Category 3 Hurricane Headed For Texas

[Raw Shark]

Regarding the ice thing, I guess I didn't think that through very well. Sorry if I offended anybody who has diabetes or whatever.

@Flagg: You almost make me want to believe in a God. A pissed-off, vengeful God who remembers what you did in your last life and sends fire ants to sting your dick but not mine.

[TheFeniX]

Stories like Flagg's are why I avoid, or I get out of very fast, water in between stomach-high and thigh-high. Worst I had was riding my bike through a flooded area years back and my foot pedal came down right as a floating colony passed underneath. When agitated, Fire Ants are quick on the draw.

Semi-related: I don't touch my junk while pissing if I've been in the woods due to poison oak and ivy.

I am sure glad I'm a Northerner and consequently, after Sandy, did not need to deal with roving ant mobs... WTF?

You guys got Guinea Wasps up there? I hear they get pretty far North these days. They can be an issue after big storms if they get displaced.

You have to poke at Fire Ants to piss them off. Guinea Wasps were just born angry and dial it up to 11 when they realize you exist. Pile on the insanity of a major storm and they just want to watch the world burn. After.... Ike? I decided to try out some fishing after the water started to recede. There were some holed up in a rusty part of a fence. When I just got near it BAM!, I thought someone drove a nail into my wrist, all the way to the center. If there had been any kind of noise to go with it, I would have assumed I'd been shot.

Dropped my tackle-box in response to the pain. That nest got half a bottle of poison and I couldn't be bothered to hold a fishing-rod for long after that. Throbbing joint pain for about 3 days. In St. Croix they call them Jackhammers: it's an incredibly fitting name. I kill them on sight. Since we can't use poisons while sampling (for obvious reasons) a combination of any covalent soap and water kills them relatively quickly and we need the "good stuff" for decontamination procedures anyway.

Luckily, they are rare in my current area for some reason. I assume the Mockingbirds killed them all because they are truly the only thing in nature more foul-tempered than Guinea Wasps.

[Dragon Angel]

You guys got Guinea Wasps up there? I hear they get pretty far North these days. They can be an issue after big storms if they get displaced.

You have to poke at Fire Ants to piss them off. Guinea Wasps were just born angry and dial it up to 11 when they realize you exist. Pile on the insanity of a major storm and they just want to watch the world burn. After.... Ike? I decided to try out some fishing after the water started to recede. There were some holed up in a rusty part of a fence. When I just got near it BAM!, I thought someone drove a nail into my wrist, all the way to the center. If there had been any kind of noise to go with it, I would have assumed I'd been shot.

Dropped my tackle-box in response to the pain. That nest got half a bottle of poison and I couldn't be bothered to hold a fishing-rod for long after that. Throbbing joint pain for about 3 days. In St. Croix they call them Jackhammers: it's an incredibly fitting name. I kill them on sight. Since we can't use poisons while sampling (for obvious reasons) a combination of any covalent soap and water kills them relatively quickly and we need the "good stuff" for decontamination procedures anyway.

Luckily, they are rare in my current area for some reason. I assume the Mockingbirds killed them all because they are truly the only thing in nature more foul-tempered than Guinea Wasps.

They weren't in my area around that time, but they're probably in the more rural sections of Long Island. Now I'm no longer in Long Island so I probably won't need to deal with them there.

...but if they're in Pennsylvania, ah fuck no no no no.

[CetaMan]

Good luck I guess, only thing I can compare to this is being in really bad lightning storms, but Hurricanes probably top those quite a bit.

[Flagg]

Good luck I guess, only thing I can compare to this is being in really bad lightning storms, but Hurricanes probably top those quite a bit.

I've been in plenty of both and Hurricanes are so much worse. And except for the feeder bands (the edges of the storm) there isn't much lightning. You will see flashes and hear booms, but those are from transformers on telephone poles exploding.

[Flagg]

Stories like Flagg's are why I avoid, or I get out of very fast, water in between stomach-high and thigh-high. Worst I had was riding my bike through a flooded area years back and my foot pedal came down right as a floating colony passed underneath. When agitated, Fire Ants are quick on the draw.

Yeah, same here. I just didn't realize half their yard had been eroded and gone into the canal. TBH I got lucky, after the water started soaking in and draining off I saw that about 10 feet to the left I'd have fallen and likely slid down and fallen about 30 feet into an alligator and illegally dumped appliances and cars infested canal that was running like one of those flash floods in LA and you'd all have the pleasure of not knowing me.

