Hurricane Katrina at 10: The Gas Price Rollercoaster
One of the biggest societal, non-weather story from Hurricane Katrina was the spike in gasoline prices. During the storm, I posted these pictures of the local (State College, PA) gas prices on my blog:
Local gas prices in State College
I wasn't able to document the entire swing, but it went up more than a dollar locally, then came back down. It seems like that was a huge deal back then, but now prices aren't much higher and swing more. It wasn't until I looked at a historical gas price graph (thanks to YCharts.com) that I noticed why:
Gas prices during Hurricane Katrina, Rita and the 2008 Recession from Y-Charts.
In the 10+ years leading up to Hurricane Katrina, we hadn't seen weekly gas price changes of more than 10 cents very often (even 9/11 was only 25 cents). The rise and fall of close to $1.00 during both Hurricane Katrina and Rita was unknown to the younger population. I noted on my blog that it changed more than 25 cents per day at one point! The reason was easy to see: The Gulf's oil and gas infrastructure was decimated by the storm; as of September 1, 2005 I reported on my blog that "twenty oil rigs are now said missing, a pipeline is on fire, and 91% of crude oil production in the Gulf remains offline." A complete report from the EIA is available by clicking on the graphic below, which shows oil rigs and refineries in the path of the storm, and unofficial photos of severely damaged rigs can be found on this website.
Oil and Gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico as of 2019.
Maps of Hurricane Katrina's track overlaid with Gulf of Mexico oil rigs & refineries (circa 2005) are available in this graphic from an Oil & Gas News Release and also from other sources such as Science Direct and ASCE.
Since then, the price of gasoline has become much more volatile, with 75-cent changes much more frequently, with gas rising up $1.00 then dropping an astounding $2.50 in a matter of weeks during the recession in 2008, and a major rise and drop again in 2014. Ironically, the prices this year have gone up almost as much as Katrina, in not much of a longer time period, but I barely noticed.
The stock market, on the other hand, was barely affected by either Hurricane Katrina or Rita, and outside of the recession, is about as volatile as it was 10 or 20 years ago.
All My Hurricane Katrina at 10 Blogs:
AccuWeather.com Special Reports: Remembering Hurricane Katrina 10 Years Later
