Oil patch musters its scattered work force

Workers displaced by Katrina housed in tent cities, cots at work

HOUSTON – As the U.S. oil and gas industry continues to assess damage and restore massive outages of Gulf coast production and refining capacity, much attention has been paid to assessing the physical damage. But the oil patch is wrestling with another critical problem: How to manage the huge disruption to a work force that has been scattered across the Southeast.

For some, work and home have become the same place. Dozens of workers at Valero Energy