Hurricane!

The best deals on lodging aren’t necessarily found in the hotels, but the low-rise condos. Thank Hurricane Ivan for that, she says. Many hotels were damaged by the 2004 storm, and have recently been repaired and reopened. So if you don’t mind staying in a condo, low season — at least when it comes to saving money — may last longer than a season. It could extend months, or longer.

I'll be updatiung this later on but it looks to me like this is Rita 2 - the sequal. I have a bad feeling about this storm. The gulf waters are hot (90 - 95F) so Dean should strengthen once it enters the gulf. Additionally, the high pressure that brought us the 100 degree weather in Houston early this week has move east. The clockwise convection around the high will create winds out of the south on in the TX/LA area.

In August 2005, Houston became a shelter to more than 150,000 people from New Orleans who evacuated from Hurricane Katrina. One month later, approximately 2.5 million Houston area residents evacuated when Hurricane Rita approached the Gulf Coast, leaving little damage to the Houston area. This event marked the largest urban evacuation in the history of the United States.

Almost a year after Hurricane Katrina damaged every licensed casino facility on the Mississippi Gulf Coast (including one not yet open) and, together with Hurricane Rita, damaged eleven of the nineteen Louisiana casino gaming properties, rebuilding efforts continue.

Judging by this Insurance Journal article, not everybody buys that the Louisiana legislation extending the statute of limitations on Katrina and Rita claims will hold:

I also found out that the local B&N is supporting the high school down in Erath (which got totalled during Hurricane Rita) by encouraging patrons to purchase a book for the school library; they had a pile of appropriate books (no doubt suggested by the school) for patrons to purchase & donate, so I chose one at random, which turned out to be Girls on Film (The A-List), Vol. 2 by Zoey Dean.

While most of the nation has been focused on New Orleans, the "Chocolate City," Hopeful Haven has been delivering truckloads of hay, vaccine, and cow cubes every two weeks down into the parishes, and the counties of East Texas, to people who have been desparately working to "stand on their own two feet." I've always been happy to throw any little publicity I can their way. God Bless.

I’d like to urge all my readers in the Houston area that evacuated for Hurricane Rita to take the state survey which will be used to make changes so the “Texadus” debacle doesn’t happen again: http://traffic.houstontranstar.org/ritasurvey/.

I don’t even have it on my radar to go and dive off the coast of Texas or Louisiana but if I did, I may want to wait a bit.

This piece of legislation was spawned by Hurricane Katrina and given a boost by Hurricane Rita. It mainly creates a new federal bureau to purchase flood-ruined properties from their flood-insurance-free owners, package the properties, and resell the properties to developers.

Today I got some junk mail from Allstate Insurance telling me how I could save on my homeowner's insurance by going with them. Of course, this morning I read in the paper about how they've won a round in court over their refusal to pay expenses for homeowners who were unable to return to their houses after Hurricane Rita.

Federal officials said the 442-foot ship's hull ruptured and spilled the oil after it collided with a submerged oil platform wrecked by Hurricane Rita in September. Federal records show at least 167 Gulf platforms were damaged or destroyed during the active 2005 hurricane season. Many of these are submerged or so damaged that the warning beacons on them no longer function, and federal officials acknowledge they have no idea how many have working marker lights.

Hurricane Rita ravaged Southwest LA about a month after Hurricane Katrina ravaged Southeast LA. Secretary of State Al Ater says we cannot have elections in Orleans Parish until possibly at the earliest next fall. He offers a lot of reasons, but none that cannot be remedied with a little effort. Effort is something that is sorely lacking.

I have heard it asked, why don’t people move. It’s so easy to look in from the outside and think this. These areas use to flood on very, very rare occasions. It goes back to the disappearing barrier islands and wetlands. It will not be long before the city of Houma will see flooding. Hurricane Rita pushed water surges further into Houma than ever before. My family is Houmas Indians from Grand Cailliou & Dulac. It’s hard to leave when you have such deep roots. To move would mean divding our people more. You have the shrimpers, the shrimp companies, oyster boards, ship builders and basket makers. So much more. The culture is there. Many young people are moving to the city.

The end of November was supposed to bring the end of hurricane season to the U.S. Gulf Coast region. But as this record-breaking season has shown, if Mother Nature pays little heed to man-made inventions such as buildings, oil rigs and refineries, what respect will she have for a calendar? History suggests that after suffering through Katrina and her evil twin, Rita, the key oil producing and refining region is in for a respite as rebuilding continues. In the past century, only 1 major hurricane has made landfall in Texas or Louisiana after September, according to the U.S. National Weather Service.

I am thankful that my grandmother and grandfather got out of hurricane Rita’s way. That is because Beaumont, where they lived. was the hardest hit area. No significant damage was done to their house, but the area around it is a mess. That is what I am thankful for.

