Rita Forces New Orleans Evac.

[LordOfTheBorg 1]

 

Hurricane Rita forces New Orleans evacuation

By Jack Fairweather in New Orleans

(Filed: 21/09/2005)

 

 

 

With Hurricane Rita bearing down on the Gulf coast yesterday, New Orleans began a second emergency evacuation of the city. Thousands of residents packed belongings and boarded up houses to which many have only recently returned.

 

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Mayor Ray Nagin, who only last week announced ambitious plans to bring residents back to New Orleans, called on them to leave. He warned that the new storm could overwhelm the levees that collapsed, leading to the flooding of the city three weeks ago.

 

Hurricane Rita passed over the Atlantic coast of Florida yesterday, where a mandatory evacuation order is also in place, with sustained winds of 100 miles per hour.

 

Some residents in the Florida Keys stayed behind in boarded-up homes as stormwater submerged parts of the only highway linking the island chain to the Florida mainland.

 

Hurricane Rita hits Cuba

Waves crash against Havana's seafront boulevard El Malecon as Hurricane Rita passes near Cuba

 

Early weather forecasts suggest Rita, currently a category two hurricane, would gather strength as it passed over the Gulf before making landfall somewhere along the Texas coast and south-western Louisiana towards the end of the week.

 

Mr Nagin said that even nine inches of rain and a three-foot storm surge would cause "significant" flooding in the city's levee system, which has been only partially restored since Hurricane Katrina.

 

Mr Nagin has been roundly criticised by federal officials for his decision to allow some 180,000 residents back into the city. President George W Bush warned on Monday that it was not the right time for residents to return to New Orleans, citing the coming storm and lack of drinking water and electricity.

 

The aftermath of Katrina has exposed a serious breakdown in relations between local and federal government officials. Mr Bush yesterday made his fifth visit in two weeks to the storm-ravaged region as part of a concerted attempt to repair the damage to his reputation caused by the government's initial faltering response.

 

State officials estimate that 80,000 people have returned to New Orleans to areas that escaped the worse of the flooding and wind damage.

 

Long queues formed on the main approach roads to the city as returning residents were turned back, and others tried to leave.

 

Amy Whitelaw, an office manager at a technology firm who arrived back home on Monday to the Algiers district of New Orleans, now under mandatory evacuation orders, said: "I cried when I came into the city and saw the destruction. Now I'm crying all again at leaving."

 

James Jeffers, 54, who returned last week, said memories were still fresh from the city's evacuation three weeks ago. "It's very depressing to have to board up the house again. But no one wants to get stuck in New Orleans again when another hurricane hits."

 

The evacuation also threatens to slow if not halt the city's reconstruction process. US Army engineers say breaches in the levees have been temporarily repaired, but that only 45 per cent of the levees' water pumps are operational.

 

Engineers were yesterday preparing to seal off some parts of the levee system with concrete blocks to minimise the impact of further storm surges.

 

Meanwhile, US navy ships have withdrawn from the banks of the Mississippi, and officials from Fema, the main government relief organisation, have orders to evacuate.

 

"It's going to be hard to bring everyone back together at once, with the same momentum," said a Fema official. "It's going to be even harder if Hurricane Rita hits."

 

JUST NO LUCK!

[VaBeachGuy 12]

They shouldn't be re-populating yet as it is. Not yet.

[Madame Butterfly 0]

Storm Upgraded to Category 5

A large swath of the Texas coastline, including Galveston and parts of Houston and Corpus Christi, are under mandatory evacuation orders

 

 

The winds are at 165 mph and they say they'll grow stronger.

[Yillara Skye 1]

The winds are at 165 mph and they say they'll grow stronger.

353412[/snapback]

It is nearing the edge of where the crater is (the infamous impact site, that many say was the demise of the dinosaurs). Very deep waters there... so it is almost a definate possibility.

 

If they are lucky, it will die out a little prior to impact. Katrina had winds of 175, but made landfall as a strong Cat 4.

 

 

Getting drenched here.. one of the bands of Rita are passing by. Rains for NE Florida and well, pretty much all of FL from Rita should be ending in under a day (because of her speed)

[Capt_Picard 0]

Click For Spoiler

Doesn't look good!

[Jim Phaserman 0]

No luck whatsoever.