I know its not a Hurricane yet but it is close and will be for sure.
With the projected path to hit the Texas gulf coast, and with some models showing the Houston/Galveston area to take a direct hit how do you think the Houston/Galveston region will fare if hit by a Cat.3+ storm?
Ive also heard from local TV stations here in Waco that it could be a Cat 1 storm when it gets to Waco, that 75+ sustained winds, alot of rain and tornadoes.How do you think the region up this direction will fare if this scenario comes true?
How high will gas prices get if Texas City gets hit and the refinerys down there get taken out of commission, and the major oil platforms in the gulf get damaged or destroyed?
On a side note, I think these Hurricanes have been stalking me. Example. Went to Biloxi and New Orleans during the Fourth of July... Katrina. I went through TS Cindy in Biloxi, it was awesome. I went to Galveston in June and now Rita has the possiblity of hitting there. I guess Im bad luck.. WATCH OUT DALLAS!!!!
Somethings ya just can't change.
Actually one of the first episodes of "Dallas" the TV show featured a hurricane wrecking the city...
Fortunately that was fiction...but it makes you wonder if we could double in size like Baton Rouge if the big one hits Houston...
I love Galveston and think it has great potential with all its historic buildings...I hope it skips the Strand.
One reference would be the hurricane -- can't remember the year -- that dumped so much rain in Houston that the major hospital's basement was flooded, ruining millions of dollars' worth of equipment. Anyone have a better memory than me that can fill in the blank?
As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals... Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. - B. Obama 1/20/09
I believe that storm was named "Allison", back in the year 2001. Oh, wait - YES, I definitely remember that one. I remember the $41,300 check I received from the insurance company to repair our two cars and our house.
Gotta go, need to stock up on beer.
Some "oil guy" last night was saying that the Houston area refineries were fine with a cat 3, but they worry about cat 4 since they now know the actual affect on refineries and such.
Rita has been upgraded to a Cat 2.
Yeah, it looks like we are going to be getting some rain on Sunday...
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/popup?id=1117603
The best news I've heard so far is that Katrina churned up so much water in the Gulf, it actually cooled down the surface temperatures. Without that source of heat energy, Rita doesn't have as good a chance of strengthening.
There was an article posted at Slashdot last week about (yet another) proposal to use (insert tech here) to break up hurricanes before they arrived. But then you have the Law of Unforseen Circumstances -- what if you stop a Cat 1 from mixing up the water in the Gulf, and by the time a storm slips by your (tech), it hits the hot water and turns into a monster?
As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals... Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. - B. Obama 1/20/09
We could nuke it and maybe we might get some creatures from a 1950s horror flick...
Double post, sorry, but this page may be interesting to watch:
http://www.matagordabay.com/
At the bottom (after several scrolls' worth of local advertising) is a live camera pointed at the Gulf of Mexico at Matagorda Beach. I highly recommend Matagorda over Galveston if you want to play in the water and gather shells, instead of bikini-watching. It's all fishermen and families, and not a whole lot of them. No trash, just shells -- at Galveston, you don't find shells on the beach because they get raked up with the mounds of trash.
If you have a few days off this week, you might want to check it out before it gets blown away (again). Matagorda was a major hub of commerce before two hurricanes in the 1800's convinced folks to give up. Galveston didn't learn its lesson until a few years later. Which brings up another difference between Matagorda and Galveston... there's no seawall in Matagorda, just a barrier island with intact dunes. The beach will survive the storm. Galveston's seawall, on the other hand, actually accelerates beach erosion during big storms, which is why you have a tiny strand where there was once a wide beach.
Edit: I found the pic I was looking for, from a previous hurricane. A car was "lucky" enough to get stuck in front of the webcam.
Last edited by RobertB; 20 September 2005 at 04:53 PM. Reason: found pic
As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals... Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. - B. Obama 1/20/09
From the DMN..
Hurricane Rita expected to reach Category 4 status Wednesday afternoon. Details to come.
What would a nuclear bomb do to a hurricane?Originally Posted by Lakewooder
"And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed."-"Farewell to Penn Station," New York Times Editorial, October 30, 1963
I don't know a nuke always seemed to be the solution in 1950s movies...
What are you talking about? Every disaster movie has that solution!"We can stop the earthqauke by detonating a nuclear bomb under the San Andreas fault line.."