Just wanted to give you another update of our trip to Texas. Bob and I returned home late Saturday night. We had been in New Orleans and San Antonio for a few days when Mike Lynch - Minneapolis BNF - called us to say that the Beaumont, TX area had been hit hard from hurricane Rita. He asked us to come. We arrived in the Beaumont area on Tues. morning. We arrived in Nederland just south of Beaumont. The hurricane hit on Sat. and Mike was on site at 9 am Sunday. He set up a distribution center at Triumph church in Nederland.

Given recent world events and the Prophet’s words concerning preparedness, I was not surprised to find myself in a combined Priesthood and Relief Society meeting yesterday discussing emergencies and 72 hour kits. It was a general rehash of things we have all heard before and I was drowsing comfortably on the back row until one comment woke me from my navel contemplation. The comment is paraphrased as: “We all saw what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Rita. In times of crisis, the first thing that goes is law and order. I think we should include a sidearm and plenty of ammunition in our 72 hour kits.”

The next month was something different altogether… Hurricane Rita hit, leaving us without power for 8 days and without water for 2 of those (see earlier posts). But the kicker was getting a stomach virus during the first two days of all that as well! So I lost another 10 lbs in a week. And it stayed off since I was still training for the triathlon and since I had missed a couple of days of powerlifting in the gym (everything was shut down for several days, what with the debris, lack of power, and gas shortage). And this time I did lose lots of strength, unfortunately. I’ve been struggling to retain what I can of it, while still training my cardio and it’s been rough.

The effects from Hurricane Rita were not as severe as Katrina in southeastern Louisiana though Hurricane Rita'’s storm surge caused new tears in fresh and intermediate marshes within Barataria and Terrebonne basins and reactivated older hurricane scars. HurricaeRita'’s storm surge did cause noticable marsh loss west of the Mississippi River to the Texas border.

Two of the suspects are teenagers who evacuated from Beaumont, Texas, in the wake of Hurricane Rita, Mitchell said. They were identified as Jimmy Hoang Le, 18, and Stephanie Jacobo, 18.

BusinessWire.com reports that Major League Baseball is pulling out all the stops to raise support for hurricane relief in the disaster-stricken Gulf area that was ripped apart by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Interestingly enough, some of the the people I did talk with asked me if I knew where FEMA was and how they could get support from them. It must have been on the radio that FEMA was in town. It’s the first I’ve heard of them being here, and It’s Friday. Rita came through last Sunday. I pondered about the paid groups like FEMA. The red tape and the way our tax dollars are handled makes me sick… yet where are they?! Faith based organizations like COH, nightrunners, and the Salvation Army are here.

Check out this blog from the managing editor of The Beaumont Enterprise. It offers a behind-the-scenes look at his personal life during Hurricane Rita and how closely tied it is to his professional life as editor.

There are many, many misconceptions floating around about deficits, spending, interest rates and inflation. Many are taken as fact, but they have major problems, mainly the historical, empirical evidence just does not back them up. One is the idea that deficits lead to higher interest rates that ultimately ‘crowd out’ investment. You hear this a lot the past few days with talk of budget busting spending after Katrina and Rita as Congress tries to figure out anyway it can not to cut its spending. The liberals want to end the tax cuts, saying if we don’t the deficit will be too high, interest rates will surge, investment will decline, blah, blah, blah. Robert Ruben advocated this and Greenspan does as well . . . DESPITE the historical evidence that shows rates fell during deficits in the 1980’s and rose as deficits turned to surplus in the 1990’s. Rates did the same thing in the latest recovery though the second half (surpluses) has not materialized despite an explosive surge in tax receipts (stronger than any of the Clinton years) because, just as with Reagan, the government cannot stop itself from spending all of that money the tax cuts generated.

And on that note, I'd like to introduce one of our new members who will then introduce our speaker for tonight. You all remember her from her efficient work this past September. She came like a thief in the night and showed us that timing can be as destructive as sheer force. I introduce to you, from the Gulf Coast, Hurricane Rita!

One of the first things I learned as a kid, is be careful what you say about others, because it will always come back to you in the end. So, in true fairness, I am investigating the City of New Orleans conduct and operations prior to and after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The city officials have done a great job of blaming all of their problems on the federal government and anyone else they can blame. However, there are always two sides to every story.

Saturday, I loaded up all of our sweaty clothes and headed north to do laundry. I couldn’t take it anymore. Clean sheets were a blessing Saturday night. We are told that we will be without power at least another week maybe more. Jasper ISD isn’t sure when they’ll start school. It was rather nice to come to work today…..it makes you realize that normalcy may soon return.

Central Texas was spared the devastation of Hurricane Rita. The storm ran along the TX/LA border and is now a tropical storm raining down on the IL/OH/KY/TN quad-state area.

Okay, Hurricane Rita was a Category 3 hurricane when it hit the Texas and Louisiana border, yet the Corporate News Channels had non-stop coverage. To put this in perspective; Last year Hurricane Charley hit Florida at a Strong Category 4 storm, but the coverage was not as extensive as Rita’s.

