The Jim Bakker Show

Insurers to pay out record $135 billion for 2017 after hurricanes

By Tom Sims and Alexander Hübner

FRANKFURT/MUNICH (Reuters) – Insurers will have to pay claims of around $135 billion for 2017, the most ever, following a spate of hurricanes, earthquakes and fires in North America, according to a report published on Thursday.

German reinsurer Munich Re , in its annual natural catastrophe review, also said last year’s total losses, including those not insured, were $330 billion, the second-worst in history after 2011 when an earthquake and tsunami wreaked havoc in Japan.

Although individual events could not be linked directly to climate change, global warming is playing a role, Munich Re said. It expected more frequent extreme events in future.

“We have a new normal,” said Ernst Rauch, head of Munich Re’s Corporate Climate Center, which monitors climate change risks.

“2017 was not an outlier,” he said, noting insured losses have surpassed $100 billion multiple times since 2005. “We must have on our radar the trend of new magnitudes.”

Last year’s hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria in the United States and Caribbean, wildfires in California and earthquakes in Mexico destroyed homes, infrastructure and numerous lives.

The disasters also rocked global insurers. Munich Re and Hannover Re both issued profit warnings.

That dealt a blow to a sector already struggling with thin margins, stiff competition and falling prices.

Munich Re’s tally for the industry comes on the back of other estimates that underscored the severity of 2017.

In December, Swiss Re estimated global insured losses from catastrophes would hit $136 billion in 2017, the third-highest on record for the sector, with the United States hardest hit. That figure is not directly comparable to Munich Re’s estimates as it includes man-made disasters.

Reinsurers, which are in the business of insuring insurance, are experts in managing risk and rarely get caught off guard. Analysts have said reinsurers may need to take a fresh look at their risk models as the planet warms and storms become more intense.

A big question for the industry has been whether the run of catastrophes would allow them to achieve higher prices for their coverage, which have been in decline for years.

Early indications suggest modest increases. Global property reinsurance prices rose less than expected in the key Jan. 1 renewal season, with strong competition limiting increases to single digit percentages, brokers said this week.

A turnaround in prices would be the first major reversal since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

(Editing by Maria Sheahan and Mark Potter)

Hiscox estimates $150 million net claims from Harvey

FILE PHOTO: Jesus Rodriguez rescues Gloria Garcia after rain from Hurricane Harvey flooded Pearland, in the outskirts of Houston, Texas, U.S. August 27, 2017. REUTERS/Adrees Latif/File Photo

By Noor Zainab Hussain

(Reuters) – Lloyd’s of London underwriter Hiscox Ltd <HSX.L> estimated it would face net claims of about $150 million from Hurricane Harvey and said it has yet to determine losses from Hurricane Irma.

Insurers and reinsurers are counting the cost of Harvey, which lashed Texas in the last week of August causing flooding that put it on the scale of Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

Hiscox said it had two main areas of exposure to the hurricane – reinsurance and insurance lines, including flood cover for homeowners and businesses.

“This (claims) is within the group’s modelled range of claims for an event of this nature, and reinsurance protections for the group remain substantially intact,” Hiscox said in a statement. It said its claims’ estimate was based on an industry forecast that Harvey would lead to a total insured market loss of $25 billion.

Hiscox shares fell 3.1 percent to 1212 pence by 0913 GMT, the second biggest loser on the Stoxx Europe 600 Price Index <.STOXX>, as analysts expected the company would face bigger losses from Hurricane Irma than Harvey.

Germany’s Munich Re <MUVGn.DE> last week warned it could miss its profit target this year, the first major reinsurer to flag a hit to earnings from damage caused by hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

Shore Capital analyst Eamonn Flanagan noted that the loss from Harvey equated to about 6 percent of Hiscox’s net tangible asset value as at the June end.

Hiscox said it would announce an estimate of net claims arising from Hurricane Irma, once the impact of that storm has become clearer.

Chief Executive Bronek Masojada said the storms meant insurance rates were on an uptrend.

“After a long period of price reductions, insurance rates in the affected areas and in specific sectors such as large property are likely to increase. In the wider global insurance market for large risks, we expect rates to stabilise and begin to increase,” Masojada said.

