Abstract

The state of Florida, including the Tampa Bay region, is considered one of the most vulnerable areas in the United States to hurricanes and severe tropical weather. A particular vulnerability stems from the fact that Tampa Bay receives all of its petroleum—gasoline and diesel—through Port Tampa Bay, which can be impacted by hurricanes and tropical storms, as well as other disasters. If the port is unable to receive ships due to hurricane wind or storm surge, fuel cannot be delivered to the area, and transportation is impeded. One promising way to avoid this reduction in transportation functionality is to diversify the fuels used. This paper summarizes previous fuel challenges and vulnerabilities experienced by key Tampa Bay fleets after the area’s most recent tropical event—Hurricane Irma in 2017—in order to explore ways to improve the resilience of Tampa Bay to natural disasters. Some of these strategies include maintaining emergency fuel supply, prioritizing fuel use, developing innovative real-time resource sharing mechanisms, strategically placing the assets around the region to assist with the recovery, investing in backup generators, planning for redundancies in fuel supply networks, and diversifying fuel sources by incorporating alternative fuel vehicles into the fleet.