Well my cousin(petroleum engineer by trade) could not get out of houston in time and had to ride out the storm. He did not loose the utilities.
I talked to him this morning and he said their plant(they make the chemicals for gas processing) did not shut down during the storm. He reports no damage at the refinery complexes along the ship channel. In boumont/portathour there is damage but they should be up in less then a week. Houston plants can run now but they lack the personel to run.
Right now it looks like it is the lack of people that will slow down every thing. This is some good news out of horrible situation.

Now I hope the people can just get their homes repaired. Best of luck to them.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,170317,00.html

FOXNews.com - Gov't Hopeful Refineries Escaped Danger
Gov't Hopeful Refineries Escaped Danger
Saturday, September 24, 2005

WASHINGTON  — Federal officials were "cautiously optimistic" Saturday that one
of the largest concentrations of Texas refineries near Houston escaped serious
damage as Hurricane Rita veered farther to the east.
But the Energy Department said it was too soon to assess the impact of
the storm on a cluster of refineries in the Port Arthur-Beaumont area
that caught the direct impact of the hurricane as it came ashore.
Based on computer modeling and initial reports, department spokesman Craig
Stevens said, "We're cautiously optimistic about (the Houston) ... region" and
"that the petroleum supply will be OK."
"But we really need to look at the Port Arthur region and other areas directly
impacted. ... It may still be two or three days before we get a sense of the
actual picture," he said.
The Houston and Texas City area has nine refineries with a combined capacity to
process 2.3 million barrels of crude a day. Four refineries in Port Arthur and
nearby Beaumont have a 1.7 million barrel a day capacity.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (search), R-Texas., was told Saturday by some Port
Arthur area officials that they were concerned about flooding at some of the
refineries there, according to the senator's spokesman.
Hutchison said on CBS' "Early Show" that she thought the huge ExxonMobil
refinery in Beaumont with a capacity of 348,000 barrels a day, "was
probably OK." She said she was unsure about three refineries in Port Arthur
closer to the coast.
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman has said the government stands ready to
provide additional oil from the government's Strategic Petroleum Reserve should
refiners start up as the storm subsides.
About 90 percent of the Gulf oil production has been shut down either because of
damage from Hurricane Katrina three weeks ago or because of Rita.
Along the Texas coast, 16 of 21 refineries with combined daily capacity of about
4 million barrels a day were closed because of the impending hurricane. That
represents 23.5 percent of the nation's total refinery capacity.
With refineries closed, most pipelines carrying crude or refined products from
the Texas region also were shut, reducing the flow of gasoline, diesel and jet
fuel into the Midwest, the department said.
Meanwhile, three nuclear power plants that had been put on alert because of Rita
continued operating, escaping the storm path by 100 miles, the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission said Saturday.
The South Texas Project twin reactors near Bay City, Texas, were not
affected. One or the units was at 100 percent operation; the other continued a
previously scheduled shutdown for maintenance.
Two reactors owned by Entergy in Louisiana — one near Baton Rouge and the other
20 miles west of New Orleans — were unaffected by the storm and continued full
power operation.

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