Liam Denning, Columnist

Katrina, Rita And Harvey Tell Shale's Story

The 2005 storms spurred shifts that mute the price impact of today's disaster.

August 28, 2017 at 3:50 PM UTC

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy. A former banker, he edited the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column and wrote the Financial Times’s Lex column.

HOUSTON, TX - AUGUST 27: In this handout provided by the Army National Guard, Texas National Guardsmen rescue a resident by boat during flooding caused by Hurricane HarveyAugust 27, 2017 in Houston, Texas. Harvey, which made landfall north of Corpus Christi late Friday evening, is expected to dump upwards to 40 inches of rain in areas of Texas over the next couple of days.
Photographer: Handout

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The shocking images of Houston's freeways transformed into waterways by the deluge of Hurricane Harvey call to mind similar footage of the floods unleashed on the Gulf coast by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita 12 years ago.

Along with everyone else there, the energy industry tied so closely to this region was hit hard, both then and now. Yet, while the full extent of the latest damage is still to be determined as the disaster is ongoing, it may be that the hurricane seasons of 2005 and 2017 will come to be seen as bookends on a transformation in the U.S. energy business.