Irma, one of the most powerful Atlantic Ocean storms on record, ravaged several islands in the northern Caribbean, killing at least 60 people, before barrelling into Florida’s Gulf Coast, causing further destruction.

“With Irma expected to be a larger event, our initial view is this is slightly more negative than we had anticipated. We expect Hiscox to trade down today and expect uncertainty to persist around Beazley <BEZG.L> and Lancashire <LRE.L> who are yet to publish their own estimates,” Keefe, Bruyette & Woods analyst Rufus Hone, said, referring to other Lloyd’s of London insurers.

Hone added that while the this year would likely be a net loss overall for Hiscox, it would not have “much of an impact” on the insurer’s expansion plans or put the dividend under threat.

Risk modelling firms RMS estimates insured losses from Harvey of $25-$35 billion, while AIR Worldwide forecast total insured losses in the United States for Irma of $25-35 billion.

(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru Editing by Anjuli Davies and Susan Fenton)

Houston residents, officials stew over Harvey storm-trash removal

FILE PHOTO: Flood-damaged contents from people's homes line the street following the aftermath of tropical storm Harvey in Wharton, Texas, U.S., September 6, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Disposing of the mounds of debris lining Houston streets three weeks after Hurricane Harvey flooding damaged about 126,000 homes is riling residents and officials in the nation’s fourth largest city.

The sheer volume of work is overwhelming initial efforts, say residents, resulting in pleas from officials for the state and private contractors to contribute vehicles. Houston also is offering to increase its fees for emergency trash removal to bring in more waste disposal trucks.

“We have been asking for more trucks for weeks,” said Greg Travis, a Houston city councilor whose hard-hit west Houston district had just two trucks operating one day this week. There is no schedule of collections nor estimate when one would be available, he said.

Houston’s trash haulers are working side-by-side with a disaster contractor’s crews from San Antonio and Austin, Texas. The city’s size, about 627 square miles (1623.92 square kilometers), is larger than Los Angeles or New York.

Across Texas, the debris left behind by the storm could reach 200 million cubic yards – enough to fill up a football stadium almost 125 times, Texas Governor Greg Abbott estimated on Thursday. Harvey’s path up the Texas coast killed as many as 82 people, flooding homes and businesses with up to 51 inches of rain.

“We have no idea when it’s going to be picked up,” said Houston resident David Greely, 51. “It’s overwhelming.”

DRC Emergency Services LLC, the city’s contractor for emergency trash removal, has about 300 trucks operating in Houston and surrounding areas, according to President John Sullivan.

“We’ll reach 500 trucks in the next few days,” he said.

Houston is renegotiating its contract to expedite the work, Alan Bernstein, a spokesman for Mayor Sylvester Turner, said on Friday.

An 8.9 percent temporary property-tax increase proposed this week by the mayor would pay for damage to city property and for costs not covered by the United States. Turner estimated the cost of debris removal is $200 million.

Contract renegotiations are common during disasters, according to DRC’s Sullivan.

“There has been price adjustments for debris contractors across Texas for Harvey recovery, not just Houston,” he said.

Some well-to-do neighborhoods have begun considering paying for private trash haulers to pick up the debris.

“I don’t know if I’m on the city’s list for trash cleanup,” said Eric Olafson, 62, who added his neighbors are discussing paying private contractors to remove their debris.

(Reporting by Bryan Sims; Editing by Gary McWilliams and Diane Craft)

Subdued by Harvey, Congress reconvenes facing fiscal tests

The U.S. Capitol building is seen at sunset in Washington, U.S. May 17, 2017. REUTERS/Zach Gibson

By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Hurricane Harvey devastated Texas, but could bring some fiscal order to Washington where Republicans and Democrats will need to put political differences aside in order to approve spending to repair the damage from flooding in and around Houston.

Lawmakers returning to Washington after a month-long break are expected to swiftly agree to an initial request for nearly $8 billion in disaster aid, with the House of Representatives considering assistance on Wednesday.

More requests will follow from the Trump administration, with the fractious Republicans who control the House and the Senate determined to look capable of governing in a crisis.