What fooled me into thinking the yard was fine was that there was maybe a 6 inch "lip" with the guard rail still seeming intact except for a 15 or so foot section of no soil but guard rail up over a 6 foot deep gap. Why the water wasn't gushing through it I have no fucking idea.

[FaxModem1]

My San Antonio

Texas gas stations start to run dry as drivers panic
By Jennifer Hiller, Caleb Downs and Rye Druzin Updated 7:23 pm, Thursday, August 31, 2017

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The H-E-B gas station at 5770 West loop 1604 at Culebra closed Thursday afternoon on Aug. 31, 2017. Photo: Sig Christenson
Photo: Sig Christenson
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The H-E-B gas station at 5770 West loop 1604 at Culebra closed Thursday afternoon on Aug. 31, 2017.
Concern over shuttered refineries and disrupted pipelines erupted into a full-blown panic and run on gasoline across Texas cities that left more than 100 stations in San Antonio dry Thursday evening.
Energy experts have had no worries — in theory — that Texas would run out of gasoline in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, but that didn’t matter on the ground at gas stations, where a run-on-the-bank scenario meant that many places actually did run out of fuel, at least temporarily.
Lines stretched through parking lots and into streets, blocking traffic, and tempers flared along with rising gas prices.
At several San Antonio gas stations, frustrated drivers got out of their cars to yell at each other. At one, a woman physically planted herself in front of a car to prevent it from cutting the line while another woman screamed at a car that had managed to sneak in.
Now Playing: Drivers line up for gas in San Antonio
Lines extend to the streets on Wednesday, Aug. 31, as gas stations run low after Harvey.
Media: JW Player
Several were out of fuel Thursday morning. By afternoon, word of the “sold out” signs spread on social media and drivers began flocking to the pumps.
The number of gas stations reportedly without fuel in San Antonio rose fast — from seven stations early Thursday afternoon to 95 by rush hour, according to data compiled by the gas price tracker GasBuddy. By 6:20 p.m., that number climbed to 123.
Cars were lined up 15 to 20 deep at a Costco in San Antonio, and were five deep at a 7-Eleven Exxon station on the Northside, where the owner said she ran out of gas twice in the last 48 hours.
“I have no control over mother nature,” Ravneet Dhillon said she told one frustrated customer. Her supplier said the outages will “go on for some time,” she said.
The run on gas wasn’t just in San Antonio. Lines four and five cars deep were forming at gas stations in Laredo, and there were reports that drivers in Dallas were in a similar panic. San Antonio schools warned parents in a text alert that buses may be delayed by 30 minutes or more Friday morning due to “congestion around gas stations.”
A cascade of refinery shut downs along the Texas Gulf Coast has disrupted the supply of gasoline in the U.S. market, and the Colonial Pipeline, the biggest fuel system in the U.S., shut down its main line Thursday. The first refineries to close were in Corpus Christi and South Texas in advance of Harvey’s landfall in Rockport last Friday.
The Port of Corpus Christi — a key point for shipping crude oil — reopened Thursday, though, clearing the way for those refineries to restart. The port in Houston was reopening, too, on a limited basis, but plants in Beaumont/Port Arthur were closed and still flooded.
“People are freaking out,” said Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst with GasBuddy, adding the run on gas was “like a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
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“If there’s a shortage, it’s going to be inflicted by people who are filling up,” DeHaan said. “It could lengthen the amount of time there’s a shortage, it could increases prices, it could cause a complete outage of gasoline for several days.”
Like grocery stores, gas stations are designed for normal consumption — they can’t handle it when everyone shows up at the same time to buy canned goods, bottled water and gasoline for all of their cars and spare gas cans.
Karr Ingham, an oil and gas economist based in Amarillo, said it will take the industry two to three weeks to get everything running smoothly again. He’s not concerned about a lasting shortage of refined products, but said human psychology is a problem.
“I’m not an alarmist about gasoline supply,” Ingham said. “What I am an alarmist about is all of these other people freaking out.”
Texas Railroad Commissioner Ryan Sitton spent much of his day Thursday trying to assure Texans that there are plenty of refined products available in Texas, and more will be moving into the market soon. He said he was much more concerned about reports of fistfights at gas stations than the idea that gasoline won’t be available.
“There really isn’t a reason to panic,” Sitton said. “The lines create more panic, which means more people get into line, which creates more panic. It’s like this self-fulfilling prophesy.”
Mayor Ron Nirenberg chimed in too.
“Please purchase gas as you would normally do,” he said in a statement. “Don’t be misled by social media, which is causing people to panic and purchase more gas than necessary.”
San Antonio resident Jeremy Garcia, 31, said he tried to fill up at two stations after work Wednesday, but both were out of gas.
“I woke up this morning with an empty tank,” he said Thursday, adding that he planned on filling up his SUV, truck and spare gas cans as soon as he could find a station with gas.
Leroy Belk tried six different gas stations before he ran out of fuel at the H-E-B at Wurzbach and Interstate 10. He waited in line for over an hour before making it to a pump, having to physically push his car a few feet every 5 minutes or so.
“Everyone's looking at what's happening on Facebook,” Belk said.
Frank Barrera went to eight gas stations on the south side before making the trip up north and enduring the huge lines and occasional shouting match.
“You think this is bad? Go to the South Side,” Barrera said. “Everyone is fighting.”
The manager of a 7-Eleven near Loop 410 and Vance Jackson, who identified himself only as Sonu, frantically directed traffic at his station and said his reserves were nearly depleted.
About one-fifth of the nation’s refining capacity was shut down for Harvey, and the refinery outages were causing gasoline prices to rise.
AAA reported Thursday that gasoline hit its highest recorded average price for 2017 at $2.45 for a gallon of regular unleaded.
