I Don't Like Ike

...because this thing is going to barrel straight up the Galveston Bay ship channel, and it's going to screw Houston over. First priority is the people of Texas, and from what I've been hearing and reading, a lot of folks in Houston and Galveston decided to stay. The storm was heading for Corpus Christi, not Houston. It's too late for a lot of folks right now. The loss of life and damage could be catastrophic.

Massive Hurricane Ike bore down on the Texas coast on Friday, driving a wall of water into seaside communities and threatening catastrophic damage.

Waters rose rapidly as Ike moved within hours of striking low-lying areas near Houston with a possible 20-foot (6-metre) storm surge in what may be the worst storm to hit Texas in nearly 50 years

"Our nation is facing what is by any means a potentially catastrophic hurricane," said U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, warning that Ike's storm surge could present the gravest danger.

"This certainly falls in the category of pretty much a worst case scenario."

But the rest of the country could be in for a hell of a gas shock. Houston/Galveston up to Port Arthur is Refinery Row for up to a quarter of America's total refining capacity. As the Scholars and Rogues guys explain:

This map shows the 6 meter (20 foot) flood zone from sea level rise. It’s likely the worst-case for the storm surge. Feel free to scroll around, especially up to Port Arthur on the Texas-Louisiana border.

This site has all the oil refineries in the US on it. Zoom in on the Houston area and compare the two maps. If you look closely at Texas City, between Galveston and Houston, and well within the 20 foot flood zone, you’ll find three refineries - BP Products North America, Marathon Petroleum, and Valero - and there’s another close to Houston that might also be flooded, depending on how big the surge is when it reaches the Houston Ship Channel - ExxonMobil Refining.

If you drag the refining map over to Port Arthur, there’s two more that might be hit of the storm surge gets into Sabine Lake (unlikely, but possible) - Valero’s Port Arthur Refinery and Motiva Enterprises.

The three at highest risk combine to refine 798,000 barrels of oil a day. Add the ExxonMobil refinery and that jumps to 1.384 million barrels of oil per day. And if the two Port Arthur refineries I mentioned are damaged, then that’s another 565,000 barrels per day.

And if we include the other four refineries that are out of the flood zone but still in high wind damage areas (i.e. Houston), that’s yet another 860,000 barrels per day of oil refining capacity. Outside the flood area of Port Arthur are two more refineries with another 603,000 barrels of capacity at risk.

All told, Ike has the potential to directly damage via storm surge, wind, and rain-driven flooding 12 refineries in Houston and East Texas that combine to refine 3.412 million barrels of oil per day. As of the end of last week, the EIA data says that total barrels of oil refined in the U.S. was 13.483 million barrels. These 12 refineries at risk represent 25.3% of the entire U.S. refining capacity.

That refining capacity could be offline for weeks, if not months.

Worst case scenario and these refineries are heavily damaged for months? Gas prices at or above $5 a gallon nationally. Strategic oil reserves will do nothing for refining capacity. This means gas shortages in the South and Midwest, quite possibly.

The GOP will certainly say DRILL DRILL DRILL DRILL and still expect you to vote for them. Remember that when the scope of the failure here become apparent.