Some estimates say Harvey could cost U.S. taxpayers almost as much as the total federal aid outlay of more than $110 billion for 2005’s record-setting Hurricane Katrina.

That sobering cost and the urgent needs of Harvey’s victims have helped to calm a fiscal storm that had threatened to engulf Congress and President Donald Trump ahead of Oct. 1. The rancor revolves around the deadline for lawmakers to approve a temporary spending measure to keep the government from shutting down, as well as the need to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.

“There’s reason to hope that in the wake of the tragedy in Texas … there will be a renewed sense of community and common purpose that can help get things done,” said Michael Steel, a Republican strategist who once worked as spokesman for former House Speaker John Boehner.

Before Harvey, Trump had threatened to veto such spending and trigger a shutdown if Congress refused to fund his proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall. He has dropped his threat, the Washington Post reported on Friday, making a shutdown less likely.

As of the Labor Day holiday weekend, approval by Congress was widely anticipated in late September of a stopgap bill, or continuing resolution, to continue current spending levels for two to three more months.

The need to help Hurricane Harvey victims “creates another reason as to why you’d want to keep the government open,” Republican Senator Roy Blunt said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday.

FRESH START WITH TRUMP

With much of Washington distracted by tensions with North Korea over its nuclear program, Congress must also raise the federal debt ceiling by the end of September or early October to stave off an unprecedented U.S. government debt default, which would shake global markets.

The debt ceiling caps how much money the U.S. government can borrow, and some conservatives are loath to raise it without spending reforms. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Sunday said Congress should act quickly to increase the debt limit, otherwise relief funding for hurricane-ravaged areas of Texas might be delayed.

“Without raising the debt limit, I am not comfortable that we will get money to Texas this month to rebuild,” Mnuchin said on Fox News Sunday.

Blunt, a junior member of Senate Republican leadership, said it was possible lawmakers could tie legislation raising the debt ceiling to measures providing financial aid for recovery from Harvey. “That’s one way to do it,” he said on Meet the Press.

The head of the Republican Study Committee, the largest group of House conservatives, said on Monday that Congress was obligated to help those hurt by Harvey.

But Representative Mark Walker also warned that “legislative games” like attaching Harvey aid to a debt ceiling hike could jeopardize consensus. “The debt ceiling should be paired with significant fiscal and structural reforms,” he said in a statement.

Senior Republicans were warning Trump not to anger Democrats by carrying through with his threat to curtail the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program for immigrant children, which Democrats widely support. Democratic votes will likely be needed to both raise the debt ceiling and prevent a shutdown.

Trump might have listened to them. Sources said on Sunday that he has decided to scrap the program that shields the young immigrants from deportation, but he will give Congress six months to craft a bill to replace it.

With his tendency to send conflicting policy signals and attack fellow Republicans, Trump may present the biggest uncertainty as Congress gets back to work.

The four top Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate and House are set to hold a rare bipartisan meeting with Trump on Wednesday to chart a path forward for the multiple fiscal issues.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who will attend the meetings, spent much of August feuding with Trump, who attacked the Kentuckian repeatedly on Twitter.

One Republican strategist said the Senate leader would not dwell on those tensions. “Basically every Republican senator is looking to put whatever nonsense happened on Twitter in August in the rear view mirror and focus on all the important work that needs to get done in September,” said Josh Holmes, a former chief of staff and campaign manager for McConnell.

(Additional reporting by David Morgan and Chris Sanders; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Mary Milliken)

Thousands flee Texas towns flooded by Harvey; gas prices spike

Lorenzo Salina helps a neighbor to clean a house damaged by Tropical Storm Harvey in East Houston, Texas, U.S. September 1, 2017.

By Emily Flitter and Peter Henderson

ORANGE, Texas/HOUSTON (Reuters) – Rescuers searched flooded sections of southeastern Texas for people trapped by Hurricane Harvey’s deluge on Friday, and Houston’s mayor warned residents of the city’s west that their neighborhoods may remain underwater for two weeks.

