Hurricane season started on June 1st. Will your tank farms be ready?

(This article was written without AI tools, i.e., ChatGPT.)

Every year during hurricane season, I have a couple of articles I like to repost due to their critical reminders. As hurricane season began on June 1st, I decided to start my annual hurricane mini-series this week.

Importance: Flashback article, the Houston Chronicle, June 4, 2020: Gulf chemical plants unprepared for increasing flood risk from climate change: report

Have you changed anything physical on-site over the past several years to better prepare? Have you developed any new protocols to address the current “new” norms—i.e., heavier rains and increased construction activities bringing in more widespread flooding?

Hurricane season is like a slot machine—unpredictable in nature. You never know what will happen weather-wise during this time of year. However, preparing for a potential hurricane is always prudent, which is especially crucial for oil companies with tank farms. Furthermore, there are tools and methodologies to assist with post-hurricane damages.

Before a hurricane, companies should ask themselves:

• If secondary containment floods, what is the required amount of product to keep the tank from floating away?
• If there are strong winds, how much wind force should be considered acting on the tanks, and how much more product is required to keep the tank from moving?
• Are old tanks more susceptible to damage than tanks built to newer codes?
• Are small tanks with higher aspect ratios more likely to overturn than big tanks?
• What could be the effect of moving water on tanks located at my facility due to rainwater drain-off after flooding?
• If there is insufficient oil to fill tanks, what alternatives do I have to be reasonably safe?

Sadly, not everyone asks these questions in advance or prepares plans that will help mitigate potential hurricane-related issues before a hurricane hits. What happens when you don’t prepare? When a hurricane or other major tropical depression is on the horizon, people refer to a generic pre-storm planning checklist to secure operations rather than following a pre-determined, individualized plan. While this approach is not necessarily wrong, a more desirable outcome is likely with a well-thought-out pre-plan in place.

What does the industry do to help prepare when a weather-related event is imminent? The practice used by most within the industry is to anchor tanks and ancillary piping at the same time one starts filling them with water. This practice prevents the tank from floating off-site and/or impacting other objects, minimizing the risk of a spill if another object impacts the anchored tank. Implementing these preventative measures makes perfect sense and is standard industry practice. However, there is a precise science to the practice. As mentioned, there are many variables to account for that will ensure tanks are adequately secured.

Due to the many spills generated by flooding events post-Katrina and Rita, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Regional Response Team (RRT) Region 6 published the following guidelines that provide even further guidance and details: Flood Preparedness Recommended Best Practices

Post-Hurricane

The hurricane has passed, flooding has subsided around storage tanks, and now it’s time to assess the damage. Most people will focus on easily noticeable flood lines to assess damage levels and blown-down or damaged items. However, one thing that is not always obvious is tank settling. Similar to how a water-logged car’s electrical system can be hidden from view, settling can be hidden, subsequently obscuring critical failure points looming in the future.

A lightbulb moment: Large trees that have been living near the tanks for hundreds of years have fallen on their sides, but there’s no evidence of wind damage in the immediate area. Why did the trees fall over? The ground where the trees stood had been saturated for days because of flooding (standing water), which loosened the area around their roots and weakened the root structure due to the trees’ weight. Remember, pre-storm procedures instructed one to fill tanks with water; these tanks are incredibly heavy now, and a similar event is possible here too. It may not be as visible; however, it may be enough to cause critical stress fractures or other issues with the tanks.

September 14, 2017 article:

“The AP has identified at least 34 above-ground fuel storage tanks and tank batteries that failed during Harvey and released more than 600,000 gallons (2.2 million liters) combined of crude oil, gasoline and other chemicals.

Two storage tanks failed in the (name removed for blog) case. Initial indications suggested the massive tanks floated off their foundations as floodwaters swamped the company’s tank farm, (name removed) said. That’s what happened at tank farms in Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina, when numerous storage tank failures spilled millions of gallons of fuel into floodwaters.”

If in doubt, or if there is any indication that the surrounding areas may have been overly saturated—allowing for sub-surface ground disturbances—part of one’s post-recovery efforts should be commencing an API 653 Section 12 and Appendix B methodology for evaluating storage tanks for an out-of-plane settlement study or similarly applicable evaluation.

Do not forget that the industry also has Underground Storage Tanks (UST). Though not part of today’s discussion, here is a great guidance tool published by the EPA with similar pre- and post-event considerations: UST Flood Guide.

Not necessarily related to today’s discussion; however, FEMA prepared the “Ready Business Hurricane Toolkit,” which contains a wealth of helpful information, contacts, and suggestions to better prepare your business for hurricane season and what to do after a hurricane hits.

Need Help?

PRE-HURRICANE PLANNING

Witt O’Brien’s develops pre-hurricane checklists, hurricane manuals/plans, and tank risk-assessment reports to help prepare client operations. Our subject matter experts (SMEs) cover a broad spectrum of engineering competencies, emergency response, and environmental planning—giving us a unique capability to manage our clients’ needs from a wide-angle perspective.

TANK SETTLEMENT – POST-HURRICANE

Witt O’Brien’s SMEs can perform the full API 653 tank settlement calculations based on damage conditions and future operational needs. We can save our clients millions of dollars by avoiding misdiagnosed tank settlements, unnecessary jacking expenditures, and lost time. Tank jacking is a significant repair, and there is the inherent risk that the cure could be worse than the settlement. In addition to the standard API 653 calculations, we have improved methods of analysis to minimize the use of jacking to only the instances where it is genuinely appropriate.

DIKE/BERM DAMAGE – PRE-/POST-HURRICANE

Witt O’Brien’s surveying capabilities cover all sizes of containments, from a single tank to hundreds of acres. Depending on your location, we can provide surveying using traditional techniques and various 3D modeling solutions that have excellent accuracy of photogrammetric modeling paired with the capturing ability of drones supported by GNSS Integrated Network Rover (GPS/cellular) field equipment. Our boots-on-the-ground data truthers allow us to offer cutting-edge dike surveys designed to save our clients throughout the United States time and money. We have experience with many types of dike arrangements and low-cost repair strategies, including shared containment.

For a complete listing of archived articles and compliance insights, click here. Past articles cover training requirements, clarification of additional unclear elements within the above rules, and more.

We are here to help solve your compliance questions and challenges. If you need compliance assistance or have questions, please email John K. Carroll III (jcarroll@wittobriens.com), Associate Managing Director – Compliance Services, or call +1 954-625-9373.

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• Witt O’Brien’s is now part of the Ambipar Response Group (NYSE: AMBI)

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