On This Day

On this day in 2005, Hurricane Rita made landfall along the Texas-Louisiana border. It was a Category 3 hurricane when it came ashore, but it had been a Category 5 storm in the days before landfall, with maximum sustained winds reaching 180 mph on September 21. Rita was devastating to the Golden Triangle of Texas, although it certainly could have been much, much worse if it hadn't weakened considerably in the day before it came ashore -- I saw what it did as a Category 3 with 115 mph winds, and I can't even imagine what 180 mph winds would have done.

Despite the damage it did in Southeast Texas (and that damage was extensive and severe), Rita will probably be remembered mostly for the evacuation of Houston that it spawned. For several days before September 24, the National Weather Service forecast that it would make landfall near Galveston, which would have meant that it would have blown by Houston as a Category 3 storm or worse. Having seen what happened to New Orleans with Katrina less than a month earlier, a significant portion of the population of the greater Houston metropolitan area evacuated. Or attempted to. It was a disaster. All of the roads out of town were gridlocked. Gas stations ran out of gas. Stalled vehicles were lined up along freeways and back roads all the way to Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio.

I have lived a sheltered life, and I am very fortunate that I didn't have to live through a major hurricane hitting Houston. However, that evacuation was the worst day of my life. I left home at around 3:00 AM on September 22, heading for Dallas, where I have family. By 5:00 PM, and still hadn't reached Conroe. Interstate 45 was a disaster area. Traffic was moving at maybe two or three miles per hour. I was still miles south of where the contraflow lanes had been opened up. I realized that I was never going to reach Dallas by the time the storm hit. I made a mid-course adjustment and headed for Austin on back roads with the help of my brother, who relayed directions from Mapquest over the phone. By 2:00 AM, I had reached College Station, but I was almost out of gas. Because they are the best friends a person could have, Mamacita and Papi Chulo, who had managed to make it to Austin on the afternoon of the 22nd, drove back to College Station to bring me gas. We ate at the Whataburger in College Station with a bunch of drunk (but very polite) Texas A&M students and then headed to Austin. We finally pulled into Mamacita's aunt's house at around 6:00 AM, by which time I had been up for 27 hours, was badly sunburned, and was caked in the salt from my own sweat. I called my father, who by that time was downright alarmed, and went to sleep. As I wrote, I don't have that much to complain about in comparison to those who lost loved ones or all of their worldly possessions in the storm; but it was truly a terrible experience.

Tropical Storm Allison

With the news this afternoon that Tropical Storm Humberto had formed in the Gulf of Mexico and was due to come ashore east of Galveston tonight and tomorrow morning, I naturally thought of Tropical Storm Allison, which hit the Houston area at the beginning of June, 2001 and which is the last tropical storm or hurricane to hit the Houston area. Those of you who lived in Houston at the time will recall that it wasn't the wind with Allison, it was the rain. The system got stuck over the area, dumping large quantities of rain day after day, until Friday night, June 8, when just about all the bayous flowing through central Houston flooded and turned downtown and significant portions of the metropolitan area into one big lake. The freeways inside the loop were flooded, too, at least along the sections that are below grade. My most enduring memory, however, was footage from a news helicopter showing a Budweiser truck stopped on I-10, flooded up almost to the top of its trailer, with the trailer door broken open and a beer can sitting on top. Someone swam through the flood waters out to the truck, broke in, and enjoyed a stolen beer while sitting on top of the trailer. The picture above was taken by Dan Wallach of that truck after the waters had receded a bit. He has a number of other pictures, too, all of which are still amazing to me, even after more than six years.

Update: Similar to what happened with Hurricane Rita two years ago, Humberto turned east and came ashore near the Golden Triangle early this morning. The extra time over water allowed it to strengthen into a Category 1 hurricane. Eric Berger from the Houston Chronicle reports that winds in Orange haven't gotten too high. Let's hope that the principal problem continues to be with rain, not wind. We can handle ten inches of rain; hurricane-force winds, not so much.

Hurricane Dean, Part II

By now, it's pretty clear that Hurricane Dean will not threaten any part of the Texas Gulf coast. It's currently pummeling Jamaica, will turn to the Cayman islands on Monday and the Yucatan peninsula on Tuesday, and will finally hit the Mexican mainland late Wednesday. May God protect the people who live where Dean goes: it's an extremely strong storm and will probably be a Category 5 hurricane by the time it hits the Caymans and the Yucatan.

A couple of general comments. First, I was struck by the traffic billboards that lie alongside Houston freeways. Starting on Friday, they began to carry the message "HURRICANE FORMING NEAR GULF; KEEP YOUR GAS TANKS FULL." Putting aside the fact that by that time Hurricane Dean was fully-formed and that it was nowhere near the Gulf of Mexico, it was good advice. Second, am I the only one who has noticed the disappointment in the voices of TV meteorologists when they're forced to admit that the hurricane isn't coming here? It's as if they're rooting for a disaster. Finally, there are a couple more good websites for those of you who are interested in hurricanes. The first is Brendan Loy's blog. He's a lawyer; but hurricanes interest him, and he knows a lot about them. The second is Eric Berger's blog. Believe it or not, he's employed by the Houston Chronicle, and his blog is hosted on the Chronicle website. It's really easy to criticize the Chronicle, and God knows that they deserve it. However, give them credit where it is due: Eric Berger's blog is excellent and very informative. Read it whenever there's an Atlantic hurricane.

Hurricane Dean

Hurricane Dean just plowed through the Lesser Antilles islands and is expected to hit the Yucatan Peninsula by early next week, after which is will get into the Gulf of Mexico. Right now, forecasters say that it could make landfall anywhere from northern Mexico to the Texas-Louisiana border in a week or 10 days, but it's hard to say with any certainty what a hurricane will do that far in the future. Check the National Hurricane Center website, Weather Underground, or Boat U.S. for hurricane tracking and forecasting information.

Above Average

At the beginning of Atlantic hurricane season in June, all forecasters that I'm aware of predicted that it would be above average in intensity. It's now halfway through the season, and there has been practically no tropical activity of any sort -- just one tropical storm so far, and that was before the season officially began on June 1. This lack of activity doesn't necessarily mean anything: the second half of the season is more dangerous than the first half, particularly for those of us in the western half of the Gulf of Mexico, because the higher ocean temperatures later in the year are more conducive to storm formation and propagation. Hurricane Katrina made landfall in late August, Hurricane Rita in late September. Still, was there ever any doubt that meteorologists would predict an above average season? There's no glory in being right about a below average or average season, and nobody was ever a goat for being wrong about a doom-and-gloom weather prediction. But imagine the downside if a meteorologist predicted a below average season and a Category 5 hurricane slammed into Florida or Mississippi or Texas. All of the incentives that really matter encourage meteorologists to predict the worst.

Edit: Sure enough, as soon as I post this, we get another tropical storm. It looks like Tropical Storm Chantal is unlikely to strengthen into a hurricane or to threaten any landmass except perhaps Iceland.