The storm, one of the costliest to hit the United States, has displaced more than 1 million people, with up to 44 feared dead from flooding that paralyzed Houston, swelled river levels to record highs and knocked out the drinking water supply in Beaumont, Texas, a city of about 120,000 people.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner called for voluntary evacuations of flooded homes, which he said may remain waterlogged as the Army Corps of Engineers continues to release water into the Buffalo Bayou to prevent dam and levee failures.

About 80 miles (130 km) east of the city, the Neches River, which flows into Beaumont and nearby Port Arthur, was forecast to crest on Friday.

Rescue officials were still working to determine the scope of flooding caused by releases from Orange County dams, said Rodney Smith, deputy chief of the Cedar Hill, Texas, Fire Department.

“A lot of what gives us a snapshot of what’s on the ground are 911 (emergency) calls,” Smith said, adding that about 80 rescue crews were rotating through the county. “If the water starts to recede, we’ll start doing searches door-to-door, block-to-block to see if anyone is still in their homes.”

Tiana Kelly, 22, was waiting in a shelter in Orange, Texas, after being rescued from her flooded street by National Guard troops in a special high-water truck at 2 a.m. Friday.

“I was checking on my neighbor’s dogs and I saw their flashlights, so I flashed my flashlight and they came and got us,” Kelly said as she sat with her 11-month old son, Kalameet, in her arms. “They told us there was an eight-foot flash (flood) that was supposed to come.”

Chemical maker Arkema SA said a fire started on Thursday in a truck storing chemicals at a flooded plant 25 miles (40 km) east of Houston had burned itself out by Friday, but that more blasts were likely in eight other trucks storing the same chemicals in the coming days. Police were enforcing 1.5-mile (2.4-km) exclusion zone around the Crosby, Texas facility.

With three months remaining in the official Atlantic hurricane season, a new storm, Irma, had strengthened into a Category 3 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, on Friday. It remained hundreds of miles from land but was forecast to possibly hit the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and neighboring Haiti by the middle of next week.

Harvey shut about a quarter of U.S. refinery capacity, much of which is clustered along the Gulf Coast, and caused gasoline prices to spike to a two-year high ahead of the long Labor Day holiday weekend.

Harvey roared ashore a week ago as a Category 4 storm and the most powerful hurricane to hit Texas in half a century. It dumped unprecedented amounts of rain and left devastation across more than 300 miles (480 km) of the state’s coast.

OIL RELEASED FROM FEDERAL SUPPLY

The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline has risen 17 cents since the storm hit, hitting $2.519 as of Friday morning, the highest since August 2015, according to motorists group AAA.

Supply concerns prompted the U.S. Energy Department to authorize the release of up to 4.5 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Several East Coast refineries have run out of gasoline, raising fears that travelers will face fuel shortages during the three-day holiday.

In major Texas cities including Dallas, there were long lines at gas stations.

The storm came on the 12th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which killed about 1,800 around New Orleans. Then-U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration was roundly criticized for its botched early response to the storm.

Signaling that he did not want to be seen as repeating those mistakes, President Donald Trump plans a second visit to the region on Saturday.

“The people of Texas and Louisiana were hit very hard by a historic flood and their response taught us all a lesson, a very, very powerful lesson,” Trump said after meeting with charity organizations in the Oval Office. “There was no outbreak in crime. There was an outbreak of compassion only … and it really inspired us as a nation.”

U.S. first lady Melania Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. President Donald Trump receive an update on Hurricane Harvey recovery efforts at the White House in Washington, U.S., September 1, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Lawmakers will replenish a federal disaster relief fund to keep aid flowing, but full assistance will come from Congress in installments, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said.

“The cash drain is fast. And so we’re going to have to do some quick responses,” Ryan said in an interview with radio station WCLO in his hometown Janesville, Wisconsin.

Moody’s Analytics estimated the economic cost from Harvey for southeastern Texas at $51 billion to $75 billion.

(Additional reporting by Richard Valdmanis, Marianna Parraga, Ernest Scheyder, Ruthy Munoz, Peter Henderson and Andy Sullivan in Houston, David Gaffen in New York, Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas, and Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Writing by Scott Malone Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Bill Trott and Jonathan Oatis)

Retail U.S. gasoline prices surge as Harvey keeps refiners shut

A gas station submerged under flood waters from Tropical Storm Harvey is seen in Rose City, Texas, U.S., on August 31, 2017.

