Houston storm disrupts chems, knocks power out for thousands

HOUSTON (ICIS)–Powerful thunderstorms in Houston and the Gulf Coast disrupted operations at chemical plants while leaving more than 700,000 without power as of Friday.

The storms hit Houston on Thursday evening. TPC Group reported that severe weather caused a power outage, which led to flaring at its butadiene (BD) operations in Houston.

Power was restored, and operations returned to the site, TPC said in a filing with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).

Lotte Chemical has delayed the restart of its cracker and downstream ethylene glycol (EG) unit in Lake Charles, Louisiana, to next week because of bad weather, according to market sources. Lotte did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The storm created winds of 40-78 miles/hour (64-126 km/hour), according to the National Weather Service.

Such strong winds created widespread power outages throughout the region.

In the late morning, more than 700,000 customers were without power in the Houston area, according to CenterPoint Energy, a power company that is the main transmission company.

Overall, more than 777,000 outages were reported in Texas, according to PowerOutage.us. Another 90,000 outages were reported in Louisiana, another state that is home to several petrochemical plants and refineries.

The winds reached hurricane force in downtown Houston, where many petrochemical companies have corporate offices.

“This was an incredibly dangerous and destructive storm, impacting one of the largest cities and busiest travel hubs in America,” said AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter. “Downtown Houston has not seen wind damage like this since Hurricane Ike in 2008 and Hurricane Alicia in 1983.

The winds were even stronger at greater heights because they experienced less friction from low-lying buildings and trees, according to AccuWeather. Wind gusts of 33 miles/hour near ground level would equate to 80 miles/hour at six stories and 90 miles/hour at 10 stories.

The wind strength at those elevated stories would be the equivalent of a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale.

Preliminary damage estimates from AccuWeather point to $5 billion to $7 billion in total damage and economic loss from the storm in southeast Texas, it said.

So far, major railroad companies have not issued any alerts about disruptions to their lines.

Port Houston said its terminals are operating as usual.

Additional reporting by Adam Yanelli and Melissa Wheeler 

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Photo shows aftermath of the storms that hit Houston. Image by ICIS.