TokyoNiGHTS

Here's its current track and its winds



It's a Cat 5 and has now dropped to 898millibars which is the 3rd strongest in history, even stronger than Katrina just to give you an idea of how bad this could be. I've seen that tehre are several people in Texas on this forum, what are is everyone doing (if you haven't left already).

Lieutenant H. Steel

studying for meteorology, i think this is going to be much worse than Katrina as in destruction. If the storm follows the current projected path, then Galveston/ Houston would get the northeast quadrant of the hurricane (the most active part of the hurricane). i wouldn't be surprised if downtown Houston becomes flooded. Tropical Storm Allison showed that a weak system could cause so much destruction and 41 deaths. If that was just tropical system, just imagine what Rita can do. I pray that everyone in Texas just evacuates. Katrina was here for a lesson to learn and now people can act upon it.

TokyoNiGHTS

Yah I think this could be even worse than Katrina in terms of destruction, not deaths (unless for some unknown reason people don't leave). They're talking about not seeing any reason that this would weaken so there's a chance that its really going to hit in its Cat 5 form.

There's no reason to stay after seeing what happened to places Katrina hit. Even if its not as bad just leave to play it safe. There's still more than a day to evacuate anything you want out so you've got plenty of time to make plans still. Just get out as soon as you can.

Lieutenant H. Steel

So a lil' history for Houston area:

The last major hurricane to strike the Houston area was Category-3 Alicia in 1983. It flooded downtown Houston, spawned 22 tornadoes and left 21 people dead.

Lieutenant H. Steel

its so strange that the hurricane season names are already on "R". theres only like afew names left before they have to use Greek alphabets to name hurricanes.

also, i believe the atlantic hurricane season will catch up to the activity of the western pacific typhoon season. The Pacific typhoon season actually started in January 2005 and still occuring. So just to give a perspective, the Asian countries are usually used to having many tropical systems batter their country, but i guess for America, it just feels too overwhelming to comprehend. Maybe the nation will implement strict building codes (ex. better materials, or less zoning in the coastal areas).

In Fair Verona

Dana_Lana

Rita is scary. I live in Southeast Texas and a lot of people have evacuated already, we may HAVE to leave tomorrow...

Jazz

I'm abit worried for my uncle who has cancer and is kind of weak to move from Texas. I'm worried about his health and I"m worried about him staying there.

TheAngel

Thousands go north as Rita heads for Houston with 240 km/h winds
Last Updated Thu, 22 Sep 2005 13:51:05 EDT
CBC News
Hundreds of thousands of residents scrambled to get out of the Houston metro area Thursday as Hurricane Rita, slightly weaker - but still a monster storm with 240 km/h winds, was forecast to hit their city on the weekend.


Cars sit backed up on Interstate 45 between Galveston and Houston Sept. 21, 2005 (Photo by Dave Einsel/Getty Images

FROM AUG. 29, 2005: Hurricane categories

More than 1.8 million residents in Texas and Louisiana have been ordered out to avoid a repeat of Katrina's deadly impact.

Shoppers emptied grocery store shelves of spaghetti, tuna and other nonperishable items. Traffic came to a standstill in places and gas shortages were reported as highways jammed with thousands of motorists heading north.

Harris County Judge Robert Eckels warned: "Don't follow the example of Katrina and wait. No one will come and get you during the storm."

To speed the evacuation out of America's fourth-largest city, Texas Gov. Rick Perry halted all southbound traffic into Houston on Interstate 45 and took the unprecedented step of opening all eight lanes to northbound traffic out of the city for 200 km.

I-45 is the primary evacuation route north from Houston and Galveston - four million live in the Houston metro area. Police officers along the highways carried gasoline to help people get out of town.

Houston is 100 kilometeres inland, but it is a low-lying, flat, sprawling city whose vast stretches of concrete cover clay soil that does not easily soak up water.

The city has seven bayous that overflow their banks even in a strong thunderstorm. Those bayous feed into the Ship Channel, Clear Lake and Galveston Bay.

Scientists have warned that the storm surge from a hurricane could cause the bayous' currents to reverse, pushing water back into the city and swamping mostly poor, Hispanic neighborhoods on the southeast side of Houston.

Houston Mayor Bill White said: "Now is not a time for warnings. Now is a time for action."

White added: "There is no good place to put a shelter that could take a direct hit from a Category 5 hurricane. I don't want anybody out there watching this and thinking that somebody is bound to open a local school for me on Friday, not with a hurricane packing these kinds of winds."

Rita weakened slightly Thursday to a Category 4 storm with winds of 240 km/h.

Forecasters said when it moves over cooler water near shore it could be down to a Category 3 -- with winds as high as 210 km/h -- when it hits land late Friday or early Saturday.

Rita could still be an extremely dangerous hurricane -- one aimed straight America's biggest concentration of oil refineries.

At 11 a.m. ET Thursday, Rita was centered about 735 kilometres southeast of Galveston and was moving at 15 km/h. Forecasters predicted it would come ashore somewhere between the Houston-Galveston area and western Louisiana.

