Residents Return to New Orleans

Streams of cars filled with business owners started to make their way back into newly reopened sections of hurricane-ravaged New Orleans on Thursday, some vowing to rebuild their city, some pulling out. A month after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin invited business owners back into the city, and prepared to allow most residents to return over the next week.

For some, Thursday marked their first view of what was left. Others didn't need a formal invitation to return. Those who had already slipped in were ready to welcome back their fellow business owners and patrons.

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Norovirus only large outbreak among Katrina evacuees

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday that there was only one outbreak of disease among evacuees or rescue workers that required unusual mobilization of public health resources during the first three weeks after Hurricane Katrina.
That disease was norovirus, a highly contagious but usually self-limiting outbreak of nausea, vomiting and diarrhea common among cruise ship passengers that was reported among evacuees in Texas, the CDC said in a summary of post-Katrina illness. Symptoms can also include low-grade fever, chills, headache, muscle aches and a general sense of tiredness.

More than half million customers remain without power

More than half million customers remain without power
About 580,000 electric customers remained without power Tuesday, including 417,000 Entergy customers in Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and a handful in Mississippi. Texas utility Center Point Energy reported 95,000 customers out, and Louisiana's Cleco had nearly 49,000 customers out.

Hurricane Rita death toll rises to 10

The death toll from Hurricane Rita's weekend landfall on the Gulf Coast rose to 10 Tuesday, with electrical generators being blamed for six of them.
Police said two adults and three children in Beaumont, Texas, apparently died of carbon monoxide poisoning after a portable generator was used in their powerless apartment to run fans. Two other family members remained in critical condition Tuesday. More

Hurricane Rita - clean-up has begun

The clean-up has begun after Hurricane Rita hit the US coast early on Saturday. Although, the storm itself appears to have claimed only two lives, flooding and storm damage have devastated parts of the coast.
Hurricane Katrina was more powerful than Rita when it reached land, and New Orleans was the most vulnerable spot on the Gulf Coast. Rita threatened the more heavily populated area around Houston - the fourth largest city in the US - but in the end hit a less populated region on the border of Texas and Louisiana. And with memories of Katrina still fresh, residents there were quick to flee.

Hurricane’s change of course spared the big cities and oil installations

In contrast to Katrina’s 1,000-plus toll, the only confirmed death from Hurricane Rita was a person killed when a tornado overturned a mobile home in the Mississippi town of Belzoni. But 23 nursing home evacuees died in a bus crash before the storm began and rescue crews were still searching flooded areas of Vermilion Parish, west of New Orleans, where hundreds of people were feared stranded. More

Chaos before the storm Rita

Impact of Rita is felt before landfall as 24 nursing home residents who fled die in bus fire, waters gush in New Orleans, and Texas braces

Hurricane Rita became slightly less powerful but no less fearsome Friday as it bore down on the Gulf Coast, causing death and damage even before Saturday's expected landfall.On a Texas highway jammed with people fleeing the storm, 24 nursing home residents died when their bus was engulfed in flames and explosions.

In New Orleans, still struggling to emerge from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina last month, there was more bad news: Water was gushing over newly patched levees that had been breached during Katrina, and floodwaters again were entering the city. More

Storm's Eye Hits Land Near Texas-Louisiana Border

Storm's Eye Hits Land Near Texas-Louisiana Border

BEAUMONT, Tex., Sept. 24 -­ Hurricane Rita made landfall early today near the Texas-Louisiana border, raking the region with up to 120 mile per hour winds, dumping more than two feet of rain and sending 20-foot storm surges crashing onto coastal areas.

Officials at the National Hurricane Center said that Rita officially made landfall about 3:40 a.m. EST with the storm's eye hitting just east of Sabine Pass, Tex., about 32 miles southeast of Beaumont.
As the eye of the storm came ashore, the winds blew out windows at the hurricane command center here, ripped up trees and brought down power lines, leaving at least 250,000 customers without power. The storm was blamed for at least three fires in Beaumont -- one in the north end of town and two in the port area.

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As Rita swells, mass evacuation crawls

HOUSTON Forecasters on Friday warned of a possible coastal storm surge of 15 to 20 feet from Hurricane Rita, with large swells, battering waves and winds, and as much as 15 inches of rain along the Texas and western Louisiana coasts.
The heavy rains will add to the problems of as many as 2.5 million people who jammed evacuation routes.
Early Friday, a bus carrying elderly evacuees caught fire while trapped in traffic on highway near Dallas, killing as many as 20 people, The Associated Press reported. The bus, carrying about 45 people, was reduced to a blackened shell and caused a 17-mile, or 27-kilometer, backup on an already heavily congested Interstate 45.
Highways were flowing much more freely near Houston, where Mayor Bill White promised that no one would be left stranded on the highways when the hurricane arrives. "We will make sure that will not happen," he said.
White acknowledged during a briefing Friday that there had been at least one other confirmed death as a result of the mass evacuation of the Gulf Coast: an 82-year-old woman who died of dehydration while stuck in traffic in the stifling heat near the town of Cleveland, Texas.
A warning of tropical storm winds, with a rainfall of three to five inches, or 8 to 15 centimeters, was issued for the southeast coast of Louisiana by the National Hurricane Center. The area includes New Orleans, which is still struggling to recover from Hurricane Katrina, which burst the levees that held back Lake Pontchartrain, releasing deadly floodwaters into the city.

