One city's tragedy may be another's boon By Simon Romero The New York Times TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2005 HOUSTON No one would accuse this city of being timid in the scramble to profit from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Oil services companies based here are already racing to carry out repairs to damaged offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, and the promise of plenty of work to do sent shares in two large companies, Halliburton and Baker Hughes, soaring to record levels last week. The Port of Houston is preparing for an increase in traffic as shippers divert cargo away from the damaged ports of New Orleans and Pascagoula, Mississippi. With brio that might make an ambulance-chaser proud, one company, National Realty Investments is offering special financing deals "for hurricane survivors only," with no down payments and discounted closing costs. "It feels like the only things left in south Louisiana are snakes and alligators," said John Olson, co-manager of Houston Energy Partners, a hedge fund that operates out of a skyscraper in the city center. "Houston is positioned for a boom." Perhaps no city in the United States is in a better spot to turn Katrina's tragedy into opportunity. Long known for its commercial fervor, Houston, the largest city in the South with a metropolitan population of more than four million, has one of the busiest ports in the United States and remains unrivaled as a center for the energy industry. Halliburton moved its headquarters to Houston from Dallas in 2003, joining dozens of companies based here that provide services for oil and natural gas producers. Halliburton differs from many oil services companies in that it also does significant business with the federal government. Halliburton has a contract with the U.S. Navy, similar to its contracts in Iraq, that has already kept it busy after Hurricane Katrina. The company's Kellogg, Brown & Root unit was doing repairs and cleanup at three naval facilities in Mississippi last week. Executives at other Houston companies said they were wasting little time in carrying out repairs in the Gulf of Mexico, where at least 20 offshore rigs and platforms are believed to be damaged or destroyed. Tetra Technologies, which repairs old platforms in the Gulf of Mexico or decommissions them, had employees in a helicopter the day after the storm passed to survey the damage. "I always hate to talk about positives in a situation like this, but this is certainly a growth business over the next 6 to 12 months," said Geoffrey Hertel, the chief executive of Tetra. By Friday, Tetra had been able to send an 800-ton derrick barge it owns, the Arapaho, to the gulf to be used for platform repairs, Hertel said. If the storm works to Houston's benefit, it would not be the first time a natural disaster of extraordinary size sparked some economic dynamism here. The hurricane of 1900 in nearby Galveston, which killed more than 6,000 people and almost leveled the most thriving commercial city in the Southeast, paved the way for Houston, located 50 miles, or 80 kilometers, inland, to emerge as a regional center for shipping and oil refining. The displacement of companies to Houston from New Orleans is an abrupt acceleration of a trend that has been going on for decades. Many large companies, particularly those in the energy business, have made that move over the years, leaving New Orleans more dependent on tourism and other service industries. A surge of business activity in Houston might lift the fortunes of a city that is still struggling to recover from the collapse of Enron and two decades of job cuts in the energy industry. Rising oil and natural gas prices in the last two years have strengthened the finances of Houston's largest energy companies, but have done little to improve job prospects in the city, where the unemployment rate was 5.5 percent in July, compared with 5 percent nationally. During the last oil boom, in the 1970s, 150,000 jobs were created in the business of oilfield equipment, according to Barton Smith, director of the Institute for Regional Forecasting at the University of Houston. But since the 1980s, about 130,000 of those jobs have been lost as oil and natural gas exploration moved away, largely to West Africa, the Middle East and Asia, and companies were able to produce oilfield equipment more cheaply abroad. One company that has exchanged New Orleans for Houston is Whitney Holding, the parent company of Whitney National Bank, founded in 1883 and the oldest operating bank in New Orleans. Another New Orleans oil exploration company, Energy Partners, said in a statement last week that it was also making Houston its temporary headquarters. Other companies are following suit, according to real estate brokers. "It's exploding," said Steve Duplantis, senior managing director at CB Richard Ellis. "When I talk to owners of office buildings, they say people are not even negotiating. As tragic as it is for New Orleans, it is a boon for Houston." Read the rest of the story here
maybe the yanks are getting nervous that houston will overtake ny (population wise) in the near future??
Wow, people are still up at this hour? Wow, people are still up at this hour? Wow, people are still up at this hour? Wow, people are still up at this hour?
Well not New York..... but aren't we closing in on Chicago population wise.. if I recall correctly we have a faster growing population.. and add half of New Orleans to that.... not that it matters , but maybe we will catch up to chicago one day
Who cares if we catch Chicago? Honestly, I'd rather Houston get smaller. It's too crowded here and traffic is horrible. The last thing we need is more sprawl.
Well, I can tell you where it won't help Houston... the schools. Houston is already having difficulties in many schools keeping up with the average test scores. That whole No Child Left Behind Movement that good ol' Bush left us with, was complete crap as schools were caught smudging grades to meet standards. Well those standards are still not up to par, and increasing our schools with thousands of Louisiana students is going to make an impact, especially considering the students economic level, which sadly, usually reflects their education level as well. My brother's wife is a principal and a lot of schools are worried what this will do to their budgets, teachers, ratings, and overall test scores, especially if this is long term instead of short term stay as initially predicted.
Don't worry, it just means that there'll be more freeway construction. Coincidentally enough, I was reading about population statistics a few weeks ago and found out that Phoenix, Az. of all places is the major city whose population has exploded over the past 15 years. From the 1990 - 2000 census it went from something like the 10th most populous city to I believe the 6th and the 2004 estimate has it about to pass up Philly for #5. It's insane how much that city has grown in the last 10-15 years. All of the major Texas cities experience population booms from 1990-2000. I believe Houston grew around 20%, Dallas around 18%, and San Antonio around 22% (?). Austin was up there around 40% as well (which is nuts!). I think Las Vegas was something on the order of 80-something percent.