By Erwin Seba and Devika Krishna Kumar

HOUSTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Retail U.S. gasoline prices hit two-year highs and global shipping routes were scrambled as the nation’s largest refiners remained shut on Friday, even as Storm Harvey lost strength.

Major fuel pipelines feeding the U.S. Northeast and Midwest were either closed or severely curtailed, prompting shortages in some areas and dramatic spikes in wholesale prices.

The storm, which began as a hurricane a week ago, has roiled global fuel markets, and tankers carrying millions of barrels of fuel have been rerouted to the Americas to avert shortages. European refining margins hit a two-year high amid the surge in exports.

Indeed, the effects of the storm will continue for several weeks, if not months, after Harvey hammered the Gulf Coast for days and brought floods that buried Houston and the surrounding area in several feet of water. It knocked out about 4.4 million barrels of daily refining capacity, slightly more than Japan uses daily, and the signs of restarts were tentative.

The nation’s largest refiner, Motiva’s Port Arthur facility, which can handle 600,000 barrels of crude daily, will be shut for at least two weeks, according to sources familiar with plant operations.

Other plants in the Beaumont/Port Arthur area are expected to face similar challenges restarting as waters continued to rise, even as flooding receded in Houston, some 85 miles (137 km) west.

In Corpus Christi, where Harvey first made landfall, refiners Citgo Petroleum Corp, Flint Hills Resources and Valero Energy Corp were moving to restart their plants, along with the nearby Valero Three Rivers refinery, according to sources.

Benchmark U.S. gasoline prices have surged more than 15 percent since the storm began, but in trading Friday, the contract for October delivery lost 1 percent, the first decline in five days. September’s contract had risen by 25 percent, but stopped trading Thursday.

U.S. crude prices continued to slump along with demand, with the futures contract falling 0.4 percent to $47.02 a barrel.

The national average for a regular gallon of gasoline rose to $2.519 as of Friday morning, according to motorists advocacy group AAA, with even gaudier increases in the U.S. Southeast, which relies heavily on Gulf supplies. South Carolina, for instance, has seen prices rise nearly 30 cents, and prices were up nearly 20 cents in Texas, where fuel shortages were already evident.

SHORTAGE WORRIES

Suppliers in the Chicago area were taking steps to prevent shortages, and banking on hope.

Dave Luchtman, owner and president of Lucky’s Energy Service Inc., a small distributor in Chicago, has rented two storage trailers that hold 8,000 gallons each, expected to be delivered Friday.

“So I have a little lifeline,” Luchtman said.

Refineries so far have not given any indication that there are fuel shortages, said Mario Orlandi, an operations manager at Olson Service Co, which supplies diesel and gasoline to the Chicago area.

“Cross our fingers, keep our tanks full,” Orlandi said.

The global impact of the storm was being felt in Venezuela, where financially strapped state-run PDVSA is facing the possibility that scheduled deliveries – tankers floating offshore for weeks due to non-payment – will make their way to other Latin American destinations.

At least two cargoes scheduled to deliver to Venezuela currently in the port of Curacao are now expected to be delivered to Ecuador.

Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and other countries want to tap some of the 7 million barrels of fuel sitting in the Caribbean sea, according to three traders and shippers.

European and Asian traders have diverted millions of barrels of fuel to the Americas. That included a rare opportunity for exports of jet fuel from Europe to the United States, reversing the usual flow of shipments.

Supplies from distant markets may not arrive soon enough to avert a crunch after the Colonial Pipeline, the biggest U.S. fuel system, said it would shut part of its main lines to the Northeast.

“We are going to have outages from Texas to Boston,” said one East Coast market source. The market is “way under-appreciating the magnitude of this.”

Several East Coast refineries have run out of gasoline for immediate delivery as they sent fuel elsewhere, and concerns over shortages ahead of the U.S. Labor Day extended weekend were mounting.