"And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed."-"Farewell to Penn Station," New York Times Editorial, October 30, 1963
I always thought Superman tried to stop the friction of the San Andreas Fault. Wait a minute, he just reversed time.
Rita continuing to grow with 90 degree waters ahead.
I believe a nuke would do nothing to a hurricane. Except make it radioactive and it would become the hurricane on steriods, then runover the US and then go to Canada. Then it would be the worlds largest snow-storm and fizzle out over Santa's place up there on the north pole. Rudoph is gonna be pissed!!!
Somethings ya just can't change.
Here is a copy of the storm surge that would affect Houston.
Somethings ya just can't change.
Looks like Kemah would be destroyed by the storm surge from a Cat 5 or maybe even a Cat 4. Cat 5 storm surge would cover NASA.
All of those million dollar homes would be gone.
Last edited by X Factor; 21 September 2005 at 10:13 AM.
Somethings ya just can't change.
I can't find the post, but that topic came up recently on Slashdot. After the horror-movie jokes subsided, it was pointed out that a few megajoules of energy released in a small area would have pretty much no discernable effect on a hurricane. Its power lies in its size -- unlike a tornado, the hurricane is huge, and its energy source comes from the ocean itself, not a single spot.
However, if you did want a movie monster reference, I'd go for the Creature from the Black Lagoon. It would fit in better with the Louisiana swamplands theme.
As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals... Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. - B. Obama 1/20/09
On the north end of the map, the cat 5 storm surge reaches the dam for Lake Houston. That looks like a sizeable lake. I hope someone's looking at whether it's suceptible to a New Orleans-style failure, if the dam gets hit by water on the wrong side.
As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals... Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. - B. Obama 1/20/09
BREAKING NEWS:
- Hurricane Rita reaches Category 5 status with maximum sustained winds of 165 mph, the National Hurricane Center says.
Watch CNN or log on to http://CNN.com
Is there any information on what the winds could be like when its center comes up our way?
Listen to the Dividing Line, Pirate Christian Radio, CARM, White Horse Inn and RTS University the most nowadays.....
Currently it is projected to have 35mph winds when it comes through DFW early Sunday. However, it will still have 75mph winds as it brushes by Austin/Waco Saturday afternoon.
Intellicast Forecast Track
...EFFECTS FROM MAJOR HURRICANE RITA EXPECTED ACROSS NORTH TEXAS...
HURRICANE RITA IS EXPECTED TO MAKE LANDFALL ALONG THE UPPER AND
MIDDLE TEXAS GULF COAST PRIOR TO SUNRISE ON SATURDAY. RITA HAS
INTENSIFIED TO A CATEGORY 5 STORM ON THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE THIS
AFTERNOON. FORTUNATELY THE HURRICANE SHOULD WEAKEN SLIGHTLY BEFORE
MAKING LANDFALL...BUT IS STILL EXPECTED TO BE A DANGEROUS CATEGORY 4
STORM.
AFTER THE STORM MAKES LANDFALL...THE HURRICANE SHOULD WEAKEN RAPIDLY
AS IT MOVES INLAND. THE LATEST FORECAST TRACK FROM THE NATIONAL
HURRICANE CENTER WOULD BRING THE WEAKENING HURRICANE NORTH TO NEAR
WACO SATURDAY NIGHT AND NEAR THE METROPLEX AROUND NOON ON SUNDAY.
SHOULD THE CURRENT FORECAST TRACK OF THE HURRICANE VERIFY...THE
FOLLOWING EFFECTS WILL BE POSSIBLE...IF NOT LIKELY ACROSS NORTH
TEXAS.
1. STRONG WINDS. 40 TO 60 MPH SUSTAINED WINDS...WITH HIGHER GUSTS IN
SQUALLS...SOUTH OF A LINE FROM LAMPASAS...TO HILLSBORO...TO ATHENS.
THESE WINDS MAY BE STRONG ENOUGH TO KNOCK DOWN TREES...POWER LINES
AND CAUSE LOCALIZED MINOR STRUCTURAL DAMAGE. RESIDENTS IN THIS AREA
SHOULD PREPARE FOR INTERRUPTIONS IN POWER SERVICE. ALSO REMEMBER...
