The U.S. Coast Guard reopened the Houston Ship Channel on a limited basis Monday, after the primary transport route in and out of the city's large oil refining and petrochemical complex was partly shut by flooding during the weekend. The Coast Guard shut down the channel north of Baytown early Saturday, after floodwaters from Tropical Storm Allison caused more than a dozen barges to slip their moorings and block the bulkloading facility. The southern section of the channel was closed to all but emergency traffic during that time. The decision to reopen the channel came after Coast Guard safety crews checked the integrity of navigational markers and found they were still intact. Traffic is still limited, however. "It's going to be on a case-by-case basis.