(Reporting by Erwin Seba and Devika Krishna Kumar; Additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw, Susannah Gonzales, Marianna Parraga, Karolin Schaps, Ron Bousso, Libby George and Seng Li Peng; Writing by David Gaffen; Editing by Susan Fenton and Bernadette Baum)

Houston slowly begins grim recovery from Harvey’s devastation

A family puts their belongings on furniture to keep them above floodwaters in their house from Harvey in Houston, Texas August 31, 2017

By Gary McWilliams

HOUSTON (Reuters) – As water levels receded and search teams began checking abandoned homes for victims, Houston began a grim cleanup on Thursday and businesses began to reopen for the first time since Hurricane Harvey hit last weekend.

Previously flooded streets were lined with water-damaged furniture and roads filled with vehicles as residents went hunting for cleaning supplies, insurance estimates and repair help.

“It’s a bit overwhelming,” said John Becker as he salvaged personal items and hauled water-logged sheetrock from his home amid the hum of dehumidifiers and fans. Water that had reached 8 inches (20 cm) inside had ebbed. “We have flood insurance; we’ll do the best of it.”

Record rains and flooding from Harvey spread misery across a broad swath of the Houston metropolitan area of about 6.5 million people. Thursday brought a sense of it coming slowly back to life, however, with the city’s airports all operating again and the resumption of at least some public transportation services.

A Texas Department of Transportation worker monitors a temporary water filled dam keeping Harvey floodwaters from getting onto highway I-10 in Houston, Texas August 31, 2017. REUTERS/Rick Wilking

United began flying out of Houston’s Bush Intercontinental late on Wednesday and American Airlines restarted flights from Hobby airport Thursday morning.

Metro, which operates the city’s bus and rail services, resumed limited operations on 21 bus and one rail line routes responsible for carrying about half of its daily passengers, said spokeswoman Tracey Jackson.

The storm dumped as much as 50 inches (1.3 meters) of rain over four days in some parts of metropolitan Houston before the sun appeared on Wednesday. At one point early in the week, 10 percent to 15 percent of Harris County which includes Houston was underwater, officials said.

Houston hospitals were phasing in more services. Harris Health System said speciality clinics at its Ben Taub hospital would resume normal hours beginning Friday. M.D. Anderson Cancer Center was running “limited outpatient operations,” it said via Twitter on Thursday.

The county’s confirmed death toll from the storm reached 18 on Thursday and at least another eight deaths were being investigated as storm-related.

Most of Houston’s larger employers and schools will remain closed through the Labor Day holiday weekend. The transit restart and clear roads in many areas of the city encouraged businesses and banks to open their doors.

The Children’s Museum of Houston also reopened Thursday and expects about 1,000 visitors, said Executive Director Tammie Kahn. The museum sits on a working rail route and recalled staff to provide a respite for families and kids housed in emergency shelters.

“We turned people away from the door yesterday because we were not open,” said Kahn. The museum is free to children from emergency shelters, and decided to reopen with the start of mass transit. “We did this during (Hurricane) Katrina. It’s a great benefit and deeply appreciated,” she said.

Regional power companies continued to reduce the number of homes without power. Electric service providers from Corpus Christi to Louisiana reported 200,000 homes and businesses were dark on Thursday, down from more than 300,000 customers at the peak, according to data from AEP, Entergy, Centerpoint Energy and TNMP.

(Reporting by Gary McWilliams; Editing by Tom Brown)

‘Fun’ amidst the flooding. Houston’s kids show resilience as waters rise

Leeanta Rodriguez, 13, pictured at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas, U.S., August 27, 2017

By Brian Thevenot

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Houston’s Nine-year old Melody Rodriguez saw a snake swimming toward her through the floodwaters. Reginald James Jones, Jr., also nine, had to climb into the attic to escape water up to the roof.

His sister, seven-year-old Ta’lilia Smithers had screamed that her family would die as the water rose quickly in their home.

These children and others who were rescued on Sunday and ferried on city dump trucks to Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center also brought wonder and resilience to their perspective on the torrential rains from Hurricane Harvey that drowned their homes.

