Death of child blamed on Tropical Storm Cindy
One child is dead in the wake of Tropical Storm Cindy. CBS News reports the 10-year old boy died after being struck by a log in a storm surge in the Gulf Coast community of Fort Morgan, Alabama on Wednesday.
According the the National Hurricane Center (NHC), the storm weakened slightly on Wednesday afternoon as it headed toward landfall on the Texas-Louisiana border, but forecasters are concerned Cindy could leave flood waters from Texas to Florida.
In an afternoon update, the NHC said Cindy’s wind speed fell to maximum sustained winds of 59 miles per hour and the storm center was located about 170 miles south of Morgan City, Louisiana.
Gulf Coast energy companies have shut down roughly 17 per cent of oil production ahead of Cindy. That amounts to 310,618 barrels of oil per day.
Along with the shutdowns, personnel from 40 offshore platforms in the US Gulf were evacuated. The evacuated platforms represent about 5.5 per cent of the 737 manned platforms, according to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement on Wednesday.
Rains and wind expected from Tropical Storm Cindy could disrupt regional refineries that have refining capacity of about 2.3 million barrels per day.
Outages at refineries could drive up gasoline prices.
Sabine Pilots, a St. Groves, Texas company that helps vessels navigate in and out of the ports of Beaumont, Port Arthur and Orange, Texas, has suspended some operations on Wednesday.
The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port shut down offloading operations ahead of Tropical Storm Cindy, but the company said it did not expect any interruptions to deliveries at its hub in Clovelly, Louisiana.
Other companies, including Shell, Anadarko, ENI and Enbridge evacuated some non-essential personnel, but say the storm will have little impact on production.
About 17 per cent of US crude and 5 per cent of dry natural gas output comes from the US Gulf of Mexico, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
