Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Rita --- Information Link Summary

This Post will be Updated Frequently

Information Links for Hurricane Rita

The latest Hurricane Center Advisory posted at 11pm EDT ( 10PM Houston time) shows Hurricane Rita with a center located near 24.1N 83.2W, moving out of the Florida straights and into the Gulf of Mexico.

She is presently moving toward the West at 275 degrees and 11 knots with a maximum sustained windspeed of 95 knots and gusts of up to 115 knots.

Galveston County Officials have called for mandatory evacuations of all people in Galveston County. Gal Daily News story also has info on evacuation schedule and order of cities, evacuation routes and evacuation destinations.

Guidry Online News Station is also carrying details, including stories on the Friendswood and west beach evac plans

Please Note: Houston is NOT an evacuation destination! If you remain in your community after a mandatory evacuation order deadline, you will not be able to stop in Houston, you will be directed on to upstate east Texas shelters in Huntsville and other east Texas cities in the safety zone.

The Texas Insider has provided this great Weather Channel animated radar link with its latest email update:
Rita Radar
Thanks to Gina Hollenbeck at the Insider.

SciGuy Eric Berger at the Chron reporting that Rita landfall models are upping the storm's expected intensity.

Banjo Jones at Brazosport News reports a similar evacuation order for neighboring Brazoria County.


National Hurricane Center Links:

Area Media Links:
State and Local Emergency Management Links:

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..

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.

posted by ttyler5 Editor at 1:55 PM