HOUSTON, Sept. 25, 2005 -- The public facilities of the Port of Houston Authority (PHA) will be reopened at 8 a.m. on Monday, September 26 for PHA employees and related port personnel only. All PHA employees and related port personnel should report to work if they have the means and capabilities to safely travel to the PHA facilities. Those who are unable to make it to work should contact their managers or supervisors as soon as possible. For further updates, PHA employees and related port personnel can call the recorded message hotline at 713-670-2870.

The PHA's facilities will be reopened on Tuesday, September 27 for commercial trucks assigned to transport cargo in or out of the facilities. The PHA's facilities will not receive commercial vessels and barges until the U.S. Coast Guard determines and announces the reopening of the Houston Ship Channel.

A preliminary assessment found that the PHA's facilities sustained only minimal impact from Hurricane Rita. The PHA's eight public port facilities include the Bulk Materials Handling Plant, Turning Basin Terminal, Barbours Cut Container Terminal, Woodhouse Terminal, Houston Public Grain Elevator, Jacintoport Terminal, Care Terminal and Galveston Container Terminal.

About the Port of Houston Authority

The Port of Houston Authority owns and operates the public facilities located along the Port of Houston, the 25-mile long complex of diversified public and private facilities designed for handling general cargo, containers, grain and other dry bulk materials, project and heavy lift cargo, and other types of cargo. Each year, more than 6,600 vessels call at the port, which ranks first in the U.S. in foreign waterborne tonnage, second in overall total tonnage, and sixth largest in the world. The Port Authority plays a vital role in ensuring navigational safety along the Houston Ship Channel, which has been instrumental in Houston's development as a center of international trade. The Barbours Cut Container Terminal and Central Maintenance Facility are the first of any U.S. port facilities to develop and implement an innovative Environmental Management System that meets the rigorous standards of ISO 14001. Additionally, the port is an approved delivery point for Coffee "C" futures contracts traded on the New
York Board of Trade's Coffee, Sugar & Cocoa Exchange. For more information, please visit www.portofhouston.com