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 Hurricane
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Rita
HURRICANE RITA News:
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Florida
- 
Weather
- Hurricane
Katrina - Hurricane
Rita - 
Medical
- 
Nuclear
- 
MIL
- Disaster
- "AP:
Report Warned of Hurricane Health Woes." ... "Eight
months before the devastation of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, an internal
Homeland Security Department review warned that the nation was woefully
unprepared for a medical disaster and lacked a coherent plan for taking
charge of mass casualties." ... "Government medical teams had difficulty
coordinating and delivering help during 2004 hurricanes in Florida, said
the report obtained by The Associated Press. The report also said there
was inadequate planning for dealing with a surge of patients during a disaster
like a biological or nuclear attack." ... "It called for creation of a
uniformed medical reserve corps, including specialists, fashioned after
the National Guard." -By Cheryl Wittenauer
-AP via-WashingtonPost
Hurricane
Rita - 
Texas
- Louisiana
- 
Flood
- "Rita
rakes Texas-Louisiana border: 'Hundreds' saved in
coastal Louisiana; Lake Charles under curfew." ... "As Tropical Storm Rita
limped up the Texas-Louisiana border Saturday, communities in its wake
were still feeling Rita's hurricane punch from hours earlier." ... "Much
of Lake Charles, Louisiana, is flooded with choppy, wind-whipped water.
The mayor is asking evacuees to stay out and for those who rode out the
hurricane to adhere to a dusk-to-dawn curfew." ... "Rita's center slammed
into the extreme southwest coast of Louisiana near Sabine Pass, Texas,
with winds of 120 mph at 3:30 a.m. ET." -Contributed
to by Rick Sanchez, Miles O'Brien, Randi Kaye and John King
-CNN
Hurricane
Rita - Texas
- Louisiana
- Auto
- Transportation
- 
Oil
- "Spinning
Rita, weakening, threatens oil refineries." ... "More
than 3 million people along the Texas and Louisiana coasts were urged to
get out of the way of Rita, setting off an unprecedented exodus that brought
traffic to a standstill across the Houston metropolitan area. Cars overheated
and ran out of gas in 10- and 12-hour traffic jams. Some drivers gave up
and turned around and went home." ... "By Friday morning, the freeways
within Houston had cleared out, but traffic was still bumper-to-bumper
from the outskirts of the city toward Austin and Dallas. The state escorted
tanker trucks full of gas to empty stations in small towns along the way.
And National Guard trucks delivered gasoline to drivers who ran out." ...
"Dozens of chemical plants are situated along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf
Coast in the nation's biggest concentration of oil refineries, and damage
and disruptions caused by Rita could cause already-rising oil and gasoline
prices to go even higher." -USATODAY
Hurricane
Rita - Texas
- Louisiana
- "Rita,
Weakened But Still Dangerous, Nears Coast." ... "A
weakening Hurricane Rita today howled toward the Texas and Louisiana coastline,
its top winds at 125 miles per hour, pushing water over a patched levee
in New Orleans and paralyzing major highways for hours How to Help as more
than one million people fled inland to avoid the storm." ... "The storm
was downgraded to a Category 3 at 11 a.m. by the National Hurricane Center,
which continued to warn that Rita is a very dangerous hurricane." ... "Louisiana
Gov. Kathleen Blanco said 90% or more of the residents subject to mandatory
evacuations have left the affected parishes." ... "She said there are about
150,000 people who have evacuated southwestern Louisiana because of Rita
and there are 35,000 people in Louisiana shelters." (1, 2)
-By Maria L. LaGanga, Scott Gold and Stephen Braun
with contributions by P.J. Huffstutter, Maria L. LaGanga, Paul Pringle,
Mai Tran, Mark Mazetti and Ricardo-Alonso Zaldivar, Lianne Hart, Lynn Marshall,
John Spano and Jesus Sanchez
-LAtimes
- Hurricane
Rita - Texas
- "Oil
workers flee as Rita advances: Oil companies in the
US have begun closing Texas refineries threatened by the onslaught of Hurricane
Rita." ... "The production cuts in Texas, which processes a quarter of
US oil, come as the industry is struggling to recover from Hurricane Katrina's
devastation." ... "At least 16 of the state's 26 refineries are potentially
in the hurricane's path, stretching along the Gulf of Mexico coastline.