Their fascination after witnessing the power of nature escaped their beleaguered parents in the cavernous hall.

Being up in that attic was “fun,” Reginald said.

“It was a really big attic,” he said. “The attic kept us calm. I could see everything from up there – all the flooding. And I could see downtown.”

His little sister, 5-year-old Jakayla Taylor, marveled at how the “whole city was flooded – like a beach.”

Ta’lilia found took comfort in knowing she would probably get “a whole week off of school.”

“But momma says she can’t wait for us to go back to school, so she can have her eight hours of peace,” she added.

Late Sunday evening, Melody had recovered from the snake scare of that morning and reveled in the retelling. The people at the shelter, she said, were just so nice.

“They gave us pizza, lasagna, hot dogs, potato chips – and they also gave me these shoes,” she said, showing off her new purple rubber kicks. “Oh, and this hand sanitizer.”

Melody’s mother, who had five more children with her between the ages of 4 and 15, smiled as she watched her daughter excitedly tell flood stories and play with stuffed animals the Red Cross gave out.

As far as storm shelters go, this one was well-staffed and comfortable – a world away from the nightmarish scene at the ad hoc shelter at New Orleans’ convention center 12 years ago during Hurricane Katrina.

Houston’s experience with Harvey has drawn comparisons with the disaster that hit New Orleans, but there are many contrasts.

Nearly all of Houston’s downtown, for instance, appeared to have power Sunday night, along with many other areas of the city. Unlike New Orleans, Houston did not suffer a catastrophic wind storm before the flooding began, nor the massive levee failures that let in all the water at once.

Emergency management officials and the Red Cross had more time to organize shelters in Houston as Harvey first pounded coastal cities further south along the Texas coast, including Rockport.

Melody’s mom, 37-year-old Aeisha Brimzy, said her family’s every need had been handled since they arrived.

“It has been like all of us coming together,” she said of the flood victims at the convention center. “It’s been so peaceful. They have been feeding us all day, giving the kids snacks. The volunteers and the Red Cross and the police, they are really doing their job.”

Just then, a voice over the loudspeaker said: “If you need dry clothes, go to your cot. We are handing out fresh, dry clothes.”

A few yards away, people gathered around a big-screen TV taking in the latest storm news.

A volunteer came by to offer the kids more hot dogs. The youngsters said they were already full.

Earlier in the day, the children had suffered a harrowing trauma.

“Momma, is it going to get higher? I can’t swim,” Brimzy recalled one of her six-year-old twins, Carolina, saying as the water from Buffalo Bayou rushed into their apartment in Clayton Homes, a public housing development on the east side of downtown.

Melody showed a mix of sadness at some of her losses and bewilderment at what she had witnessed.

“My back pack is gone. I lost two tablets and some other very valuable stuff,” she said, referring to her Apple iPads. “And two pairs of name-brand shoes.”

“Our table, it was floating in the water! It was so high that our couch was floating around. But momma’s vases just sank,” Melody said.

Another daughter, 13-year Leeanta Rodriguez, had spent the night before tossing and turning in bed.

“I couldn’t sleep, because I knew that bayou was going to come up,” she said.

Sure enough it did, at about dawn. She carried her sister, Carolina, out of the flood and to the rescue trucks on her back.

Now at the shelter in the late evening, Leeanta worried about more practical things, like whether she would have to change schools, which she didn’t want to do. She said she loved her friends and her basketball team at Pershing Middle School.

Across the big room where they gathered, seven-year-old Ta’lilia worried about her school, too. She believed it had flooded like her house. The school is located in South Houston near a Bray’s Bayou.

“It’s Thompson Elementary – the Thompson Eagles,” she said. “It’s my first school I’ve ever been to … I guess I’ll just have to be strong and brave – because the eagle in strong and brave.”

(Reporting by Brian Thevenot; Editing by Simon Webb and Marla Dickerson)

Stranded Texans turn to social media for help as flood waters rise

Women are illuminated by the light of a smart phone as they seek refuge in the Good Samaritan Rescue Mission in Corpus Christi.

