Rita Looms Over Gulf Coast

The 7AM CDT National Hurricane Center Advisory:

AT 7 AM CDT...1200Z...THE EYE OF HURRICANE RITA WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 25.2 NORTH...LONGITUDE 88.3 WEST OR ABOUT 490 MILES SOUTHEAST OF GALVESTON TEXAS AND ABOUT 595 MILES EAST-SOUTHEAST OF
CORPUS CHRISTI TEXAS.

RITA IS MOVING TOWARD THE WEST-NORTHWEST NEAR 9 MPH AND THIS GENERAL MOTION IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE FOR THE NEXT 24 HOURS.

MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE ESTIMATED NEAR 170 MPH WITH HIGHER GUSTS. THIS MAKES RITA A POTENTIALLY CATASTROPHIC CATEGORY FIVE HURRICANE ON THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE. A SLOW WEAKENING TREND IS FORECAST BUT RITA IS EXPECTED TO REACH THE COAST LATE FRIDAY OR EARLY SATURDAY AS A MAJOR HURRICANE...AT LEAST CATEGORY THREE.

The central pressure was at 907 mb. Tides are already running higher than normal along the Gulf Coast and the entire area will begin experiencing Rita-related rains tonite into tomorrow.

Since my last posting, Rita strengthened overnight even further.

Gaining strength with frightening speed, Hurricane Rita swirled toward the Gulf Coast a Category 5, 175-mph monster Wednesday as more than 1.3 million people in Texas and Louisiana were sent packing on orders from authorities who learned a bitter lesson from Katrina.

The storm is nearly 400 miles across and tropical storm-force winds extend nearly 370 miles out from the core.

Mayor Bill White urged residents to look out for more than themselves.

"There will not be enough government vehicles to go and evacuate everybody in every area," he said. "We need neighbor caring for neighbor."

Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt issued a stern warning to anyone staying behind that looting would not be tolerated and anyone caught stealing after the storm would be prosecuted.

At the Galveston Community Center, where 1,500 evacuees had been put on school buses to points inland, another lesson from Katrina was put into practice: To overcome the reluctance of people to evacuate without their pets, they were allowed to bring them along in crates.

"It was quite a sight," Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas said. "We were able to put people on with their dog crates, their cat crates, their shopping carts. It went very well."

Actually, one of the key lessons was to make sure that the state and local governments did what their emergency plans stated they should do. The Texas municipalities are showing what state and local governments should have done in Louisiana. They are using all the means at their disposal, including transporting patients from hospitals and nursing homes to safer locations well inland. Traffic is a nightmare on all the roads leading inland, and finding a safe place to ride the storm means people are looking towards Oklahoma or well to the west of Dallas for respite.

There are a bunch of bloggers covering this, including:
~Prarie Pundit;
~Charles Johnson;
and
~Laurence Simon.

To track the storm, you can go to any of the major news sites, or check out:
Weather Underground's modeling. This is a predictive tool to see where and how the storm will come ashore.

Galveston Mayor's Office official site. The Mayor, Lyda Ann Thomas, had declared a state of emergency as of September 20, 2005. This is a list of Galveston's public safety officials.

This is the current Galveston evacuation map.

City of Corpus Christi website has up links to evacuation routes, and other pertinent information. Corpus Christi's Mayor is Henry Garrett.

UPDATE:
Here's the latest simulation tracks and weather intel.

UPDATE:
The evacuation continues and traffic jams are prevalent on major highways leading away from the coast and from Houston to points further inland. Contraflow lanes are going to be established.

UPDATE:
The Star Tribune has some more information about the federal preparations:

In Washington, D.C., officials attempted to show they were prepared for Rita after the government's missteps in responding to Katrina. "I urge the citizens to listen carefully to the instructions provided by state and local authorities and follow them," President Bush said. "We hope and pray that Hurricane Rita will not be a devastating storm, but we got to be ready for the worst."

Many of the 13,000 active-duty troops in Louisiana, Mississippi and off the Gulf Coast were on standby, ready to deploy if Texas officials request federal military assistance, Pentagon officials said.

Ten Navy ships, including the hospital ship Comfort, have moved to the northeastern part of the gulf to avoid the storm, but would be ready to steam in quickly behind it to offer relief. Twenty helicopters at Fort Hood, Texas, also have been placed on stand-by for search and rescue, transport or medevac missions in support of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), according to Michael Kucharek, a spokesman for the U.S. Northern Command.

About 25,000 members of the Texas National Guard remain on duty in Louisiana and 10,500 in Mississippi. According to the National Guard Bureau, nearly 2,000 Guardsmen are on state-active duty preparing for Rita, and Perry has authorized the activation of up to 5,000 more.

In Florida, Rita caused no major structural damage in Key West, but some flooding was reported and about 7,000 customers lost power. Residents were allowed to return Wednesday.

In New Orleans, Mayor Ray Nagin had a mandatory evacuation order in effect for most of the city. Still, after days of worry that Rita would strike the weakened city, there was some sense of relief that it was heading west.

One of the reasons that the response for Rita appears much quicker at the federal level than during Katrina is that many of the National Guard units are already mobilized for Katrina relief and will be directed to assist in relief efforts once Rita heads inland. Navy ships that were providing relief for Katrina will be able to assist in Rita relief and are closer to the areas affected. In particular, the USNS Comfort, a hospital ship has been in Pascagoula as opposed to its usual station in Baltimore, MD. This means the ship didn't have to spend nearly a week to get to the affected area. Other Navy ships are in the Gulf of Mexico looking to ride out the storm and to come in behind the storm to provide assistance. Assets that were useful for Katrina rescue operations are already in the region, so the response will again be much quicker.

UPDATE:
The Jawa Report has gathered numerous webcams for the affected areas along the Texas Gulf Coast and Houston, Texas.

Also, in an update on Katrina relief efforts, the chief administrative officer for Kenner, Louisiana, Cedric Floyd, was found with his hand in the cookie jar:

Police found cases of food, clothing and tools intended for hurricane victims at the home of the chief administrative officer for a New Orleans suburb, authorities said Wednesday.

Officers searched Cedric Floyd's home because of complaints that city workers were helping themselves to donations for hurricane victims. Floyd, who runs the day-to-day operations in the suburb of Kenner, was in charge of distributing the goods.

Police plan to seek a charge of committing an illegal act as a public official against Floyd, and more charges against other city workers are possible, police Capt. Steve Caraway said.

UPDATE:
The NWS keeps tracking the storm to the East, which means that the strong side of the storm, a relative concept btw when talking about 165/175 mph winds, is heading closer to Louisiana and New Orleans. This means that potential rainfall and storm surge will be higher than earlier estimates. Rita may finish what Katrina started.

UPDATE:
The NWS has downgraded the storm to a category 4 storm, with top sustained winds of 150 mph, with higher gusts possible. Katrina came ashore as a category 4 storm, with 145 mph winds, and we know what kind of damage that did.

Technorati: flood aid; hurricane katrina; hurricane rita; katrina aid; new orleans, rita, galveston, corpus christi.