MOBILE HOMES OFTEN ROLL OVER DURING PERIODS OF HIGH WINDS AND CAN
EASILY BE DAMAGED BY FALLING TREES. WINDS SHOULD TAPER OFF TO 30 TO
40 MPH FARTHER NORTH ON SUNDAY MORNING...AS THE STORM APPROACHES THE
METROPLEX. RESIDENTS ACROSS ALL OF NORTH TEXAS SHOULD SECURE SMALL
AND LIGHTWEIGHT OUTDOOR OBJECTS.
2. HEAVY RAINFALL AND FLOODING. 4 TO 6 INCHES...WITH LOCALLY
HIGHER AMOUNTS WILL BE POSSIBLE MAINLY ALONG AND EAST OF THE I-35
CORRIDOR. DEPENDING UPON THE RATE OF MOVEMENT OF THE SYSTEM...TOO
MUCH RAIN MAY FALL IN TOO SHORT A TIME TO ALLOW SOILS TO SOAK UP THE
RAINFALL. THUS...SOME FLOODING MAY RESULT. A FLASH FLOOD WATCH WILL
LIKELY BE ISSUED LATER FOR THIS WEEKEND.
3. A FEW TORNADOES. AS WITH ALL LANDFALLING HURRICANES...ISOLATED
TORNADOES WILL BE POSSIBLE. THIS WILL BE MOST LIKELY ALONG AND TO
THE EAST OF THE INTERSTATE 35 CORRIDOR.
4. TRAVEL PROBLEMS. INCREASED TRAFFIC ON INTERSTATES AS PEOPLE
EVACUATE FROM THE HURRICANE. WET ROADS...HEAVY RAINFALL AND INCREASED
TRAFFIC COULD LEAD TO DELAYS AND ACCIDENTS. SOME AIRLINE DELAYS WILL
BE POSSIBLE. ALLOW EXTRA TIME TO REACH YOUR DESTINATIONS THIS
WEEKEND.
DISSIPATING HURRICANES HAVE MOVED ACROSS NORTH TEXAS MANY TIMES IN
THE PAST...TYPICALLY WITH SOME WIND DAMAGE AND FLOODING. RESIDENTS
AND THOSE PLANNING TRAVEL ACROSS NORTH TEXAS THIS WEEKEND SHOULD
BE PREPARED FOR THIS SYSTEM AND STAY TUNED TO THE LATEST WEATHER
INFORMATION.
MORE INFORMATION ON HURRICANE RITA...AND OTHER TROPICAL SYSTEMS
THAT HAVE AFFECTED NORTH TEXAS...IS AVAILABLE ON OUR WEBSITE AT:
WWW.SRH.NOAA.GOV/FWD
Somethings ya just can't change.
Rita now has 175 mph sustained winds (CNN.com)
According to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale,
111-130 is Cat 3
131-155 is Cat 4
155+ is Cat 5
Acknowledging that each step up is either 15 or 20 mph.. Rita has just, if it existed, moved into Category Six.
[ xvisionx.com 13 - my photo gallery + journal ] - be sure to check out my new interactive downtown dallas picture map.
It looks like the really strong winds and rain for North Texas is going to be east of here around Tyler.
It looks like it could be as far east as Beaumont. If the storm went that far east what effect would it have on New Orleans?
Somethings ya just can't change.
Why does it seem that the lowest lying areas are also the most poverty stricken too? This is gonna hit east Houston really hard.
"And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed."-"Farewell to Penn Station," New York Times Editorial, October 30, 1963
Think back to when a city like Dallas was founded, before flood insurance, dams and levees, or The Weather Channel. A boom town might spring up on the banks of a river, but eventually there will be a flood. The flood will wipe out a large section of town, and anyone with money to rebuild will do so on the right side of the high-water mark. Those without the resources will take their chances on the suddenly cheaper bottomlands. Lather, rinse, repeat... literally.
Those cheap bottomlands are also appealing to folks who want to build something like, say a lead smelter, or an auto wrecking yard -- things you wouldn't live next to if you had the money to do otherwise. So even after the river is tamed, it has already set the boundary between rich and poor.