By Peter Szekely

(Reuters) – Flood-stranded Texans in the Houston area took to social media on Sunday with desperate pleas to be rescued from their homes as Tropical Storm Harvey and its torrential rains slowly lumbered across the region.

With authorities urging Houston’s more than 2 million residents to stay in their homes rather than risk venturing outside, some 70,000 of them formed a Facebook group that many of them used to call for help.

“Rescue needed!!” Lorena Martinez posted on the group, known “Hurricane Harvey 2017 – Together We Will Make It; TOGETHER WE WILL REBUILD.”

Martinez said 20 people, including six children, an elderly person and a pregnant woman, were stranded in a house on Houston’s Roper Street.

“Tried emergency service but not responding,” she said. “They’re in the attic with ax on hand if necessary.”

Many Houston residents reported being holed up in their attics, some with axes to chop their way out if necessary, even though emergency services advised people to climb onto the roofs to escape rising waters.

“Anyone in the area that can help… 4 adults 4 kids stuck in the attic.. no tools to break/cut into the roof,” said Carolyn Withrow Hutchins, who also posted a map with the location.

Emergency crews had rescued more than 1,000 stranded people from cars and homes in the Houston area by early Sunday.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said the state was adding helicopters to those operated by officials in Houston and Harris County to help rescue stranded residents.

“Before today, the state had already made multiple water rescues from helicopters from dropped lines, and we are prepared to continue that process,” Abbott said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program.

Many residents posted that they were unable to reach emergency services by phone or were told that their rescues would take several hours.

Kathaleen Hervey was among many who turned to Twitter for help, saying a resident she knew needed to be rescued.

“He is trapped and can’t get through 911 or any of the emergency numbers, send a boat!!!” she tweeted to Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner.

Turner said emergency responders were giving their highest priority to the most flood-ravaged areas.

“911 is working,” Turner tweeted. “Every need is important. Please give preference to life-threatening situations.”

(Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

Oil markets roiled as Harvey hits U.S. petroleum industry

An oil tank damaged by Hurricane Harvey is seen near Seadrift, Texas, August 26, 2017

By Ahmad Ghaddar

LONDON (Reuters) – Oil markets were roiled on Monday after Tropical Storm Harvey wreaked havoc along the U.S. Gulf Coast over the weekend, crippling Houston and its port, and knocking out several refineries as well as some crude production.

U.S. gasoline prices hit two-year highs as massive floods caused by the storm forced refineries in the area to close. In turn, U.S. crude futures fell as the refinery shutdowns could reduce demand for American crude.

Brent futures steadied as pipeline blockades in Libya slashed the OPEC state’s output by nearly 400,000 barrels per day .

Harvey is the most powerful hurricane to hit Texas in more than 50 years, killing at least two people, causing large-scale flooding, and forcing the closure of Houston port as well as several refineries.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Harvey was moving away from the coast but was expected to linger close to the shore through Tuesday. It said floods would spread from Texas eastward to Louisiana.

Texas is home to 5.6 million bpd of refining capacity, and Louisiana has 3.3 million bpd. Over 2 million bpd of refining capacity was estimated to be offline as a result of the storm.

Spot prices for U.S. gasoline futures surged 7 percent to a peak of $1.7799 per gallon, the highest level since late July 2015, before easing to $1.7341 by 1341 GMT.

U.S. traders were seeking oil product cargoes from North Asia, several refining and shipping sources told Reuters, with transatlantic exports of motor fuel out of Europe expected to surge.

“Global refining margins are going to stay very strong,” said Olivier Jakob, managing director of Petromatrix.

“If (U.S.) refineries shut down for more than a week, Asia will need to run at a higher level, because there’s no spare capacity in Europe.”

About 22 percent, or 379,000 bpd, of Gulf production was idled due to the storm as of Sunday afternoon, the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said.

There might also be around 300,000 bpd of onshore U.S. production shut in, trading sources said.

Brent crude futures were up 2 cents at $52.43 per barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were down 50 cents at $47.37.

The price moves pushed the WTI discount versus Brent to as much as $5.24 per barrel, the widest in two years.

(Additional reporting by Henning Gloystein in Singapore; Editing by Dale Hudson and Edmund Blair)

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