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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (252063)	9/20/2005 1:41:29 AM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1573857

Economic impact. It depends on where it hits. If anything, the Texas Gulf coast refines more petrochemicals than Louisiana. The port of Houston is pretty big too, although not as big as New Orleans. The Texas Medical Center is one of the premier medical centers in the world, and is built in an incredibly stupid place. And then there are all the natural gas, oil and refined product pipelines that come through the area. The pipelines themselves are pretty safe, but the pumping stations need electricity. Safe to say that a major hurricane hitting New Orleans and and another hitting the right place in the Houston area in short order could cut the refined petrochemicals produced in this country in half. Or more. It would also cripple our ability to import and ship a large fraction of the pipeline products. Needless to say, it will put a serious crimp in the national economy. I wonder at what point recalling the tax cuts and stopping the war in Iraq won't be enough to reverse the huge financial drain caused by these storms, assuming, of course, that Rita makes landfall in TX. ted

To: combjelly who wrote (252063)	9/20/2005 7:12:15 AM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1573857

re: I'm willing to bet our new FEMA doesn't have even the sketchiest plan to deal with that. I doubt it. Mixed reviews on Rita... pretty good unanimity on the path (for this far out), but disagreements on the strength. My guess is that, after Katrina, they will over-react and close the refineries even if it appears the storm is going to peter out of go somewhere else. That's the thing with hurricanes... you can't act on the assumption that everyone is going to be a Katrina (a 40 year storm), or the hugely expensive evacuations would kill the local economies. John