Hurricane Rita Hits the Keys

As that radar image shows, Hurricane Rita is hitting the Florida keys with heavy rain and strong winds. The highest recorded speeds thus far are 85 mph. CNN is reporting that about half of Key West's residents have decided to ride out the storm despite a mandatory evacuation.

At least the Florida authorities have evacuated people from hospitals and medical facilities in advance of the storm. They brought in aircraft specifically to airlift them to facilities in the Miami area.

A hurricane warning stretched from Golden Beach, in Miami-Dade, south to Florida City, around the tip of the peninsula and then north to Chokoloskee. All of the Florida Keys are included in the warning.

Hurricane warnings were also in effect for part of the Bahamas and four Cuban provinces, including Havana, which means hurricane conditions were expected within 24 hours.

Bush announced that hospital and nursing home patients were moved north from the Florida Keys on Monday.

Various webcams in the Keys are down. Local news is covering the evacuation and preparations for Rita's landfall on the Keys.

UPDATE:
Rita was just upgraded to a Cat 2. This isn't good news as this means that Rita will likely intensify into a stronger hurricane than earlier predictions anticipated. For the latest predictors, check out the GFDL, which also examines earlier hurricanes in order to improve the predictive capabilities of the GFDL's simulations. The National Hurricane Center 3-day forcast suggests that the storm will hit the Texas coastline, which is bad news for Katrina evacuees, who sought refuge in Texas.

REPEATING THE 2 PM EDT POSITION...23.9 N... 81.7 W. MOVEMENT
TOWARD...WEST NEAR 15 MPH. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...100 MPH.
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE... 978 MB.

Technorati: flood aid; hurricane rita; rita.