Update: Category 5 Hurricane Rita - Live Thread, Part II

Category	Wind Speed	Barometric Pressure	Storm Surge	Damage Potential
Tropical Depression	< 39 mph < 34 kts			Minimal
Tropical Storm	39 - 73 mph 34 - 63 kts			Minimal
Hurricane 1 (Weak)	74 - 95 mph 64 - 82 kts	28.94" or more 980.02 mb or more	4.0' - 5.0' 1.2 m - 1.5 m	Minimal damage to vegetation
Hurricane 2 (Moderate)	96 - 110 mph 83 - 95 kts	28.50" - 28.93" 965.12 mb - 979.68 mb	6.0' - 8.0' 1.8 m - 2.4 m	Moderate damage to houses
Hurricane 3 (Strong)	111 - 130 mph 96 - 112 kts	27.91" - 28.49" 945.14 mb - 964.78 mb	9.0' - 12.0' 2.7 m - 3.7 m	Extensive damage to small buildings
Hurricane 4 (Very strong)	131 - 155 mph 113 - 135 kts	27.17" - 27.90" 920.08 mb - 944.80 mb	13.0' - 18.0' 3.9 m - 5.5 m	Extreme structural damage
Hurricane 5 (Devastating)	Greater than 155 mph Greater than 135 kts	Less than 27.17" Less than 920.08 mb	Greater than 18.0' Greater than 5.5m	Catastrophic building failures possible

I'm stunned....no hotels/motels anywhere! If anyone knows of any rooms available, please post it.

That was Avila's estimate, and it was mph, I double checked...but that I think was too conservative, but Avila does conservative guestimatings...The pressure was lower for sure than his guestimate, but higher than the sat data suggested...I am guessing that now it is on the border of 4/5, with solid 5 before nightfall...Flight level winds on the last vortex reading were about 147 kt, which would make it somewhere around 125 kt on the surface, but I haven't seen an "official" interpretation of the vortex readings yet.

steveegg do we really want a hurricane TAZ???

Gosh, sinkspur posted a list last night from the DFW area, are they all full already?

Well, you won't get everyone out, as some will want to stay and a free society cannot force them.

However, we can get everyone out that wants to go. In theory, using all the resources available, it would take 33 hours to empty the threatened coastline. In practice, it's more like 72-80 hours, and we have that kind of time.

steveegg do we really want a hurricane TAZ???

BS
It can be done.

recon just found 152 knot winds...not sure where but if its at flight level that's 160MPH surface winds..it may be lower then flight level which would mean lesser winds at the surface then 160..would be 140MPH if they were flying at 1000ft instead of flighlevel

haha that was a pretty bad spelling, but I think my friend holds the "record for a misspelling."

she spelled "tomorrow" as "tmoowow" once. course, it was a typo.

anyway, thanks for the post, i got a good laugh. =)

BWAAAAHHH!!

try 1-800-545-8226 just a 9 hour drive north west of Houston.. but we are dry!

You tried the Gaylord Texan?

Try the Como Motel in Richardson (kind of low class, but it's OK, it's where I stayed when I first came to Dallas). Also, try the long-term stay places, the ones that are for a week or longer stay - those aren't on the hotels.com list.

recon just measured 152 FLIGHT LEVEL WINDS...160MPH at the surface ...CAT 5

Trains from the Dallas-Fort Worth commuter rail system are currently shuttling down to the coast and loading up people to evac out.

Yep, the train I took into work was different than the normal ones, they explained that was the reason. Gee, and they didn't even need FEMA to tell them to do it.

The feeder bands are going to start hitting New Orleans soon, it looks like.

Interesting article from February, 2005:
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/topstory/3046590

Is Houston ready for the big storm?
Evacuees' delays may bring deadly consequences
By JOE STINEBAKER
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

Bill King has a vision he can't shake.

He sees long lines of vehicles -- family cars with young children in the back, pickups pulling expensive boats, and buses filled with the sick and the old -- trapped in a major traffic jam on Texas 146 or the Gulf Freeway. Behind them, a massive hurricane churns ashore.

Ahead lie washed-out bridges, flooded roads and thousands of sets of taillights. Their escape has been cut off, and time is running out.

King, Kemah's mayor, is one of many area critics who believe that lackluster evacuation planning and unrealistic expectations by state and local emergency officials could doom thousands of coastal Texans to horrific deaths when a Category 4 or 5 hurricane strikes.

"We have got to have this right, because sooner or later there's going to be a bullet in the chamber," King said. "Sooner or later, we're going to get an event. And if we do not have it right, and if we haven't been out there and practiced (an evacuation) and everybody knows exactly where they're supposed to go and what they're supposed to do, then we're going to kill a bunch of people."

An upcoming report from Gov. Rick Perry's Office of Emergency Management is expected to reject most of King's doubts. The report, according to area and state emergency officials, likely will say that the Houston-Galveston area is largely prepared for a major hurricane, although a few improvements are needed. The report is a result of nearly four months of meetings and reviews of preparedness plans for Texas coastal areas from Mexico to Louisiana.

Perry's homeland security director, Steve McCraw, headed the review. Although McCraw will not reveal his findings before turning them over to Perry, he said he was "impressed" by local evacuation plans and that he believed those plans were "more coordinated than what's been represented" by critics.

But those looking for definitive answers to whether Texas is ready for a major hurricane are likely to be disappointed. Interviews with more than two dozen hurricane and emergency evacuation experts show that no one really knows whether the Southeast Texas coast could be quickly and safely evacuated in the event of a Category 4 or Category 5 hurricane. Key concerns lie in how much time is needed to evacuate, whether Texans would respond quickly enough to recommendations to flee and whether the roads leading to and through Houston could handle the surge in traffic.

