker crash.

isn't it amazing how that made for tv propaganda piece is trackign reality?

That's where the winds are max and the storm surge greatest.

It could wipe out all three of them.

They are already damaged. This is not good, not good at all.

but don't tell anyone....

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=29.727235,-95.257082&spn=0.015188,0.024278&t=k&hl=en

Just an FYI the Houston Ship Channel is pretty much nothing but chemical plants and refineries from Loop 610 down to Galveston Bay.

There are MANY different refineries not just one or two.

Not all of them deal with gasoline or other fuels.

I know that several make resin for plastics.


Many of these plants have been in place since the 1940s or 1950s and operating pretty much continuously.

The really scary thing to me is the thought of storm surge coming in an washing up who knows what out of the various settling ponds etc.


If you click the google maps link below you can see what I mean.

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=29.725402,-95.258825&spn=0.030377,0.048557&t=k&hl=en

The waterway you see mid-screen is the ship channel. On the left the freeway bridge crossing the channel is Loop 610. Freeway near the bottom of the image is TX225. Galveston Bay is way off to your right.

Scroll toward the right and anywhere you see storage tanks is a plant of some sort.

Keep following the lower bank and you will eventually pass the San Jacinto Monument and the battleship Texas. Keep going and you will come to the Texas City refineries or just click the link below.

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=29.371779,-94.914622&spn=0.030484,0.048557&t=k&hl=en

Just an FYI,

TDP

I lived in the area (Baytown/Highlands/Houston) for eight years and never got used to the smell. I'm not saying a smell like sulfur but chemicals that changed to different smells all days and night. These plants are enormous as in miles and miles of tanks, pipelines, other buildings and smoke stacks (for like of a better word).

(I'm not sure where they are all located, but my thinking is, it has to be somewhere that a tanker can unload crude oil and load gasoline.)

Texas' 26 refineries have the capacity to process 4.6 million barrels of crude oil a day, or 26 percent of the U.S. total, according to the Energy Department.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=aHHlqGhDd274&refer=top_world_news

I filled my tank yesterday afternoon, it was at $2.81. I don't drive much and tank of gas last me 6 - 7 weeks. I have small car and it's very good on gas millages.

...Does the Earth as a whole have an "immune system"? :-)

:kick:

I do not see Crawdad on that map.