GALVESTON, Texas -- One of the four Valero convenience stores on Galveston Island was among the first, if not the first, gas stations to reopen there in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. "The authorities are limiting access to the island to emergency vehicles, FEMA, insurance adjustors, contractors, people that are helping in the cleanup, doing repairs, etc.," Gary Arthur, president of retail marketing for Valero Energy Corp., told CSP Daily News. "But they need fuel and they need to buy snacks and drinks and things on the island."
Nearly a week after Hurricane Ike came ashore in Texas, [image-nocss] San Antonio-based Valero Energy had 140 of the 184 stores shut down by the storm open for business by Friday afternoon. "Houston's a big market for us," Arthur said. "As stores come online with power and we're able to get them open, we've got 11 portable generators that we're redeploying to other stores so that we can bring those online with these generators."
Not surprisingly, most of the damage that Valero stores experienced was related to flooding or strong winds. "There was in some instances a foot or more of water in stores," Arthur said. "We did lose some signage from high winds and seven or eight canopies, but we've already had crews into those locations to remove the debris so we could get those reopened once we get power."
And much to Valero's relief, none of the company's stores were completely demolished by the Category 2 storm that came ashore Sept. 13, knocking out power to more than 2 million homes.
The storm also knocked three of Valero's refineries offline. Two were going through the restart process Friday afternoon. The third in Port Arthur, Texas, remained offline.
Valero's Arthur praised his company's store managers for acting quickly to prepare for the storm. "I've got to give a real pat on the back to all our people out there," he said. "We have a hurricane-preparedness plan that's pretty detailed. We invested a few years ago in hurricane shutters for all of our coastal stores. These are metal shutters that are stored on site and can quickly be deployed. That really helped us minimize the damage to stores."
Arthur also commended Houston-area gasoline supplier Kinder Morgan of Houston for getting back online quickly, allowing Valero to supply its stores. "Kinder Morgan did an outstanding job," he said. "Our demand has been exceedingly high.… We have some stores that are taking three truckloads a day of fuel. [Last] week, we were selling more fuel through fewer than half of our stores than we normally would through all of them, and that's while we're running under restricted hours."
Click hereto view a related story on petroleum-industry Ike relief efforts.
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