All Well.. People head back – Gridlock again??

Hoping to avoid a repeat of the highway gridlock and fuel shortages that frustrated and stranded Houston residents fleeing from Hurricane Rita, Texas’ governor is calling for evacuees to stay put while authorities come up with a plan to stagger their return.

Because of the need to bring rescue crews and supplies into the region, outbound lanes of the highways will not be opened to returning traffic.

“Stay patient. Stay put,” Gov. Rick Perry said this morning. “Hopefully as soon as this afternoon we’ll be able to share with people how to get into their homes and neighborhoods.”

State and city officials — along with Houston-area schools that must decide when to start classes — will attempt to coordinate residents’ return home. Oil companies are gearing up to replenish drained gas stations that were sucked dry after the masses motored for higher ground.

But parts of East Texas, where many Houston-area residents fled, remain under hurricane and severe storm warnings. Travel advisories are still in effect for major routes leading back to the Houston area, which is still experiencing rain and winds of 40 miles per hour. Nearly 600,000 are without power in the Houston area.

Houston Mayor Bill White and Harris County Judge Robert Eckels encouraged people to keep their ears open for the all-clear signal but acknowledged the government’s efforts will be largely advisory.

“Coordinating the acts of citizens — let’s be serious,” he said. “There aren’t going to be mandated days on when to come back.”

“If they are in a safe place and have power, they shouldn’t be making plans right now,” White said. “They should be listening to the media concerning advisories that will be issued.”

White criticized the state’s plan for having fuel in place for evacuees.

“It was just totally unacceptable that there was not adequate fuel supplies stashed around the state,” White said. “That’s a part of the state plan that’s going to need improvement.”

U.S. Rep Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, said she has asked federal officials to reimburse evacuees for their fuel cost.

The Houston area saw both mandatory and voluntary evacuations. And it will be up to local elected officials who ordered mandatory evacuations to decide when people can return, said Jack Colley, coordinator of state emergency operations.

But there is nothing to keep people from returning to areas that were not included in mandatory evacuations, said Steve McCraw, state director of homeland security.

“I expect we’ve already seen some traffic move back into Houston,” McCraw said Friday night as the hurricane continued on a path to make landfall east of Harris County.

And just as officials can’t force recalcitrant individuals to evacuate, they can’t prevent people from returning home, said Robert Black, a spokesman for Gov. Rick Perry.

“Nothing precludes anyone from going back to Houston but common sense,” he said.

A big factor in that decision for many people will be start dates for schools.

Area school officials say they will decide as soon as possible when to resume classes. Terry Abbott, a spokesman for the Houston Independent School District, said superintendents are convening via telephone conference call at noon.

Abbott said HISD’s 12,500 teachers and 210,000 students are scattered throughout the state, making it difficult this morning to determine when the district should reopen.

Attempts to stagger evacuees’ return requires coordination with many suburban school districts, and another concern is the uncertainty over fuel supplies.

Strain at suppliers’ end
State officials have not decided whether the government would be willing to refuel incoming cars as they did for those stranded on their way out of town, saying that scenario is too hypothetical. Fuel suppliers scrambled to find ways to get much-needed gasoline into the area Friday even before Rita made landfall.

Exxon Mobil was trying to move tanker trucks from other parts of the country and kept the spigots open at its North Houston gasoline storage facility to keep police and fire departments functioning.

The company said it started giving away fuel to first responders as it did in Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

In the best-case scenario for Houston, gasoline stocks at corner stations could start being refilled as early as Sunday. But if power lines to gas stations and storage tanks are snapped and damage to refineries and pipelines is extensive, gasoline could be scarce for much longer.

Texas energy economist John Lowe warned gasoline prices could soar around the nation if refineries are badly hit and the psychological need to horde kicks in with everybody trying to top off their tanks.

On Friday, some states tried to head off shortfalls.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection asked oil companies not to sell gasoline to customers looking to fill reserve canisters. It’s a voluntary move to try to quell potential fuel shortages, said department spokeswoman Cragin Mosteller.

Georgia, which saw some of the highest gasoline prices in the country after Hurricane Katrina, has not experienced shortages yet. But with peanut farmers needing to harvest their crops, Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue wasn’t taking any chances with diesel supplies crucial to farm equipment.

Perdue asked schools to take “early snow days” Monday and Tuesday, ordering diesel-burning buses parked and schools closed to conserve 225,000 gallons of fuel.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is allowing conventional gasoline to be sold in Houston and Galveston where special gasoline formulations are required because of air pollution. The waiver was extended to parts of Dallas-Fort Worth for a week.

Tom Kloza, chief analyst of the Oil Price Information Service, says the market is already stressed by crude refining capacity in Louisiana that remains knocked out from Katrina. He doesn’t see prices hitting $5 per gallon but says if another substantial chunk of refining capacity is sidelined for an extended period that could be the tipping point toward higher prices and wider shortages.

The critical Colonial Pipeline, which transports gasoline from Houston north to New Jersey, had periodic stoppages Friday because many of the refineries that feed into it were shut down.

Under the best of circumstances, it takes a refinery a 1 1/2 to 2 days to restart.

Colonial and other energy lifelines out of the Gulf Coast do have some gasoline and diesel in storage tanks that they can draw from, but Kloza said pipelines might have to start rationing products to customers if refineries don’t bounce back quickly.

O’Rourke Petroleum, which delivers gasoline to convenience stores, hospitals and industrial users, won’t put its tankers on the roads when winds are gusting over 35 mph.

“As soon as the winds die down, we’ll be back,” Mushahid Khan, head of O’Rourke’s operations, said.

Pumps at service stations can’t function without electricity, so Chevron has stockpiled 30 generators for stores without power.

Robert Looney, president of the Texas Oil and Gas Association, said the current gasoline shortages are purely logistical.

Where gas is plentiful
San Antonio and Austin should have a steady supply of gasoline because it is produced in Corpus Christi, where refineries like those owned by Citgo and Valero continue to churn out gasoline, he said.

Some of that supply is being stretched to help East Texas recover after evacuees emptied much of the region.

“We have drained every filling station from Austin south. It’s just a practical matter of how long it takes to fill them back up,” he says.

Even Dallas had spot shortages, according to Harry Quarls, of the energy practice in the Dallas office of Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting firm. He says it’s normal in a case like this.

“The real question is how fast these refineries can get back up to speed,” he said.

“If you draw down all the terminals to get product to gas stations then the issue becomes how to replenish those terminals.”

Chronicle reporters Polly Ross Hughes, Bill Hensel, Kristen Mack and Jason Spencer contributed to this story.