As many as 26 ships are waiting to transit the Houston Ship Channel because vessel traffic is limited to one-way in daylight hours by dense fog on Thursday, according to the US Coast Guard and the Houston ship pilots association.
At least four of those ships are in-bound tankers headed for the busiest US petrochemical port, said a spokesman for Houston Pilots, the association of ship pilots who steer vessels along the 53-mile (85 kilometre) channel from the Gulf of Mexico to the Port of Houston.
Those tankers are scheduled to be the first on Thursday to move up the channel, according to Houston Pilots. A total of 20 ships are in-bound to the channel and six are out-bound.
Dense fog halted traffic at 12:30 am CST (0630 GMT) on Wednesday, according the Coast Guard Houston Vessel Traffic Center. During the day Wednesday, traffic was limited to one-way because of the poor visibility in the 530-foot (162 meter) wide channel.