Hurricane Laura Intensifies in the Gulf of Mexico

Announcement Number: CN2020-40
Categories: General Announcements
Posted Date: August 25, 2020

To Our Customers,

We continue to monitor Hurricane Laura, which is forecasted to intensify into a Category 3 hurricane and make landfall near the Texas/Louisiana border Wednesday evening.

We have made preparations along our network to ensure any potential outages are addressed and repaired as quickly as possible. The following actions are being taken over the next 24 hours due to the expected high winds and predicted intensity of the upcoming storm:

  • Curtailing operations across parts of our network
  • Securing rail equipment in our yards
  • Deploying additional support personnel to the area

The New Orleans flood gates remain closed with no interchange to the eastern carriers. Some trains are being rerouted over Memphis during the outage. Union Pacific's Avondale, Louisiana intermodal terminal remains closed until further notice. In addition, we are closing the Settegast and Englewood intermodal terminals in Houston, effective 12:00 p.m. CT, August 26. These closures apply to inbound and outbound intermodal gate activity.

Our ability to operate trains in the area will be dependent upon the strength of the storm and the impact it has to our network. Customers should continue to refer to our Hurricane Planning and Recovery plan for best practices to follow during a hurricane.

We will continue to provide updates on this weather system. If you have any questions, please contact Customer Care & Support at 800-272-8777 or your Union Pacific representative.