As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals... Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. - B. Obama 1/20/09
MSNBC.com
[font=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif]Blast a hurricane away? Forget about it! [/font]
'Like trying to move a car with a pea shooter'
By Joseph B. Verrengia
The Associated Press
Updated: 3:34 p.m. ET Sept. 22, 2005
DENVER - It sounds like a great idea: Let’s just blast hurricanes like Rita and Katrina out of the sky before they hurt more people. Or, at least weaken the storms and steer them away from cities.
Atmospheric scientists say it’s wishful thinking that we could destroy or even influence something as huge and powerful as a hurricane. They abandoned such a quest years ago after more than two decades of inconclusive government-sponsored research.
Private companies have conducted tests on a much smaller scale, but have made little progress despite initially claiming to erase storm clouds from the atmosphere.
“It would be like trying to move a car with a pea shooter,” said hydrometeorologist Matthew Kelsch of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. “The amount of energy involved in a hurricane is far greater that anything we’re going to impart to it.”
Project Stormfury
The federal government’s hurricane modification program was called Project Stormfury. The idea was raised during the Eisenhower administration after several major storms hit the East Coast in the mid-1950s, killing 749 people and causing billions in damages.
But it wasn’t until 1961 that initial tests were conducted on Hurricane Esther with a Navy plane releasing silver iodide crystals. Some reports indicate winds were reduced by 10 percent to 30 percent.
During Stormfury, scientists also seeded hurricanes in 1963, 1969 and 1971 over the open Atlantic Ocean far from land.
Researchers dropped silver iodide, a substance that serves as an effective ice nuclei, into clouds just outside of the hurricane’s eyewall. The idea was that a new ring of clouds would form around the artificial ice nuclei. The new clouds were supposed to change rain patterns and form a new eyewall that would collapse the old one. The re-formed hurricane would spin more slowly and be less dangerous.
Did it work?
Sometimes, the experiments appeared to work. Hurricane Debbie in 1969 was seeded twice over four days by several aircraft. Researchers noted that its intensity waxed and waned by up to 30 percent.
For cloud seeding to be successful, clouds must contain sufficient supercooled water that is still liquid even though it is below 32 degrees Fahrenheit (zero degrees Celsius). Raindrops form when the artificial nuclei and the supercooled water combine.
But scientists also learned that hurricanes contain less supercooled water than other storm clouds, so seeding was unreliable. And, hurricanes grow and dissipate all on their own, even forming new walls of clouds called “concentric eyewall circles.”
This made it impossible to determine whether storm reductions were the result of human intervention. Project Stormfury was abandoned in the 1980s after spending hundreds of millions of dollars.
Other storm modification methods that have been suggested include cooling the tropical ocean with icebergs and spreading particles or films over the ocean surface to inhibit storms from evaporating heat from the sea.
The nuclear option
Occasionally, somebody suggests detonating a nuclear weapon to shatter a storm.
Researchers say hurricanes would dwarf such measures. For example, Hurricane Rita measures about 3,500 miles (5,600 kilometers) in irregular circumference and 350 miles (560 kilometers) across.
According to the center for atmospheric research, the heat energy released by a hurricane equals 50 to 200 trillion watts or about the same amount of energy released by exploding a 10-megaton nuclear bomb every 20 minutes.
© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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© 2005 MSNBC.com
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DP&L is boarding up its lower level windows...
I'll be out and about with the camera this weekend to cover Rita's shenanigans here in downtown..
Oh in case anyone's wondering, I'll be holding out in Huntsville. Boarded up the windows and moved stuff to a storage unit tomorrow, and I'll be tying things down and doing my best to secure loose objects outside, but once it's here, there's nothing I can do.
I'll be staying at my brother's place, no doubt getting a lot read and praying. I don't mean that sarcastically either.
be safe... thoughts and prayers...
I made it!
....to north Houston. The normally 45 minute trip from southeast to northwest Houston took 4 hours....taking the side streets at that. If I would have taken the freeways (I-45), it would have taken me...easily...15 hours....no kidding.
I live 13 miles from Galveston Bay, on Houston's southeast side. I was going to hunker down...but started getting an uneazy feeling, especially since we flooded during TS Allison. So we decided to board up and go to the north side...at a friends house that's about 35 miles from the coast....better odds I would argue. Because taking the freeways means running out of gas after 48 hours of gridlock and not moving outside the city.