Hurricane-force winds extended 135 kilometres from the center of the storm, and even a slight rightward turn could prove devastating to the Katrina-damaged levees protecting New Orleans, where engineers rushed to fix pumps and strengthen walls.

Rita forced some Katrina victims to flee a hurricane for the second time in 3 and a half weeks. More than 1,000 people who had been living in the civic centre in Lake Charles, La., near the Texas state line, were being bused to shelters farther north.

Crude oil prices rose again on fears that Rita would smash into key oil installations in Texas and the gulf. Hundreds of workers were evacuated from offshore oil rigs.

Most of the oil and natural gas producers and refineries in Texas are located in the Houston area. They are shutting down until the danger passes. Texas accounts for 25 per cent of America's total oil production

Environmentalists warned that the stretch of coast threatened by Rita is home to 87 chemical plants, refineries and petroleum storage installations, raising the possibility that the storm could cause a major oil spill or toxic release.

Twin nuclear electricity-generating reactors at the South Texas Project on the Gulf Coast near Bay City are expected to be in the path of Rita and will shut down seven hours before the storm hits land.

The last major hurricane to hit Texas was Alicia in 1983. It flooded downtown Houston, spawned 22 tornadoes and left 21 people dead. The damage from the Category 3 storm was put at more than $2 billion.

Tropical Storm Allison flooded Houston in 2001, doing major damage to hospitals and research centers and killing 23 people.

In 1900, between 6,000 and 12,000 were killed when a hurricane hit Galveston. It was one of the deadliest natural disasters in U.S. history, it practically wiped the low-lying city off the map.


By late Wednesday Galveston was a virtual ghost town. The coastal city of 58,000 is on an island a little more than two metres above sea level

.
City Manager Steve LeBlanc said the storm surge from Rita could reach 15 metres. Galveston is protected by a nearly 17 kilometre long granite seawall five metres tall. "Not a good picture for us," LeBlanc said.

Meanwhile, the death toll from Katrina passed the 1,000 mark in five Gulf Coast states, reaching 1,069 as of Thursday. The body count in Louisiana alone was put at 832, with most of the corpses found in the receding floodwaters of New Orleans.

New Orleans update


Workers board up windows as they prepare to evacuate Galveston, Texas, Sept. 21, 2005. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco urged all residents of coastal communities to evacuate Thursday as weather reports indicate Hurricane Rita will come closer to the state than previously thought.

Gov. Blanco said: "Southwest Louisiana is now in danger." She said she has asked the federal government to send more troops to help in search and rescue operations in Louisiana, which is still recovering from Katrina.

Outer bands of rain from Rita began falling on New Orleans Thursday, the first rainfall since Katrina hit more than three weeks ago. The rain raised fears that the patched-up levee system could fail and swamp the city again.

Forecasts for southeast Louisiana called for between 7 and 12 cm of rain. Engineers warned that the damaged levees can only handle up to 15 cm of rain and a storm surge of a little more than three metres.

The new forecasts added urgency to the efforts by the Army Corps of Engineers to shore up levees with sandbags and add portable pumps in anticipation of more flooding.

Only three Category 5 hurricanes are known to have hit the U.S. mainland -- the 1935 Florida Keys hurricane, Camille in 1969 and Andrew in 1992.

The U.S. mainland has never been hit by a Category 4 and a Category 5 storm in the same year, it has never even been hit by two Category 4 storms in the same year.

Authorities in Mexican states along the Gulf of Mexico set up shelters, reviewed evacuation plans and stocked food distribution centers Wednesday as a precaution in case Hurricane Rita veers away from its expected path toward Texas.

Rita is the 17th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, making this the fourth-busiest season since record-keeping started in 1851. The record is 21 tropical storms in 1933. The hurricane season is not over until Nov. 30.

Tracking Canadians in Texas

Canadian officials intensified their attempts to reach Canadians who may be in harm's way.

Dan McTeague, parliamentary secretary for Canadians abroad, said there are about 30,000 Canadians in Texas at any given time. He said efforts are underway to contact 175 permanent residents who have registered with consular officials in Dallas.

McTeague said: "We are, of course, trying to get their whereabouts and to encourage each and every one of them to return and to get out of harms way as quickly as possible."

Anyone in Canada who knows the location of Canadians in Texas was asked to report their whereabouts by calling 1-800-387-3124 or to register the information online at

In Fair Verona

Lieutenant H. Steel

whoa ... 90 years difference.

Erin

My thoughts and prayers are with everyone down there! Stay safe!

Lexis

Yet more tragedy.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050923/..._explosion_hk1

America is really going through a rough period right now. Keep safe everyone.

In Fair Verona

Lieutenant H. Steel

as much as this phrase is hackneyed, its always always "better to be safe then sorry", so all those extra bottles may seem like a waste, but u know, no one ever knows what will happen. And i'm sure those extra bottles will have use in the future.

the storm weakened more so thats good news for people. and the highway back up situation has gotten better so people aren't stuck on the roads in the middle of this hurricane.

hopefully, these 2 hurricanes will bring awareness of the dangers of living near the coast as well as a great appreciation and understanding of the destruction mother nature can produce.