After the jolting early morning news that Hurricane Rita was heading directly toward Galveston Bay, the track models have been trending further eastward for most of the day. The current most likely projection is that the storm will make landfall east of Galveston Bay closer to Port Arthur and Beaumont and, if that happens, most of the Houston metro area would at least be spared a direct hit by the most damaging winds around the storm’s eyewall.
However, the key words here are “most likely,” which means that there is a very small percentage difference between the storm making landfall at one spot over another. Stated another way, the chance that the storm could come onshore directly on Galveston Bay is still very likely. The storm is reacting to the movement of three weather systems to its north, and it’s simply impossible at this point to determine with any reasonable degree of certainty where the storm will make landfall between Freeport, Tx to Lafayette, La. My sense is that it will not be until early Friday morning before the experts will really have a good handle on how the storm is finally going to react to the weather systems to its north and thus, where landfall will occur. Moreover, even that very good prediction can be as much as 30-50 miles off if the storm wobbles even slightly while coming onshore. Remember, Katrina wobbled east at almost the last minute and spared New Orleans a direct hit.
Thus, the bottom line is to remain vigilant in following this storm. It looks like the storm will be at least a strong category 3 when the it somes onshore, and a storm of that magnitude — even if it comes onshore well east of Galveston Bay — will cause very dangerous wind and rainfall in the entire Houston metro area.
Houston's Clear Thinkers
Longtime Houston attorney Tom Kirkendall's observations on developments in law, business, medicine, culture, sports, and other matters of general interest to the Houston business, professional, and academic communities.
?…in the entire Houston metro area.?
This is only half right. There are numerous areas of Houston which only have a modest chance of serious damage. My neighborhood located around the Highway 59 South and Beltway 8 area was only slightly flooded during Allison in 2001. I doubt very much if even a Cat 5 poses much of a risk. This is especially the case if one considers the alternative: driving out of the city! Those suckers are in real bad shape. The Governor Perry and Mayor White have turned out to be well meaning alarmists who inadvertently have placed many citizens’ lives in danger.
David, my sense of what what has made this evacuation so arduous is the large number of people evacuating who do not live in the mandatory evacuation areas. I agree that most folks are much better off battening down the hatches and staying put, but it’s hard to criticize folks — particularly those who do not have a safe haven to ride out the storm — for wanting to get the hell out. The number of non-mandatory evacuees surprised governmental officials, so they were a bit slow in getting all freeway lanes going in the same direction to accomodate the evacuees. But given how well those officials have handled preparations for this storm generally, in addition to how well they performed in connection with accomodating the Katrina evacuees, I’m more than willing to cut them some slack for making a few misjudgments.
By the way David, at 59 and the Beltway, you would get pummelled if this storm comes in near Galveston Bay. I know. I lived near there during Alicia! ;^)
Pummeled? How are you defining that term? Is serious property damage a possibility? Can a Category 5 hurricane cause more flooding than Allison? We only endured a little puddle of water in the street during that disaster. Hurricane Alicia occurred in 1983. Isn?t the drainage system better this time around? To be more specific, we live off of Beltway 8 and Bellfort next to the former golf course. I think we are pretty high off the ground.
We’re non-mandatory (above the 500 year flood plain) just west of Downtown and riding it out. This is the quietest it has been in my 6 years in Midtown/Montrose.
David, during Alicia, the big problem in your neck of the woods of Houston was tornadoes. A bunch of them. If you are not in a flood prone area (I’m not either), wind damage from flying debris and tornadic activity is your biggest risk if the storm comes in near Galveston Bay.
Tom, I would be interested to hear why you think the City and County leaders have done such a good job on Rita. I agree, they sounded the alarm in a timely manner, however, their instructions were that we should leave town – even those not in a manadatory evacuation zone were urged to get out by White, Berry, etc. Depsite having adequate notice (5 days?) that they would be calling for an evacuation, they did not have any type of a traffic plan in place. The contraflow solution (as far as I know) was not raised until late last night and implementation began at some point today. I know many other cities use this type of contraflow system to help manage their traffic on a regular basis – so it can be done. We could have left one lane open to run the other direction with proper preparation, which would have allowed us to use the other lanes earlier. Also, it seems to me that the HOV rules should have been left in place. I did not hear any of our leaders asking (or pleading) with families to travel together. The best way to reduce traffic would have been to encourage people to carpool. Carpooling is one of the best means we have to reduce congestion, since it is merely a more efficient use of existing capacity. Also, this would have made the HOV lane available for mass transit buses or other specialty vehicles. Once the lane is opened to all traffic, the benefits of the lane are lost.
One final point – as you have mentined, the primary flaw in the NO evacuation plan was that too many people in NO did not have cars. Other than Houston’s abundance of cars, what did our leaders do differently?
These are not rhetorical questions intended to prove a point. I raise them to make the point that, while our leaders seem to have performed better than the leaders of NO or LA, I do not believe they deserve a hall pass for meeting such a low standard.
Finally, love the site. Thanks for all of the information.
Blawging Rita
Three of my favorite blawggers – Tom Kirkendall, Beldar, and Ernie – are all in areas likely to be affected by Hurricane Rita (especially the former two) and are blawgging about it. So far so good for all. My thoughts
Tom, I agree with you that “what has made this evacuation so arduous is the large number of people evacuating who do not live in the mandatory evacuation areas.” I respectfully disagree with Mr. Thomson that “Governor Perry and Mayor White have turned out to be well meaning alarmists who inadvertently have placed many citizens’ lives in danger.” Neither of them were in a position from which they could responsibly urge anyone not to evacuate. But if you’ve listened carefully to what they’ve said — and that requires you also to ignore a lot of the media hype — they’ve been calling for evacuation of the evacuation zones, which excludes most of Harris County, plus those who’re at special risk (hospital and nursing home patients, mobile home residents, folks whose houses have frequently flooded in past storms).
Rita and gridlock
A (slightly edited) email I just sent to NRO’s Jonah Goldberg, who’s presenting competing views about the gridlock and gas shortages as folks have been evacuating from the Houston area as Hurricane Rita approaches: My preliminary impression, In a nutsh…
I disagree with Beldar. What I had heard (until last night) from our local officals was that if you were in a mandatory evacutation zone, you were required to leave. If you were not, you were encouraged to leave unless you had a legitimate, pressing reason to stay. In fact, the phrase I heard over and over from our leaders was that if you could get out, you should get out.
I also disagree with Thompson that our leaders were “well-meaning alarmists.” Based on the information they had, the alarms they sounded were valid – irrespective of what the eventual severity of the storm may be. Sounding these alarms would not have created all of the problems that were created if they had properly managed the traffic. Unfortunately, our leaders had no traffic management plan (not even a bad one) to move all of these people.