Weather

Hoss said:

My wife works for exxon and is on the emergency response team. I haven't heard of a xon plant being in trouble either, but I just asked her. I will report back if there's anything to it (and it doesn't get confirmed by someone else first) She did say the main campus in the woodlands is supposedly fine, but closed unless you have permission from your supervisor to come in. That's the strangest thing I've ever heard of.

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Looks like they were just using it to tell people to get out. They might have also been referring to that ammonia plant I posted a pic of instead of Exxon. Information is all third party right now, except for the Ammonia plant. That's my buddy in there.

EDIT: My boss wouldn't let me off today to go help. So I'll just sit and watch blinking green lights instead. *sigh*

mkopec said:

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This here is why I love being a Texan.

On the radio today they were talking about how the storm was soooo big and the people that had to move out. People don't realise how much Houston and especially the areas that flooded have grown, even in my lifetime. Use to go to Conroe and then there was a break and then you got to Houston. Now you can't tell the different except the signs. Same for the woodlands was nothing. Used to goose hunt in Katy, and it was the Katy Prairie. Now it's nothing but houses and a 21 lane Katie Freeway. You used to leave Houston and there was a bit of nothing, then you would get to Katy and it wasn't much and there was prarie and goose hunting everywhere. Now there's mile after mile of houses. That's why so many people are impacted, including a hell of a storm.

Hoss said:

My wife works for exxon and is on the emergency response team. I haven't heard of a xon plant being in trouble either, but I just asked her. I will report back if there's anything to it (and it doesn't get confirmed by someone else first) She did say the main campus in the woodlands is supposedly fine, but closed unless you have permission from your supervisor to come in. That's the strangest thing I've ever heard of.

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They are pretty tight with the "vault" they keep at the main deal in the Woodlands and the "vault" at the refinery in Baton Rouge. When 9/11 happened I was refused entry into the vault until additional higher ups cleared it which was odd cause I went into it daily or weekly.

The funny thing when they built the new campus or whatever they call it in the Woodlands, when the steel was delivered they had a landscape crew that would move the real trees and fake trees every other day to hide the steel. Oddest shit I've ever seen.

Hekotat said:

Every gas station in the area looks like this, thanks Harvey

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Well the largest refinery in the country is down now, with Motiva down We'll see how that works out. I know the Exxon refinery in BR which used to be 2nd and is now 3rd runs at near 100% capacity at all times. I'm sure there's a lag and some stockpiles but we'll see how much is real and how much is panic.

The amonia is the only thing that scares me. I've been out of multiple chemical plants in my life, but amonia is the one that scares the shit out of me. Dow chemical had an amonia leak once and talking to the guys who made it out, no thank you. Rather deal with roach poison and whatever else. Even with a scott airpack no thank you.

Hope they all make it ok there.

Borzak said:

On the radio today they were talking about how the storm was soooo big and the people that had to move out. People don't realise how much Houston and especially the areas that flooded have grown, even in my lifetime. Use to go to Conroe and then there was a break and then you got to Houston. Now you can't tell the different except the signs. Same for the woodlands was nothing. Used to goose hunt in Katy, and it was the Katy Prairie. Now it's nothing but houses and a 21 lane Katie Freeway. You used to leave Houston and there was a bit of nothing, then you would get to Katy and it wasn't much and there was prarie and goose hunting everywhere. Now there's mile after mile of houses. That's why so many people are impacted, including a hell of a storm.

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I used to live in Highlands. I remember when there was no Beltway 8.

How bad was Highlands hit? I have a sister there, but her and I haven't talked in years.

Hekotat said:

Well, as of this morning every gas station in my area is out of gas (Irving/DFW Airport areas). I wasn't paying attention and now it looks like I'm boned. Glad I filled up the bike yesterday but it looks like the car is sitting for a bit.

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I'm pretty annoyed at all the panicky dipshits in the metroplex right now. Can't imagine what things would be like if we actually had a problem.

Hoss said:

Now I want to know more about the vault. What's in it?



Friday a local radio guy from corpus was being picked up by other iheart radio stations because they had to evacuate the studios and I guess they wanted a familiar voice for the evacuees. Anyway, at some point he actually said "Now is the time to panic people. Y'know how they're always saying now is not the time to panic? That means there is a time to panic and it's right now!"

I lol'd for a solid 5 minutes at that.

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Just engineering drawings of all the processes and structures and associated stuff to go with it. I've never been in the one in the Woodlands or the one that was in New Jersey when Exxon was HQ'd there, but the one in Baton Rouge is pretty big. It's designed to withstand an attack, a big incident at the plant, the doors tell you how much overpressure of an explosion they are designed to withstand. Because the Baton Rouge refinery is right at 100 years old the amount of stuff in there is overwhelming. For the last 20 years there's 3-4 people in there all day scanning drrawings from no telling when. If I go in I have to have an employee with me at all times, no phones/cameras allowed. Just run of the mill stuff I go look at that was when they did X process 25 years ago to figure out what it's supposed to be like and what it actually is in the field. But they always refer to it as the vault. 3 years ago Exxon had a guy drive stuff from the Woodlands to BR and back daily. They're pretty tight with just letting there stuff out in the wild. Not the run of the mill stuff I deal with. Some process secrets I assume.

The one in Baton Rouge has a valve they dug up on site during a turn around several years ago that was no longer in service. In the casting is a swastika.

Ishad said:

I'm pretty annoyed at all the panicky dipshits in the metroplex right now. Can't imagine what things would be like if we actually had a problem.

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Yeah it fucking sucks, I think the long weekend is making it worse. We have a guy at work that can't even get home because he's on empty.

What's interesting to me is how this is going to affect companies reliant on transportation (Pizza delivery, uber, taxi, city transit, UPS, FedEx, etc.) I'm sure it'll be only a week max but still crazy.

Gonna go grab a few food stuff before people start panicking about dominos not delivering.

At least it wasn't in November of February when all the major refineries do maintenance and schedule their downtime with other refineries. So except for the closures due to weather everyone else should be able to run at maximum output now.