The pipeline from Houston to Oklahoma will shut down for the roll-over. That makes Houston to the northeast, Houston to Chicago, and Houston to Oklahoma.

I watched a documentary tonight about the enormous explosions that rocked the Texas City port/refinery area in April of 1947. 550 people dead, thousands injured. There was a small explosion (as explosions go) when I worked at a college in Texas City in the late 1980's. I had completed work that day and went home. Shortly after I left the college, the eplosion happened and word went out for people to stay in their homes. A caustic substance had been released and paint came off houses and cars. People who breathed the substance had to have medical care. People who work in the industry know that a refinery is a controlled explosion. During that explosion oil is separated into its parts and you get heating oil, gasoline, plastics, various chemicals, etc. When something goes wrong the results can be disastrous. It went wrong in 1947 in a big way. If I lived in Texas City today I would leave in December. Maybe nothing will go wrong, maybe the worst thing that could/will happen is a shut-down. Maybe nothing will happen. Those plants must keep operating to keep those pipelines filled going to all of you in the US. Without those plants electricity is in jeopardy.

-- Anonymous, November 21, 1999

Answers

Marcella,

If you look at a pipeline map of the US, it appears to be similar to a standard spider's web, with the nexus in the Houston, Beaumont, and western Lousiana region.

Pipelines are like chains - one part fails and the whole thing fails.

Pipelines are supported by numerous local electric utilites enroute, and failure of one shuts down the line.

I think it is a good idea to shut down the lines so we don't have failures like the recent failure in Washington state where hundreds of thousand of gallons of gasoline were inadvertantly pumped into a local creek.

While most people think that their natural gas is dependent on these pipelines, they don't realize that their gasoline, diesel, and heating oil is also delivered by pipeline to delivery points around the country from where it is then trucked to the local outlets such as gasoline stations, etc.

Failure of one power company in the chain of the pipeline system means failure of the natural gas, gasoline, diesel and heating oil systems involved also, in addition to failure of many of the electrical power plants supplied by the fuels.

I encourage the temporary shut down of all such pipelines until they can be safely restarted. Restarting, even if not 100% successful, will be much easier than repairs or catastrophic explosions.

xBob

-- Anonymous, November 22, 1999