Posted on September 26, 2017
By Jane Caffrey, kristv.com
The Port of Corpus Christi may look like it is fully reopened, with vessels traveling through the ship channel, but the Port is still operating under restrictions nearly a month after Hurricane Harvey.
Port officials are working closely with their federal partners, the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to achieve a full reopening of the Port.
“The Port of Corpus Christi is a national strategic Port,” said Sean Strawbridge, Deputy Executive Director & Chief Operating Officer. “We’re the largest Port for exports of U.S.-produced crude. We will be the largest Port primarily for U.S.-produced energy in the coming years. We’re also a strategic military Port. So it’s important that we’re open for safe passage of both our commercial customers and our military partners.”
Current restrictions mean vessels traveling through the ship channel can only be 43-feet deep, opposed to the regular 45-foot draft restriction. Ships can also only travel during daylight hours because of damage to the Port’s buoys and aids to navigation, which guide ship traffic at night.
“Almost all of our aids to navigation buoys were destroyed in Hurricane Harvey. Over a hundred aids to navigation were wiped out,” Strawbridge said.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers also continues working to ensure the ship channel’s depth is safe for travel, since its depth could have changed when the Harvey stirred up silt on the channel floor.
“A lot of the sholling happens in the outer harbor, near the Port Aransas area. That’s where we’re trying to knock down some of our sholling,” Strawbridge said. “We also had sholling here in the inner harbor, at some of the docks. So you’re seeing dredgers working around the clock to get the sholling knocked down, get the channel deepened to the authorized depth, and be able to have safe passage of vessels.”
The Port of Corpus Christi was closed for a record six days due to Hurricane Harvey, but Strawbridge says the situation could have been much worse.
“We were very fortunate that we did not see the kind of damage that you would normally see in a category 4 hurricane,” he said. “The Port of Corpus Christi got back and operational 6 days after the hurricane. That is unheard of, for us to be able to recover that quickly.”
Nonetheless, because of the economic impact of the Port, which transports more than $100 million dollars in goods value every day, Strawbridge says it is crucial that the Port fully reopens.
“It’s important that we can operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so the refineries and the other midstream terminals and other companies here can have that access on a 24-7 basis,” Strawbridge said.
Port officials hope draft restrictions will be lifted by the end of this week, and expect to become 24-hour operational by next week. The decision is ultimately up to the U.S. Coast Guard.
Source: kristv.com