Several have already been closed down, while non-essential staff have been
sent home at others." ... "The US Minerals Management Service said that
more than 70% of oil production in the Gulf had been shut down because
of Rita." -BBC
/News
Texas
- Louisiana
- Hurricane
Rita - Auto
- Transportation
- Hurricane
Katrina - "Texans
fleeing Rita stalled by traffic." ... "The storm's
march toward land sent hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the nation's
fourth-largest city in a frustratingly slow, bumper-to-bumper exodus."
... ""This is the worst planning I've ever seen," said Judie Anderson,
who covered just 45 miles in 12 hours after setting out from her home in
the Houston suburb of LaPorte. "They say we've learned a lot from Hurricane
Katrina. Well, you couldn't prove it by me."" ... "In all, nearly 2 million
people along the Texas and Louisiana coasts were urged to get out of the
way of Rita, a 400-mile-wide storm that weakened Thursday from a top-of-the-scale
Category 5 hurricane to a Category 4 as it swirled across the Gulf of Mexico."
-By Mike Graczyk -AP
via -SeattleTimes.NWsource
Hurricane
Rita - Texas
- Louisiana
- 
Wind
-Oil
- "Hurricane
Rita May Hit Land in the Gulf Coast Within Two Days."
... "Hurricane Rita, the third-most- intense storm ever recorded in the
Atlantic basin, may hit the Gulf Coast as soon as tomorrow night. The Category
5 storm is more powerful than Hurricane Katrina when it slammed Louisiana
last month to become the most expensive U.S. natural disaster." ... "Rita,
with winds of 175 mph (280 kmh) is expected to reach land sometime ``Friday
night through Saturday morning,'' said Chris Landsea, a meteorologist with
the National Hurricane Center. Hurricane conditions are possible in the
next 36 hours along the coast between Port Mansfield, Texas, to Cameron,
Louisiana, the center said on its Web site." ... "About 52 percent of 134
[oil] rigs and 57 percent of 819 manned [oil] platforms in the Gulf of
Mexico were evacuated, the Minerals Management Service said on its Web
site." ... "The Texas Gulf Coast has seven of the 13 largest U.S. [oil]
refineries." -By Vivek Shankar -Bloomberg
Hurricane
Rita - Texas
- Louisiana
- Wind
- Transportation
- "Texans
flee from Rita: Category 5 storm churning toward
Gulf Coast." ... "Residents in southeast Texas and coastal Louisiana scurried
to get out of the way of Hurricane Rita, a Category 5 hurricane expected
to hit the Lone Star State this weekend." ... "The National Hurricane Center
said at 4 p.m. that the storm has intensified and now packs maximum sustained
winds of 165 mph (265 kph)." ... "Around Houston, the fourth most populous
city in the United States, interstates and highways are clogged with traffic
as residents rush to leave." ... "Houston Mayor Bill White urged the residents
in areas at risk for storm surge and those living in mobile homes to "begin
making their evacuation plans."" -Contributed to by
Deborah Feyerick and Barbara Starr -CNN
TX
- Hurricane
Rita - Hurricane
Katrina - 
- "Hurricane
Rita strengthens, aims at Texas." ... "Hurricane
Rita took aim at Texas as it grew into a powerful Category 4 storm on Wednesday,
and authorities urged residents of Houston and most of the state's coastline
to evacuate." ... "Rita's most likely future track would take it to the
Texas coast by the end of the week, hitting southwest of Galveston, where
in 1900 at least 8,000 people died in the deadliest U.S. hurricane." ...
"Galveston began evacuating residents on Tuesday. Further inland, Houston
Mayor Bill White ordered a mandatory evacuation of residents in areas prone
to storm surges or major floods. Texas Gov. Rick Perry urged residents
along most of the state's coastline, from the Louisiana border almost to
Mexico, to leave." -By Mark Babineck with contributions
by Erwin Seba, Michael Christie, Adam Entous and Caren Bohan
-Reuters.co.uk