My sister-in-law left southeast Houston...yesturday at 5:00pm...destined to hit 290 with the idea of going to Austin. 36 hours later......YES YOU HEARD RIGHT....36 HOURS LATER...she is still in Houston...on 290 and Cypriss. We convinced her to turn around and come hunker down with us and my friends on the north side.....she made it back here in less than 45 minutes.....no traffic coming into the other way into Houston. They had not slept. They had no water. And everyone was hungry. But thank God they will not be stuck on the freeways with a million other people when the Hurricane hits them...out in the middle of nowhere...stuck in a car.
Here is my post on HAIF which describes my exodus strategy, that somewhat worked:
http://www.houstonarchitecture.info/...ndpost&p=49460
So here we are....4 familes...in one house....in northwest Houston.
It' pure chaos and madness out here....everywhere.
Everyone is tired.
Last edited by 2112; 23 September 2005 at 05:01 AM.
Good word.. thats nuts... 36hrs and still in Houston.. never heard/seen anything like it... at least you're all together now.. I'd have to agree w/you on being stuck in traffic during this monster.. can't be good.. hopefully, for the sake of 100's of thousands, there'ill be a break in traffic and things will start moving...soon ... stay safe... thoughts and prayers...
Besides the 4 families, we also have 2 cats and 3 dogs.
Here is a link to my HAIF post which describes my exodus strategy:
http://www.houstonarchitecture.info/...ndpost&p=49460
A good map(keymap) is a godsend right now, it has saved me hours and hours of frustration.
you bet... gotta save the pets!.. glad to see traffic finally opened up.. and some of the reports this morning seem to be slowly shifting in a positive direction, even though a hard hit is inevitable..
does anyone know if there are any sizeable groups of barrier islands in Rita's current path?.. I know LA's were swallowed whole by Katrina, but I can't imagine how much worse landfall would have been without them..
All these traffic reports really make make intercity rail look desirable for the future.
"And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed."-"Farewell to Penn Station," New York Times Editorial, October 30, 1963
Galveston IS the barrier island.
As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals... Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. - B. Obama 1/20/09
well, at least we know there's still a good working rail to Houston. i say they expand the tre! i f**king love being able to take a train fom here to westchester, princeton, anywhere around for so cheap. 20 bucks round trip to princeton! texas needs transportation and convenience like we have here in the north east. i dont doubt it will be there one day, but it's hard to want to go back when life up here is just so much easier/has so much more variety. Dallas is by far doing the best job in Texas of giving options and the like, but its amazing how few people up here know anything about Texas. They don't think we all ride on horses, thank god, but people just have no idea what Texas is like. That needs to be advertised... or perhaps, improved a bit more, and then advertised.
I wish I could have gotten pictures of I-45 the last few nights. It was moving at maybe 20 or 30 through Huntsville, if that much, with both southbound lanes also turned into northbound. It was incredible. I haven't ever seen gas lines like this, except in pictures from the '70s.
well, I was referring to uninhabited barrier islands located at least 10 miles out.. if not further...
Galveston Daily News
From the ashes: Six brownstones will rise where the Fraternal Order of the Eagles Lodge burned down during Hurricane Rita last year.
Craig K. Brown Development and HomeLife Builders are behind the project that will include six, single-family homes designed by David Watson Architects.
The Eagles lodge, 1906 Postoffice St., was a downtown fixture, dating back to before the 1900 storm. Brown owned the building, leasing it for an artist’s studio and a bicycle shop; both were destroyed in the fire.
David Watson Architects will design Brownstones on Postoffice in Federalist style. Defining features of Federalist style, according to architect sources, are windows arranged symmetrically around a center doorway, decorative crown or roof over the front door, oval rooms and arches. The main entry often is the stylistic focus.
The Federalist style was favored in the United States from about 1780 to 1830s. Developers say they want to honor the style of some of downtown’s first buildings.
Look for construction to begin soon.
Andy Haretip
Advertise here! Ask me how!
Not terribly on-topic, but how do you build an oval room in a square building? Do the corners get turned into oddly-shaped closets? Or do the surrounding rooms end up with convex walls and tight, dusty corners?
Enquiring minds want to know!
As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals... Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. - B. Obama 1/20/09
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