The Oil Drum

54 comments on Resource Page--UPDATED for Landfall

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marko on September 20, 2005 - 3:57pm

My understanding is that, in a hurricane moving west or northwest, the strongest winds and the highest storm surge are in the eyewall on the north or northeast side of the eye, since that is where the motion of the hurricane itself adds to the windspeed.

So a landfall of the eye just south of Galveston could be the worst-case scenario for Galveston, Galveston Bay, and the refineries just north of Galveston Bay.

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Ben on September 20, 2005 - 4:05pm

Yes, it would basically shove the storm surge straight up the Houston ship channel if that were to happen (seems to me)

I guess what their industry insider is saying is that there are even MORE refineries / operations east of Houston and toward Louisiana that would be more spared as the storm tracks further west and south (if that makes ANY sense at all)

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mw on September 22, 2005 - 10:44pm

Rigzone has a somewhat descriptive article providing a little more detail on what Rita might hit:

On her journey, Rita will start out passing through the frontier areas of Walker Ridge and Keathley Canyon. From there, she will continue to move northwest across the eastern portions of Garden Banks and the western portions of Green Canyon. These two areas contain a total of only about 40 offshore platforms, but all of these are major deepwater projects such as Kerr McGee's Red Hawk spar and ConocoPhillips' Magnolia field.
After passing through these deepwater areas, Rita will begin to push onto the shallower waters of the continental shelf, first reaching the southern additions of South Marsh, Vermillion, East Cameron and West Cameron. Rita is them likely to continue across the rest of the West Cameron area and reach large portions of the High Island and Galveston areas before making landfall east of the Houston area.
West Cameron, situated south of Lake Charles, LA to the TX-LA border, is likely to be one of the areas hardest hit by Rita and will most likely see some of the worst damage to its offshore installations. This area is one of the most most actively producing and explored areas in the Gulf of Mexico. It has the third highest number of unmanned offshore platforms and the fifth highest number of manned platforms of any area in the GOM, with a total of 292 unmanned and 88 manned platforms. Additionally, there are a total of 22 mobile offshore drilling rigs in the West Cameron area, including 19 jackups, 2 submersibles, and 1 platform rig. Of those rigs, 10 of them are owned and managed by TODCO, The Offshore Drilling Company, which is the rig manager with the most rigs facing possible damage from Rita.
In addition to 22 rigs located in West Cameron, there are another 50+ rigs in the areas that are likely to be affected by Rita. A total of 16 semisubmersible rigs are located in the Walker Ridge, Garden Banks, and Green Canyon areas that Rita will be passing through late Thursday and early Friday morning. Closer to shore, there are 25 jackup rigs in the areas of High Island, East Cameron, Vermilion, and Galveston that will be catching much of the force of Rita mid-to-late-day on Friday.

http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=25480&rss=true