Lou Pickney's Online Commentary
Rita Aims For Houston
Thursday
September 22, 2005
Hurricane Rita, as of this writing, is on a collision course with Galveston, TX, and the large city of Houston, TX. After what happened with the destruction in Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama from Hurricane Katrina, people seem to be less inclined to treat the storm as a non-factor, as they might have in the past.
Unlike the New Orleans situation, I have family in Houston. My Aunt Theresa (my Dad's youngest sister), her husband Robie, and their children all live there. My Mom sent me this e-mail last night giving me an update on their status:
"I wanted to let you know that I called and talked with Robie tonight. I
wanted to let them know that we would love to have them stay with us if they
decided to leave town because of the storm. Robie said I was a little too
late because Theresa and the kids were arriving in San Antonio as we spoke.
The schools are closed and there is mandatory evacuation there. He is part
of a special team at his work and he will stay behind to help out. He said
he was gathering up pictures and important things and securing the house.
He had a conference call shortly after we talked, then he was going to leave
their house. He will be staying about 15 miles (I think he said) away in
some special building and he would be on the 4th floor there. I felt pretty
stupid thinking that tonight they might think about possibly leaving,
instead of already being on a plane!
He said the trip to Galveston usually takes about 30 minutes, but right now
with the evacuation it's taking 2 1/2 to 3 hours to make the trip. They are
about 15 feet above sea level and if the storm should surge to 28 feet as
they think it could, their house could be well under water! He said if the
storm stays on the track they're projecting now they'll have a real mess to
deal with, but it wouldn't be catistrophic for them. If it veers a little
to the east though, it would be a different story."
Well, the storm has veered to the east, which is a major concern. I can only hope that it veers a little bit more to the east and that it hits the less populated area by the Texas/Louisiana border. The only caveat to that is that the more it moves in that direction, the more it will bring rain, wind, and flood waters into New Orleans, which is still devastated by Hurricane Katrina. In that situation you can't win for losing, so it would seem.
I hope that everyone realizes that this is a natural pattern of hurricanes, and that we're unfortunately going to see them to this degree for the next few years. There's no scientific evidence tying this to global warming, yet you have crackpots like Robert Kennedy Jr. going out there and espousing those types of misconceptions as if they were facts. There's NO EVIDENCE linking the two things. Remember that when you hear someone trying to tell you otherwise.
If you're in the path of the storm and reading this, hang in there. It's not going to be easy, even if the hurricane has slowed down to "only" a Category 3 by the time it makes landfall this weekend.
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