Cubans Flee From Ike As the Gulf Braces

September 9, 2008

NEW YORK, NY (WALL STREET JOURNAL) - Hurricane Ike whirled across Cuba, forcing an estimated one million people to flee from its path and leading energy companies to again evacuate oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico that had been idled for Hurricane Gustav.

Florida leaders called off an evacuation of the Florida Keys after the storm veered further south Monday over Cuba. But Ike remained on a westward path, with forecasters predicting a strong storm making landfall along the U.S. Gulf Coast. For the second time in less than two weeks, state emergency officials began ramping up preparations in Louisiana and Texas. They warned a weary public about the perils of hurricane fatigue.

Ike hammered the Caribbean over the weekend with winds of up to 135 miles per hour, killing at least 61 people in Haiti and four people in Cuba, according to wire reports.

Computer forecasts differed wildly on where the storm would head after it passed over Cuba, with some projecting a path toward south Texas and others pointing to the Texas-Louisiana border. The National Hurricane Center said it was too soon to tell. Current predictions had Ike bearing down on the Houston area on Saturday with winds of 111 to 130 mph.

"The real problem we are wrestling with today is the lack of definition to the storm track, and it is really creating a problem for us as we prepare to move people out of harm's way," Glenn Cannon, the Federal Emergency Management Agency's assistant administrator for disaster operations, said Monday.

Oil producers began evacuating offshore platforms Monday, before having had the chance to fully restart after Hurricane Gustav.

Shell Oil Co., a division of Royal Dutch Shell PLC, said it had begun bringing some production back online after Gustav, but production would be minimal with the approach of Ike. The company said Monday that it had evacuated 150 workers from offshore facilities, and it expected to bring its remaining 500 workers back to shore by Wednesday.

Gustav passed over the heart of the Gulf of Mexico's energy infrastructure as a Category 3 hurricane. Though the industry survived the storm with minimal damage, companies were forced to shut down. At one point last week, all oil production and 95% of gas production in the Gulf was shut, and it has been slow to recover. As of Monday, nearly 80% of oil production and 64% of gas production remained offline, according to the Minerals Management Service.

Neither Gustav nor Ike has pushed energy prices significantly higher. Monday, a gallon of regular gasoline was selling at a national average of $3.658, below where it was before Gustav, according to the AAA. The broader energy markets also have shrugged off Ike's approach. Oil futures rose 11 cents a barrel Monday to $106.34, while natural gas settled up 7.8 cents to $7.527 a million British thermal units.

If the storm heads into Houston, it will encounter one of the world's biggest petrochemical complexes, including about 10% of the country's refining capacity. If it lands farther east, along the Texas-Louisiana border, it could hit refinery clusters in Port Arthur, Texas, and Lake Charles, La.

Refiners shut down more than a dozen plants in Louisiana ahead of Gustav.

In Louisiana, where emergency officials are still working to restore power to roughly a sixth of the population, Gov. Bobby Jindal declared another emergency. In a letter to FEMA, he asked that the state be deemed a federal disaster area before Ike. "I anticipate that the effects of the storm will overwhelm the capability of state resources," he said.

In Texas, officials and volunteer organizations were preparing contingency evacuation plans and shelters, mindful that they may need to move a vast population at least 48 hours before the arrival of tropical-storm-force winds.

"There is undoubtedly a lot of storm fatigue in the Gulf Coast right now," said Trevor Riggen, director of mass care for the American Red Cross, which was planning to redeploy hundreds of workers to Texas and Louisiana. "We urge the public to heed the government's warnings."