Average prices were $2.33 on Aug. 21, the last reading given by AAA before Hurricane Harvey ravaged the Gulf Coast and numerous refineries along it. The Department of Energy reported at 3 p.m. Thursday that 10 Gulf Coast refineries with more than 3 million barrels of daily capacity remained shut down.
“Consumers will see a short-term spike in the coming weeks with gas prices likely topping $2.50/gal, but quickly dropping by mid to late September,” said AAA spokeswoman Jeanette Casselano in a news release. “AAA does not expect refineries to be offline for months, as early reports indicate minimal to no significant damage to Corpus Christi and Houston refineries.”
Moody’s Analytics said the gas price hikes could last through the rest of of this quarter and into next, and there’s a serious risk that refineries sustained damage. “The one advantage now is that there is more of a cushion in inventories than when Katrina hit. Still, wholesale gasoline prices have risen, foreshadowing further increases in prices at the pump,” Moody’s said.
Rob Smith of IHS Markit said some refineries could be down for a month, though the extent of the damage remains unclear. “The broader system is flexible to some extent. Other refineries make up the slack,” Smith said.
There’s also gasoline in storage - though much of that is in the Houston area - and European refiners already have launched a fleet with products bound for the U.S. Smith said that refiners will come back online in Corpus Christi, followed by the Houston area. The fleet of European refined goods will arrive in the U.S. in a few weeks. “It will start to normalize,” Smith said.
For now, Steve Boyd of Houston-based wholesale fuels and lubricant distributor Sun Coast Resources, Inc., said the shutdown of multiple refineries is having a “trickle down effect” as distribution terminals the refineries serve run dry.
“There is a shortage of fuel currently and I would project the shortages would continue for a couple of weeks if not longer,” said Boyd, a senior managing director at Sun Coast.
Retailers tried to reassure customers.
Craig Boyan, H-E-B president and chief operating officer, said the San Antonio supermarket chain is “pulling fuel from several states away” to replenish its stations. Michael Strauss, director of retail operations for H-E-B’s west San Antonio region, said a store on the West Side ran out of gas Thursday morning but a truck was en route to refill the tanks.
“We have run out but not for long periods of time,” Strauss said.
H-E-B spokeswoman Dya Campos said the unprecedented scale of Harvey has led to temporary disruptions and the grocer is “replenishing as fast as we can.”
Employees at multiple Exxon, Chevron and 7-Eleven stations on the North Side reported early Thursday that they were out of gas and have not received their scheduled shipments. They said they had no time frame for when they would receive more fuel, and that San Antonio is not a priority for gas delivery at this time.
Valero Energy Corp., the largest U.S. refinery, was delivering fuel to its branded stores in San Antonio and Austin at “slightly reduced volumes” after shuttering its Corpus Christi and Three Rivers refineries during the storm, said spokeswoman Lillian Riojas. But the company expected to resume a normal delivery schedule as those refineries come fully back online over the next several days, she said.
More than 20 percent of U.S. refining capacity shut down because of Hurricane Harvey, which swept across hundreds of miles of the Texas Gulf Coast — the core of the U.S. refining industry.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Thursday tapped the federal Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help offset the fuel shortages. The Department of Energy said it will deliver a million barrels of crude oil to refineries that are still operating as normal.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is the largest of its kind in the world — an emergency fuel storage of petroleum underground in Texas and Louisiana. It currently holds around 695 million barrels.
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which hit Louisiana and Mississippi, 11 million barrels of oil was sold out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Shipping and pipeline flows were disrupted, but the logistics system for moving oil and other products was trying to normalize. Tankers were waiting off the the coasts of Corpus Christi, Freeport, Texas City, Houston and Galveston, as well as off of Sabine Pass and Lake Charles, Louisiana., according to the Department of Energy.
The biggest question marks are around the refineries in the Beaumont-Port Arthur area.
The energy-focused investment bank Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. said in a note to clients that the mega-refineries shut down in the Beaumont/Port Arthur area include the Motiva plant, which has a capacity to refine 603,000 barrels per day, plus two plants, Exxon Mobil and Valero, which can process between 350,000 to 400,000 barrels per day of crude oil. Thus, “any thus any prolonged outages could meaningfully impact refined product supply,” the bank said.
Colonial Pipeline shut down a key line that supplies gasoline to the South and East Coast. The Georgia-based company had already closed down its other main line, which transports diesel and aviation fuels. It’s crucial artery in the nation’s fuel supply network, provides nearly 40 percent of the South’s gasoline, running from the Houston area to the New York harbor.
That move drove up U.S. gasoline wholesale prices above $2 a gallon for the first time since July 2015.
While fuel prices rallied, crude markets were stumbling. With refineries across Texas closed, oil demand has dropped, putting pressure on prices from West Texas Intermediate to Brent. WTI was down 1.7 percent this week.
Boyd said in order to make up any shortfalls, distributors will be bringing in fuel from unaffected states while imports will make up the difference. He said large operators like Valero will do “whatever is necessary” to keep their stations fueled.
Independent dealers, though, may be last on the list.
At least a few people were wondering what all the fuss was about.
Karen McManuis, a local real estate agent, was walking into the H-E-B when she stopped to ponder the madness occurring before her eyes at the gas pumps.
“What do they think will happen?” McManius asked herself. “We'll never have gas again? I know it was a horrible storm but why panic like this?”
Staff writer Joshua Fetcher, Guillermo Contreras, Diana Fuentes, the Associated Press, Bloomberg News and the Houston Chronicle contributed to this report.

