I was reading
this document, which is an assessment of energy-related hurricane damage, and noticed this bullet point:
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve reports the following assessment of it sites: the Bayou Choctaw site is up and running. There was no damage from the storm. The Bryan Mound site reports no apparent damage. Site is secure. The Big Hill site received some minor damage. Roads into the facility are flooded; entry may be possible later today. No assessment has been done of the West Hackberry site due to impassable, flooded roads.
The unreachable site (in eastern Louisiana) contains almost 1/3 of the total SPR storage...
... The SPR
consists of four sites in west Texas and eastern Louisiana. The inaccessible West Hackberry (LA) site contains nearly 1/3 of the total reserve (220/730 M barrels capacity). I also read that fifth SPR site in coastal Louisiana was decommissioned in 1993 after a sinkhole appeared:
Because of the caverns' construction in salt deposits, fresh water would erode the walls, potentially causing the structure to fail.
I haven't read anything about this in the press -- 1/3 of the SPR is inaccessible and possibly damaged. have less than zero idea how likely damage might be -- does anyone else have any thoughts on this?