In other words, we'll find out when it happens.

In only one area are the experts in agreement, and it's a disconcerting admission. State and local officials have little confidence in their ability to evacuate those without cars, living in group homes or many of the sick and elderly living alone. Plans are in the works, they say, but for now those who are most vulnerable are living on the edge of disaster.

Order of evacuation

The first to be evacuated would be residents of western Galveston and southern Harris counties, who would have to begin evacuating at least 33 hours before the storm's outer bands (containing winds of about 40 mph) are expected to come ashore. Next would be residents of eastern Chambers, eastern Galveston and eastern Harris counties (19-20 hours in advance), followed by Brazoria County (15 hours), central Harris County (10 hours), west Chambers County (eight hours) and Liberty County (seven hours).

But persuading residents that they need to leave that far in advance, when skies may still be sunny and clear, could be difficult.

Michael K. Lindell and Carla S. Prater, a husband-and-wife team at Texas A&M University's Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center, designed the study of evacuation times and routes on which many officials rely. They say the evacuation times must be strictly enforced and that delays could be fatal.

"The problem is partly the misconception people have about how long it's going to take because they're relying on their personal experience," Lindell said.

People tend to think in terms of a four- or five-hour drive to San Antonio or Dallas, he said, but they need to multiply that by 10 or 20 times because of the crowds.

Complacency is another problem.

Michael Bass, a city councilman from Clear Lake Shores, told state officials at a hurricane workshop last month that, because it has been more than 43 years since a major hurricane struck the area, many residents are ignorant of the dangers and will wait until the last minute to leave.

"You basically stay because you don't know what the hell you're getting into," he said.

Eliot Jennings, the emergency management coordinator for the city of Galveston, said cooperation is the key.

"We can do everything we can, but -- bottom line -- it's the individual out there who has to take the action," he said.

Mike Peacock, a hurricane preparedness officer with the governor's Division of Emergency Management, said the consequences of Texans' complacency would be fatal.

"If they're going to wait 12 or 24 hours to leave," he said, "people are going to die."

Under state law, officials can recommend evacuations, but cannot order them. Dozens of local officials want the Legislature to give them the authority to issue mandatory evacuations.

"I can't make any business in Galveston shut down and let their employees go," he said. "Under the voluntary evacuation, a person with a family could be faced with an employer who doesn't agree. And if they leave, it could end up costing them their job. With a mandatory evacuation, it could give us a little more leverage to force businesses to shut down. If someone doesn't have a job to go to, there may not be as much inclination to stay."

But King said Perry told him he doesn't want to enforce mandatory evacuations, and McCraw said he is unlikely to make such a recommendation to the governor.

Enough road capacity?
Local officials also are divided on whether the area's evacuation routes are adequate to handle a full-fledged evacuation of Southeast Texas.

Studies by the Army Corps of Engineers and at Texas A&M University have said the area has enough road capacity to ensure that all endangered residents could be evacuated to safety north of Interstate 10 if they start early enough.

And Harris County Judge Robert Eckels, who is responsible for calling for evacuations in the county, said he believes the evacuation routes could hold the traffic as long as the evacuation begins early enough.

"The key element to that question is `in time,' " Eckels said. "Assuming we have as much notice as they had on the Florida hurricanes ... we could substantially do it. The challenge is coordinating all three counties (Harris, Galveston and Brazoria). It's going to be a massive traffic jam, lots of folks, but I think it can be done."

The state's hurricane planners agree.

Peacock told a group of several hundred emergency officials from the region last month that "the infrastructure will support the evacuation times."

But a large number of those officials from Brazoria, Galveston and Harris counties gathered at the hurricane evacuation workshop said they didn't share that confidence.

They fear evacuation planners have underestimated the difficulty of moving as many as 360,000 vehicles through the congested and flood-prone Houston area in a Category 5 evacuation.

Some routes called risky
Some of the prime escape routes are not entirely reliable, local officials say. Jennings said Texas 146, a key evacuation route running along the western edge of Galveston Bay, has two northbound lanes, but narrows to only one in crossing two bridges south of Dickinson. In addition, the road's elevation is low -- an especially dangerous situation given that a hurricane's storm surge could send Galveston Bay spilling over to land on the west.

Lindell said Texas 146 and other routes through the area may no longer be entirely reliable.

"In the Galveston area, there's an enormous amount of development on the lee side of the bay," he said. "So ... the wind's going to be coming off Galveston Bay ... and the major evacuation routes run through that side."

Lindell and Prater also noted a problem in their March 2002 report with Brazoria County -- including the convergence of Texas 288 and Business 288 and the intersection of FM 521 just beyond.

For those like King who are skeptical that various evacuation plans can truly be coordinated, there may be some comfort in practice drills. Although no such drills have been held in the area, momentum for them is building fast.

Eckels and Galveston County Judge James Yarbrough have said they are willing to hold a joint exercise. And Jack Colley, the state coordinator for the governor's division of emergency management, said last month that the state would financially support and take part in such a program.

That's a first step in reassuring some critics.

"We are overdue for a bad hurricane. We've been dodging bullets here for a long time," King said. "If we get one, it's going to be bad. And I think we have just got to get out there and make sure we have a real active plan where agencies know what they're supposed to do. And I think every July, we need to get everybody out and exercise that plan."

Janet where are you getting your recon reports? NOAA hasn't updated from the 1517z.

steveegg do we really want a hurricane TAZ???

Just be thankful that I didn't suggest that the first major hurricane of every season be named that :-)

Where are you hearing that?

I'm refining my search.....amazing.