9/20/05 Preparations for Hurricane Rita
This Post will be Updated throughout the Day ---
Texas --- which has what is very probably the largest and finest emergency management and disaster relief network of any state in the Union --- played a monumental role in the effort to aid refugees of the Katrina disaster.
Minutes after getting the "GO" signal from the Governor and local officials, a vast army of people and resources was firing on all pistons, and the Texas effort in just a matter of hours was able to organize a caravan of buses to rescue the endangered thousands trapped in the NOLA Superdome, even as the Houston Astrodome and shelters and donation centers across the city of Houston and across the state of Texas were preparing to shelter them, clothe them, feed them, tends their wounds, educate their young and help them to get the temporary aid they would need to leave the shelters and get started on "starting over." Texas did this for over 200,000 refugees of Katrina.
Now, it looks like we may be called on to do some of the same for our own, to what extent we don't yet know, as the object of our current concern -- a small hurricane by the name of "Rita" now located between Florida and Cuba --- is slowly making its way our way.
Eric Berger, the Houston Chron's SciGuy, gives us an idea of what a Cat3 Hurricane might do in our area.
Governor Rick Perry, whose Texas Governor's Division of Emergency Management in the Texas DPS deserves huge praise for the role it has played in giving Texas a great emergency preparation and response system, has already declared the state a Disaster Area to get the response moving both on the state as well as the federal levels.
A Voluntary Evacuation of Galveston was called yesterday by the Mayor of Galveston, and today she has called for the Evacuation to speed up.
Click here for more from Guidry Online News and The Galveston County Daily New.
The Houston Chronicle online version is also covering Rita, and Houston area TV stations KTRK-13, KHOU-11, and KPRC-2 are full-featuring Rita coverage at their websites.
Click here for the Feedburner RSS Feeds for the HouChron coverage.
The National Hurricane Center 3 Day and 5 Day probability cones now show Hurricane Rita making landfall in the vicinity of the Freeport- Bay City area early Saturday morning.
The latest Hurricane Center Advisory hot off the presses at 2pm EDT ( about 1PM Houston time) shows Hurricane Rita with a center located near 23.9N 81.7W bteween Cuba and Florida.
A Hurricane Center Update has just informed us that Rita has now reached Category 2 Status with maximum sustained winds of 100 knots as of 1:15PM EDT.
She is presently moving toward the West at 270 degrees and 13 knots.
Click here for an RSS XML feed page at NOAA for Rita.
Because Rita is still, of course, a long way off and many factors deciding the landfall zone could change long before Saturday --- including the intensity of Rita as she slowly trudges her way across the waters of the Gulf of Mexico --- it's best to assume that we in the Houston-Galveston area are still well within the possible strike zone of a Hurricane of still-unknown force that is moving our way just as surely as there will be a traffic jam at rush hour tomorrow morning.
Millions of Texans in our area are already preparing for BOTH possibilities. After Katrina, we are taking no chances.
So, if you haven't begun to prepare as yet, the time is already here!
You will find that many major retail stores in our area ran out of bottled water and "D" flashlight batteries just yesterday and are rushing in new shipments as fast as they can.
So don't wait around too much longer, if you have not prepared both for an EVACUATION as well as SURVIVING WITHOUT POWER AND OTHER NORMAL CONVENIENCES for 24 to 48 hours due to heavy weather efects from Rita!
Texas --- which has what is very probably the largest and finest emergency management and disaster relief network of any state in the Union --- played a monumental role in the effort to aid refugees of the Katrina disaster.
Minutes after getting the "GO" signal from the Governor and local officials, a vast army of people and resources was firing on all pistons, and the Texas effort in just a matter of hours was able to organize a caravan of buses to rescue the endangered thousands trapped in the NOLA Superdome, even as the Houston Astrodome and shelters and donation centers across the city of Houston and across the state of Texas were preparing to shelter them, clothe them, feed them, tends their wounds, educate their young and help them to get the temporary aid they would need to leave the shelters and get started on "starting over." Texas did this for over 200,000 refugees of Katrina.
Now, it looks like we may be called on to do some of the same for our own, to what extent we don't yet know, as the object of our current concern -- a small hurricane by the name of "Rita" now located between Florida and Cuba --- is slowly making its way our way.
Eric Berger, the Houston Chron's SciGuy, gives us an idea of what a Cat3 Hurricane might do in our area.
Governor Rick Perry, whose Texas Governor's Division of Emergency Management in the Texas DPS deserves huge praise for the role it has played in giving Texas a great emergency preparation and response system, has already declared the state a Disaster Area to get the response moving both on the state as well as the federal levels.
A Voluntary Evacuation of Galveston was called yesterday by the Mayor of Galveston, and today she has called for the Evacuation to speed up.
Click here for more from Guidry Online News and The Galveston County Daily New.
The Houston Chronicle online version is also covering Rita, and Houston area TV stations KTRK-13, KHOU-11, and KPRC-2 are full-featuring Rita coverage at their websites.
Click here for the Feedburner RSS Feeds for the HouChron coverage.
The National Hurricane Center 3 Day and 5 Day probability cones now show Hurricane Rita making landfall in the vicinity of the Freeport- Bay City area early Saturday morning.
The latest Hurricane Center Advisory hot off the presses at 2pm EDT ( about 1PM Houston time) shows Hurricane Rita with a center located near 23.9N 81.7W bteween Cuba and Florida.
A Hurricane Center Update has just informed us that Rita has now reached Category 2 Status with maximum sustained winds of 100 knots as of 1:15PM EDT.
She is presently moving toward the West at 270 degrees and 13 knots.
Click here for an RSS XML feed page at NOAA for Rita.
Because Rita is still, of course, a long way off and many factors deciding the landfall zone could change long before Saturday --- including the intensity of Rita as she slowly trudges her way across the waters of the Gulf of Mexico --- it's best to assume that we in the Houston-Galveston area are still well within the possible strike zone of a Hurricane of still-unknown force that is moving our way just as surely as there will be a traffic jam at rush hour tomorrow morning.
Millions of Texans in our area are already preparing for BOTH possibilities. After Katrina, we are taking no chances.
So, if you haven't begun to prepare as yet, the time is already here!
You will find that many major retail stores in our area ran out of bottled water and "D" flashlight batteries just yesterday and are rushing in new shipments as fast as they can.
So don't wait around too much longer, if you have not prepared both for an EVACUATION as well as SURVIVING WITHOUT POWER AND OTHER NORMAL CONVENIENCES for 24 to 48 hours due to heavy weather efects from Rita!
posted by ttyler5 Editor at 9:36 AM
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