Rita Heads to Texas, Louisiana; Highways Gridlocked

Rita Heads to Texas, Louisiana; Highways Gridlocked

Hurricane Rita, with winds of 140 mph, headed toward the Texas-Louisiana border as more than a million residents of coastal towns along the Gulf Coast tried to find higher ground, creating gridlock on highways inland.
Texas highways were backed up for miles and gasoline was in scarce supply as people evacuated low-lying areas of Houston and other cities. At least 24 nursing home residents were killed when their bus was destroyed by fire on Interstate 45 near Dallas.
Officials including Houston Mayor Bill White cautioned people who haven't evacuated yet to stay home because of the gridlock on area roads. He said he fears residents will be stuck on the side of the road when Rita hits. Officials are trying to get people off the roads to a safe place.
``I'm not telling people there is a safe place or a guaranteed place for their safety,'' White said. ``There are things that could pose greater risks to people in a shelter situation or those en route to shelters. We are not encouraging the general public to go on the streets looking for a shelter.''
President George W. Bush will visit San Antonio today to meet with emergency officials preparing for Rita's arrival after the government was criticized for its Katrina response.

Hurricane Rita and global warming - A article

Julian Heming of the Met Office in Exeter explains how Hurricane Rita has grown so big and whether these storms are getting more frequent.

Where did Hurricane Rita come from?
The initial stage of formation was just off the north of Puerto Rico last week, where there was a disturbance in the atmosphere resulting in storm cloud formation. This caused a depression which moved west towards the Florida Straits, and built up into a tropical storm and then a hurricane. The conditions in the Gulf of Mexico were just right to speed its development into a Category 5 storm.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,23889-1792386,00.html

As Rita Nears, What will Happen

Los Angeles Times - Massive evacuation order causes gridlock. Landfall is expected near the Texas-Louisiana border, and forecasters warn of storm surges.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-rita23sep23,0,7527767.story?coll=la-home-nation

Hurricane Rita roared toward the Texas and Louisiana coasts early Friday, a major Category 4 storm that spurred a traffic-snarled exodus toward higher ground and fears it could cripple the heart of the nation's petrochemical industry.

What can Hurricane Rita do?

Hurricane Rita has the potential to flood an area almost twice the size of New Orleans when it reaches shore Saturday, causing tens of billions of dollars in damage to the Houston metropolitan area of 4 million people and plunging another major gulf coast metropolis into disarray.

A study performed last year by the engineering firm Dodson & Associates in Houston found that a Category 5 storm could inundate 369 square miles of Harris County, which contains Houston and some of its suburbs. The study estimated the total cost of a worst-case storm at $80 billion, with 75% due to flooding and the rest from wind damage.

Opening salvo from Hurricane Rita

NEW ORLEANS Sep 22, 2005 — In a grim opening salvo from Hurricane Rita, a steady rain began falling Thursday on New Orleans for the first time since Katrina laid waste to the city, and engineers rushed to shore up the broken levees for fear of another ruinous round of flooding.
The forecast called for 3 to 5 inches of rain in New Orleans in the coming days. That is dangerously close to the amount engineers said could send floodwaters pouring back into neighborhoods that have been dry for less than a week.
The storm took a sharper-than-expected turn to the right on Thursday, setting it on a course that could spare Houston and nearby Galveston a direct hit. But that raised the risk that the hurricane could strike much closer to New Orleans. More

More than 700 died in Hurricane Katrina

New Orleans: President George W. Bush prepared to give a speech in Louisiana outlining government plans to rebuild the region devastated by Hurricane Katrina, as the disaster death toll passed the 700 mark. The official death toll of the August 29 storm rose to 708 after Louisiana state confirmed another 51 deaths. State officials confirmed that 474 people were killed in Louisiana. Another 218 deaths have been recorded in Mississippi, two in Alabama and 14 in Florida. More

Hurricane Katrina Support

Hurricane Katrina is one of the most destructive and expensive tropical cyclones ever to hit the United States. The hurricane's storm surge caused several breaches in the levees protecting New Orleans, a city with a population of around 500,000, from inundation by Lake Pontchartrain. The subsequent flooding of most of New Orleans, a large part of which lies below sea level, resulted in catastrophic flood damage, many deaths, and a massive evacuation effort. Source

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