Hurricane Rita's impact

The best source for news on Rita's impact on oil production, refining and transport is The Oil Drum. I have to confess I don't understand much of the technical data, but I can usually get the drift of what is going on. They are summarizing the damage reports as they come in:

• 81% of the platforms and 68% of the rigs still evacuated
• 17 miles of road leading to the LOOP terminal still under water
• "some" missing rigs
• gasoline shortages in the Houston area
• potential heating oil shortages this winter
• a month until refineries are back to normal

Matt Savinar at Life After the Oil Crash linked to an interactive map produced by RigLogix that shows the path of the hurricane and its attendant wind speeds relative to the offshore rig positions and manned platforms. With it you can zoom in to get a closer look. It conveys the number of structures that we should be concerned about very well.

Our Governor Sonny Perdue closed the schools Monday and Tuesday to save diesel fuel in case of a shortage as happened after Katrina. But this has not manifested so far, thank goodness. Parents are complaining that they now have unnecessary child care issues to deal with. His supporters say he didn't want to underreact, his detractors say he acts first, thinks later.

These are uncertain times.