$31 million in federal grants goes toward cameras and other devices to ward off attacks. When U.S. diplomats picked up intelligence about a terrorist threat to refineries in Pasadena, Calif., security experts quickly concluded that the target actually was the Houston suburb of the same name. The city in Southern California has no refineries.
The July 2002 tip to the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, India, made it clear to local officials and Houston Ship Channel industries that potential attacks on the second-largest conglomeration of petrochemical facilities in the world were not idle fears.