Hurricane Rita slammed ashore near Lake Charles, Lousiana early this morning. The good news in this, if there is any, is that Houston and Galveston seem to have dodged a bullet in that the storm veered further east than feared. That doesn’t mean things are over, though; several hours after making landfall, Rita is still a hurricane.
While damage reports were sparse, authorities said the worst was probably yet to come in this region’s season of epic weather woe. The storm, though slightly weakened from a category 3 to a category 2 by friction with land, appeared to be preparing for a mean march inland, all the more damaging because of its slow pace, which could produce as much as 25 inches of rain along the way.Eight inches had already fallen by 8:00 a.m. EDT in cities and towns such as Beaumont.
Among the threatened areas was metropolitan New Orleans, where flooding continued Saturday after water gushed over the top of some of the city’s levees.
There were reports of large fires in Pasadena, Tex., and Galveston, major damage to the Lake Charles, La., airport, the collapse of an overpass on Interstate 110 near Lake Charles, a loose barge in the Houston shipping channel and power lines down across the entire region. A spectacular fire engulfed three buildings in Galveston’s historic downtown and another building collapsed in the same area as Rita raked the island city.
No word yet on what impact, if any, this will have on the oil and gasoline infrastructure. I’m sure more will come out as the day and weekend progesses.
Technorati Tag: Hurricane Rita
