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Area industry battens down for Rita
Published September 21, 2005
Brazoria County industry officials were moving Tuesday to protect life and property as Hurricane Rita set its sights on the Texas coast.
On Tuesday afternoon, National Hurricane Center projections set Rita on a collision course with Brazoria County — possibly as a Category 4 hurricane — by the weekend.
Storm surge protection panels were lowered into place on Tuesday at Port Freeport at the request of Velasco Drainage District officials, port Executive Director Pete Reixach said.
The panels, about 4 feet high, ring the embankments around the port. Port workers practice lowering them during annual drills, Reixach said.
Port tenants are no longer receiving cargo for outgoing vessels and are taking steps to protect valuable cargo already in place, he said.
All officials and non-essential port employees will evacuate, but a skeleton crew will remain, Reixach said.
“There would be time where the port would be shut down, although there would be some folks close by or in a protected area to make sure people don’t get in and so forth,” Reixach said.
ConocoPhillips has assembled “ride-out crews” among its 900 employees, or groups who will man the company’s facilities in Old Ocean, spokeswoman Regina Slaydon said.
Officials still were monitoring Rita’s progress Tuesday, Slaydon said.
“It’s business as usual, but we are maintaining communication with the Brazoria County Office of Emergency Management and we are preparing to bring the units down based on predicted destination and landfall,” she said.
BASF dismissed all non-essential personnel from its Freeport site at 4 p.m. Tuesday, according to a press release from spokeswoman Sharon Rogers.
Officials will continue monitoring Rita’s forecasted impact in the area before deciding whether to shut down the plant, Rogers said.
“A group of trained employees will remain at the site to oversee operations and to enact precautionary measures if Hurricane Rita were to make landfall in this area,” Rogers’ statement reads.
Dow Texas Operations spokesman Dave Winder said officials had been monitoring Rita since it formed during the weekend.
“Since then, we’ve been preparing for a possible impact to our site by following our emergency weather plans,” Winder said.
All non-essential employees were sent home Tuesday, Winder said. As Rita closes in, officials will decide when employees needed to maintain operations may leave, he said.
Innovene’s Chocolate Bayou plant heightened its alert status Tuesday afternoon, providing the plant’s 800 company and contract employees with phone numbers to call to check in after the storm has passed, spokesman Dan Cummings said.
The BP subsidiary plans to send non-essential employees at its League City offices home this afternoon, he said.
Innovene officials still hadn’t decided Tuesday whether employees would vacate the Chocolate Bayou plant, Cummings said.
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