We came home to no damage to our home. In the subdivision some trees were down and landed on fences, the electricity was out but overall we lucked out. We suffered through the heat until Sunday morning when the radios said it was going to hit 105F heat index. So we packed up the van again and were going to head back up to Kingwood to the hospital. We drove around and saw the utility company working on lines at the front of the subdivision and I stopped and talked to one of the guys. He said it would be back on in a few minutes. So we drove around, found a gas station with gas and filled up the van, then drove back home. Still no electric so we put on the sprinkler and filled up the baby pool. At around noon we heard all the AC’s turn on at the same time and were so happy to finally have electric again!!!!!

The hurricane Rita thing is traumatizing. I feel like I should move back home to help, but don’t believe I’d be of any use. Wasn’t I in this position less than a month ago?

i am sitting here... waiting... wishing... damn hurricane just needs to come and get this over with. I saw some people around the new home construction site looting for wood and maybe some fixtures. All this reading about a reasonable prudent person under like circumstances is driving me insane! I relapse into a memory from hurricane Ivan... and think how cool zombies are! Wouldn't that be fucking awesome!?@! Hurricane Rita plows through Houston and unleashes a zerg of zombies. The end of the world... Boys and girls, grab your shotguns!!! Well, it sure beats reading about the reasonably prudent person.

A fact a classmate mentioned to me is that hurricanes are named in alphabetical order, alternating male and female names. So, since we were hit by Hurricane Katrina in August and are anticipating Hurricane Rita, what about L, M, N, O, P, and Q? That’s 6 other hurricanes. Well, first off was Hurricane Lee. Lee was pretty much a “dud” and was changed from a hurricane to a “tropical depression”, which means it didn’t pose much of a threat. Next came Hurricane Maria which traveled in the Atlantic moving north-northwest at 10 mph. Maria, a Category Three storm, saw winds as high as 115 mph. Forecasters said that Maria is only a threat to shippers. Next was Hurricane Nate, a Category One hurricane, with winds reaching 90 mph.

As I am watching the news, I am seeing what makes me love Houston the most…selflessness. People are out with their gas cans, filling up evacuees’ cars with what little gas they have stored up for lawnmowers and hurricane season.

It’s not easy being Chen Shui-bian. Hu Jintao doesn’t want to know who you are. No one in the States will talk to you. And Hurricane Rita holds you up for 14 hours. Good to see SOMEBODY giving him some love.

Lawrence Simon has the Hurricane Rita roundup. He and his family may decide to evacuate tonight.

Question: We know Bushitler-Rove sent hurricane Katrina into New Orleans because they don’t like black people. But why are they attacking their home state of Texas now, sending hurricane Rita in there? What’s the angle? Anyone?

If that should happen, Mr. Bush will be facing the following tough dilemmas: Can his government afford to commit to rebuilding 2 cities (keep in mind that the hurricane season won't be over for another 10 weeks!), can he rebuild one city but not the second (in his own home state of all places), will he be accused of favouritism in allocation of disaster relief, will he be forced to leave Iraq (which would be the most wonderful propaganda gift that Allah could ever bestow on Islamic terrorism - not unlike leaving Saigon in the 70s), would isolationism take hold as a result, would all the troops coming home at once precipitate a recession and possible social unrest due to lack of job opportunities which are being permanently lost overseas, would the destruction of a second city in one month provoke serious discussion about the merits of establishing a 'no-build' zone along the Gulf of Mexico?

Actually, the remarkable thing, which is why I am writing this at all, is that it is raining HERE because of HURRICANE RITA.

Wassup, yo!? Keep your hurricane weather away from California! We live here for a reason!

I confess to having hurricane fatigue, however, things appear to be going from very bad to much worse on the Gulf Coast. Hurricane Rita has just been upgraded to Cat-3 and is bearing down on Texas. Hopefully, it will make landfall in an unpopulated area. I have no doubt that the evacuation orders will be complied with, due to the recent lessons learned in Katrina, so I’m thinking loss of life will probably be minimal.

Daily Show coverage of Hurricane Rita with Daily Show Senior Meteorologist Rob Corddry:

Here’s the National Hurricane Center’s track, which has the storm hitting the Matagorda Bay area early Saturday morning. With the storm just entering the Gulf, the NHC’s cone of uncertainty is VERY wide, encompassing the entire Texas coast, as well as portions of Mexico and Louisiana.

My mom e-mailed me today that she and her husband are planning to evacuate should this new Hurricane Rita hit Galveston. They live in Richmond, which is southwest of Houston and about 100 miles from Galveston I guess.

Katrina, Ophelia, now Rita… what is going on.. are oil prices being artificially inflated because of these storms ? Are these storms being artificially induced to inflate oil prices ?