Passed in Category 4-on a scale of 5-Friday, the most powerful hurricane in 12 years has hit land on the Texas coast. The winds reached 215 km/h and the risk of flooding was high. President Donald Trump declared the state of natural disaster.
The most powerful hurricane to hit the United States since 2005 has reached the American coast on Friday night. Hurricane Harvey touched land between Rockport and Port Aransas, about 50 kilometres northeast of Corpus Christi, at about 10 p.m. The winds reached 215 km/h on the coastline. This is the worst storm to get down on Texas since 1961.
First classified in Category 2 until then, it had passed in category 3 Friday early evening, before reaching level 4 on a scale of 5. The American weather Centre predicted that Harvey would become a "major hurricane" and "potentially deadly" at its entry point on the American continent in Texas. A hurricane alert was issued on nearly 500 kilometers of Texan coastline. Harvey could be the most powerful hurricane to hit the American continent since Hurricane Wilma, who hit Florida twelve years ago, according to the National Hurricane Centre (NHC) in Miami.
On Friday, the Governor of Texas had officially asked Donald Trump to declare a State of natural disaster. 'At the request of the Governor of Texas, I signed the natural disaster declaration, which releases the power of the help of the Government' federal, the American president announced in the evening. He has to go to Texas in early next week, the White House said in the evening.#Harvey made landfall at 10 PM CDT as a category 4 hurricane near Rockport, Texas, with max winds of 130 mph and min pressure of 938 mb. pic.twitter.com/98y5wpKmBw— NHC Atlantic Ops (@NHC_Atlantic) 26 août 2017
In a series of tweets, Donald Trump has also provided links to specialized government sites that make practical recommendations on preparations or precautions to take in case of emergency evacuation. "As Hurricane Harvey intensifies-don't forget to prepare yourself," he tweeted.
For all those who have not yet evacuated, please hurry to do so," warned the Portland City Hall, a coastal town of 17,000 inhabitants in Texas. The town Hall pointed out that from Friday morning any departure would be made very difficult and more dangerous because of the violent winds. The same evacuations and frantic preparations in Port Aransas, while the mayor of Corpus Christi, which has about 300,000 inhabitants, encouraged its residents to leave the city but did not make the evacuations obligatory.
Concerns about refineries in the Texas region
In neighbouring Louisiana, preparations were also going well in front of the volume of water that should fall on New Orleans, a city very exposed to flooding. State governor John Edwards announced that hundreds of boats and half a million sandbags had been placed off the coast of Louisiana. The mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu, is expecting "some localized flooding," he said at a press conference. The city had been devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and more than 1800 people had lost their lives.
he concerns around the hurricane have not only affected South, because in New York, the side oil ended down. Investors are concerned about the consequences of the arrival of Harvey on refineries in the Texas region. The trajectory of Harvey "could directly affect the heart of the"American refineries corridor", which represents about a third of the country's capacities and handles about 7 million barrels a day," noted Phil Flyn of Price Futures Group. "Firstly, refineries may be damaged because of the winds, but they could be especially hurt by floods, or even power cuts", said James Williams of WTRG Economics.
"Once stopped, a refinery may take up to seven days to return to normal activity," he said. Meanwhile, she's not dealing with crude. The hurricane "will also delay the arrival of tankers sailing in the Gulf of Mexico," said James Williams. An oil drilling rig has already been evacuated on Thursday in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as 39 oil and gas production platforms, totalling 9.5% of oil production and 14.7% of the affected gas production. Even if they are evacuated from their staff, many platforms can still extract oil or gas by being controlled remotely.
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