With the European forecaster ECMWF predicting a bumper hurricane season in 2024 and NOAA’s Atlantic hurricane outlook, it’s time to look at how sites producing and handling chemicals are geared to cope with extreme weather events.
Hurricane Beryl was just the beginning. NOAA predicts an 85% chance of an above-normal 2024 Atlantic hurricane season.
The consequences of damage to these facilities affect not only the safety of workers but have potential impacts on nearby residents and the local environment. Hurricane Beryl was the first to make landfall this season, causing more than 2.7 million households and businesses near the Gulf Coast to lose power.
The Situation in Galveston, Texas
Many of North America’s largest chemical and petrochemical plants can be found along the south US coast, particularly around Galveston Bay, south of Houston, TX. While these facilities are generally built to withstand hurricane-force winds and have operational plans for storm events, managers and public officials are concerned about ensuring the safety of their workers, public health and the environment during extreme weather events.
Legacy Sites, Lurking Risks
It’s not just active plants that are a concern. A variety of toxic waste dumps, abandoned mines and manufacturing facilities (some of which date back over 50 years) are being investigated and remedied by the federal Superfund programme. When Hurricane Harvey, a Category 4 event, struck the Gulf Coast of Texas in August 2017, it released over 40 inches of rain in four days, flooding at least 14 toxic waste Superfund sites that hadn’t yet been secured.
Situation Analysis: Future Risk for Hurricane Exposure, Storm Surge and Sea Level
(Sources and notes linked below*)
Key Hazards
Hurricane safety experts have long warned of the disaster that would ensue if a Category 5 hurricane were to strike the coast at the entrance to Galveston Bay. According to their predictions, a Cat 5 storm in the wrong place could generate a 30-foot surge that would overwhelm coastal defenses, break ship moorings, sever pipelines and rupture chemical storage tanks. This would send a cocktail of chemicals and debris into the local environment and populated areas, home to almost a million people.
Ike Dike to the Rescue
Despite several years of delays, the Ike Dike project is underway, with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announcing in May that it allocated the first $0.5M of an anticipated $57B budget to begin work. A massive system of walls, gates and levees, the Ike Dike will be one of the largest flood prevention systems in the world upon its completion in 2045. In the meantime, plant owners and the public can only hope that existing containment measures are adequate.
Preparing for this Situation: Chemical Safety Expert Insights
3 Takeaways on Chemical Plant Resilience
Inventory and Understand Chemicals: It all depends on the chemicals you work with. Inventory and understand the chemicals in your business, the potential risks of each with different weather events, and the impact they could have on public health and the environment, especially during hurricanes and floods.
Strengthen Infrastructure and Emergency Planning: Ensure your infrastructure is robust and emergency plans are in place to handle hazardous chemicals, which may remain dangerous for decades. Consider reducing chemical inventory during risk periods.
Enhance Communication and Preparedness: Partner with local entities to establish best practices, conduct frequent drills, and use diverse communication channels to provide clear, wide-reaching information during emergencies.
Learn More About This Situation
The Industrial Infrastructure Catastrophe Looming Over America’s Gulf Coast — Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Surge Vulnerability Facts — National Hurricane Center and Central Pacific Hurricane Center (USA)
Hurricane/Typhoon Frequency – Long Range Forecast — ECMWF (Europe)
TRI Toxics Tracker — EPA (USA)
*Notes and Sources:
Hurricane Risk
The exposure of chemical sites to hurricane-force winds was assessed by overlaying maps of the maximum potential wind speeds during a tropical cyclone with chemical plants' locations. Potential maximum wind speeds, classified using the five Saffir-Simpson hurricane categories, were based on a 1 in 10,000 year event under a high emissions climate scenario (RCP 8.5) projected to 2050.
Potential wind speed data was derived from from the STORM Model v2, Russell, Tom (2024) STORM tropical cyclone wind speed return periods as global GeoTIFFs. Online: https://zenodo.org/records/7438145 - . The original study can be found here Bloemendaal et al 2023
The sites of chemical plants were sourced from: Toxic Release Inventory a register of companies which have released chemicals into the environment in the US.
NOAA: https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/noaa-predicts-above-normal-2024-atlantic-hurricane-season
Storm Surge Risk
Storm surge flooding vulnerability was mapped along the US east coast and shows potential inundation levels of coastal areas for different hurricane categories.
The map was produced by the National Hurricane Centre using the SLOSH (Sea, Lake, and Overland Surges from Hurricanes) model. Data sources: Zachry, B. C., W. J. Booth, J. R. Rhome, and T. M. Sharon, 2015: A National View of Storm Surge Risk and Inundation. Weather, Climate, and Society, 7(2), 109–117. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/WCAS–D–14–00049.1
The model uses a representative sample of hypothetical storms to estimate the near worst–case scenario of flooding for each hurricane category.
More details can be found NHC Storm Surges.
Sea Level Rise
The Sea Level Rise indicator combines sea level rise projections with elevation data to estimate areas exposed to sea level rise.
Areas at risk are classified from low to severe risk with severe risk implying permanent inundation.
Sea Level Rise indicator reference - Ecometrica (2022), a dataset created using the IPCC AR6 SSP5-8.5 Global Sea Level Change and Copernicus GLO30 DSM.
Elevation model reference - European Space Agency (ESA). 2022: Copernicus Digital Elevation Model (COP-DEM), Global 30m Digital Surface Model (GLO-30). https://doi.org/10.5270/ESA-c5d3d65.
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