Gas runs, yay.

[Flagg]

Yeah, that happens. Surprised it took this long. With Labor Day weekend and Harvey I figure prices across the nation will be artificially jacked up quite a bit.

[Gaidin]

Meanwhile while FEMA is busy these predictions are starting to shore up instead of change every day.

[Elheru Aran]

It's not going to be near even Florida until like Saturday or Sunday, so I'm waiting. I have folks down in the Savannah area, but they came through Matthew just fine last year apart from losing some power. Sucks to be in the Caribbean, though.

[Flagg]

Thusly why I left America's wang. 4 major hurricanes (2 hitting the same place aka my hometown in the span of a month with hurricane force winds lasting 18 hours, then the 3 weeks without power or water was worse) in one year was enough. I have friends and family (the friends I'm worried about, the family not so much ) all along the east coast of Florida.

If this cunt of a storm does the usual "right hook" I think it will go north, skirting more or less right up the FL coast. Any of you poor bastards in the target area, good luck and try to stay safe.

[Flagg]

Regarding the ice thing, I guess I didn't think that through very well. Sorry if I offended anybody who has diabetes or whatever.

@Flagg: You almost make me want to believe in a God. A pissed-off, vengeful God who remembers what you did in your last life and sends fire ants to sting your dick but not mine.

I've had more than one doctor flat out tell me that I was the most unlucky person they'd ever met. True story.

[Raw Shark]

and you'd all have the pleasure of not knowing me.

Yeah, we should all be so lucky.

[Flagg]

and you'd all have the pleasure of not knowing me.

Yeah, we should all be so lucky.

Yeah, my bad luck is so bad that you wouldn't feel lucky.

[Raw Shark]

Yeah, my bad luck is so bad that you wouldn't feel lucky

Yeah, I know. You're one of the reasons that I suspect there might be an angry God, because if there wasn't, hed've just hauled off and fucked me up by now.