Late last week, Hurricane Laura made landfall as a Category 4 storm near Cameron, Louisiana, roughly 30 miles east of the Texas border. Winds peaked at 150 miles per hour, storm surges stretched miles inland, and more than 600,000 homes were initially left without power.
Photo and video from Hurricane Laura’s impact is available here (more will be added throughout the week): https://media.greenpeace.org/
Hurricane Laura struck in the heart of the Gulf Coast oil and gas industry, with hundreds of refineries and petrochemical facilities forced to emit millions of pounds of toxic pollution prior to evacuation. While the worst of the storm missed major population centers like Houston and New Orleans, residents to the south and east of Houston reported being able to smell chemicals in the air prior to the storm. During Hurricane Harvey in 2017, reports filed by companies to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) show that more than 5.7 million pounds of air pollution were released by chemical plants, oil refineries, and industrial facilities in the month after the storm made landfall. Ninety percent of this air pollution was released by just 13 companies.
ENDS
Contact: Ryan Schleeter, Senior Communications Specialist, Greenpeace USA: +1 (415) 342-2386, [email protected]
