HANSA 10-2017

Häfen | Ports
Ports focus on resiliency after hurricanes
In the United States, the double punch of two hurricanes- slow moving »Harvey« which
hit the Gulf Coast of Texas at the end of August and the massive »Irma« which battered
Florida during the second week of September, has brought the issue of resiliency to the
forefront. By Barry Parker
Every storm is different, and advanced
forecasting of hurricane tracks is difficult.
Hurricane Harvey’s damage, inflicted
on the coastline from Corpus Christi
up as far as Port Arthur/ Beaumont, resulted
from unprecedented levels of rainfall
and subsequent flooding. Hurricane
Irma wreaked havoc with its high winds
and storm surges in low lying areas; forecasters
initially anticipated a landfall at
Florida’s East Coast, where Miami, Port
Everglades and Palm Beach are situated,
only to watch the storm move over to the
West Coast, affecting the Tampa Bay area.
In advance of the respective hurricanes,
ports in Texas and Florida were closed. The
U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) is the agency
that will make the determination of whether
a seaport may remain operational, or
not. When winds are anticipated to be at
gale force (roughly equivalent to »Force
7« for a sustained time period), within
12 hours, the USCG will declare »Condition
Zuluq at a particular port. After such a
declaration, activity in the port must cease
(for vessels that have not exited), and no
vessel arrivals are allowed. Following the
storms, the ports were then reopened after
USCG inspection of facilities.
In Texas, where Harvey hit, most of the
refineries and terminals closed down in
advance of the rain, with its resulting lack
of electricity. Two weeks after the storm
some of these facilities were finally resuming
their operations.
In Florida, where Irma hit two weeks
later, planners had responded to misfortunes
of the early 1990’s, when Hurricane
Andrew stuck south of Miami in 1992.
New construction standards had been
augmented with requirements for hurricane
resistance. Structural integrity is one
aspect of resilience, but so is landside logistics.
The recent storm exposed a series of
logistics challenges for surface transportation
in Florida (where there are no oil refineries,
or pipelines from refining centers)
for distribution of petroleum products –
but the ports resumed operations quickly.
Tampa and Port Everglades are both major
hubs for gasoline and jet fuel, brought
in by barges and tankers, from refineries
in Texas or abroad in the case of tankers.
Getting back in business
Advance planning is vital. The Chief Executive
Offcer of Port Everglades, Steve
Cernak (the incoming Chairman of the
Board of the American Association of
Port Authorities), told HANSA: »Business
continuity is a priority after, and sometimes
during, an emergency. For that
reason we focus on planning for a worstcase
scenario. If the port cannot operate,
it has a negative effect on all the businesses
we serve and the community we live
in.« Cernak, whose career includes work
at the Port of New York and New Jersey,
and at the Port of Galveston, Texas, is also
Chairman of the Florida Ports Council.
Proper execution is also crucial. Following
its re-opening, two days after
Irma had passed through Florida, Port
Everglades was emphasizing the importance
of restoring normal supply chains
for fuels. The port informed that: »The petroleum
companies based at Port Everglades
are working around the clock to
meet unusually high consumer demands
resulting from Hurricane Irma. Three petroleum
tank ships arrived Tuesday and
are currently offoading 18 mill. gallons
of gasoline, 3.5 mill. gallons of diesel and
14.7 mill. gallons of jet fuel. Two more
tank ships are scheduled to arrive tonight
and tomorrow morning. The port representative
added: »Ten of the 12 petroleum
companies that operate at the Port have
reopened,« and that: »Trucks began delivering
storm reserves (4-day’s worth under
normal circumstances) on Monday
morning following Hurricane Irma.«
In Texas, Hurricane Harvey exposed
a major vulnerability, which is the sheer
concentration of refineries and processing
plants in a small area of the vast U.S.
coastline. Antoine Halff, the Director for
Global Oil Markets at the Center on Global
Energy Policy at Columbia University,
wrote that: »The flipside of US energy
‘dominance,’ and more specifically of
the phenomenal US ramp-up … unleashed by the shale
miracle in the last few years, may thus
paradoxically be, in some ways, heightened
energy vulnerability.« One implication
for U.S. policy presented by Halff
might be increasing the 90-day-guideline
for oil held in the U.S.’s Strategic Petroleum
Reserve. Earlier in the year, President
Donald Trump had suggested halving this
reserve (holding nearly 700 million barrels
of crude oil), for budgetary reasons.
Benchmarking Resiliency
Once skies have cleared after a hurricane,
then what should happen at ports?
In the context of maritime operations,
key questions are: What types of preparations
must ports make in advance
of storms? How quickly can ports come
78 HANSA International Maritime Journal – 154. Jahrgang – 2017 – Nr. 10