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AUSTIN (KXAN) – While the full damage caused by Hurricane Ida is still under investigation, Texas business owners and industry experts are preparing to feel the effects.
Ida landed twice in Louisiana over the weekend, both times as a Category 4 severe hurricane.
LIVE BLOG: Hurricane Ida leaves “catastrophic” damage in Houma, Louisiana
seafood
Jack Gilmore, owner of Jack Allen’s Kitchen, said the fishing industry was already in trouble due to COVID-19.
“Supply chain issues, freight has become a really big problem in the last year and a half as truckers dropped out,” said Christopher Ten Eyck, culinary director for Salt Traders Coastal Cooking and Jack Allen’s Kitchen, sister restaurants.
Ten Eyck said this translates into a 20-25% increase in the price of seafood and packaging products for owners.
He said they are now preparing for another price hike due to Ida: the two Salt Traders sites alone import 20,000 Gulf oysters a week, along with about 800 pounds of black drumfish.
TenEyck said as the Ida Gulf Coast recovers, they may need to source more oysters from other coasts and find farm-raised black drumfish. However, if the quality is not right he said they may be taking items off the menu. (KXAN Photo / Tahera Rahman)
“It’s not just about whether the fishing fleets have been damaged and whether or not they may leak, there are also the infrastructural issues that you need to get the fish to where they’re going really quickly,” explains Edward Anderson. a supply chain expert at the University of Texas at Austin. “And so far that the airports are down and port capacities are falling.”
Gilmore told KXAN that he expected the effects of hurricanes in the next few weeks and said Ida had hit a “very critical section of the Gulf of Mexico”.
TLC Austin told KXAN that due to the storm, it will likely struggle to get Red Snapper.
“When there is a problem with the supply chain, we not only accept a price increase and punish the guest for it, but simply remove something from our menu,” said Ten Eyck.
But he said they won’t do that until the sellers assess the damage to boats and the ecosystem.
“Cross your fingers. We’ll just hope that everyone got out of this situation well and we hope that there is still some bounty left in the sea so we can feed our guests,” he said.
gas
Anderson said the oil and gas facility damage is still being assessed, but the refineries are currently out of order.
“That’s about 8% of our refining capacity in the US. Whether they’ll be out for a week or five weeks isn’t sure yet, because it depends on how stable the Louisiana grid is and other related utility issues, ”said Anderson.
He said in addition to Hurricane Katrina, previous hurricanes that hit the Gulf had increased about 10-15 cents per gallon.
Daniel Armbruster of AAA Texas said we could see these effects start over the next few days and continue for a few weeks.
“The biggest benefit for drivers is that we know some prices can fluctuate, but it usually doesn’t take more than a couple of weeks after a hurricane and then things go back to normal,” he said.
Armbruster said the price hike will most likely not be as high as it was after Hurricane Harvey.
“We get our fuel from the Corpus Christi area in the Houston area. These places were not affected by this storm, at least not significantly so it certainly won’t have as much of an impact on Texas as, say, [Hurricane] Harvey did it, ”he said.
Armbruster said at least one of nine oil and gas utilities en route to Hurricane Ida, Exxon, said its facility was not damaged.
This means that as soon as the power supply is restored, they can start operating again.
Armbruster said this is a good sign – if there are gas outages, it should be back to full capacity within a few weeks.
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