Hurricane Rita barreled toward the Texas and Louisiana coasts Wednesday morning as the overall strength of the storm fluctuated between Category 4 and Category 5. The National Hurricane Center issued hurricane warnings from Port O’Connor, Texas, in the west as far east as Morgan City, La., as of 10 a.m. Wednesday.
According to the National Hurricane Center, the eye is projected to move ashore on the southeastern Texas coast by 7 a.m. Saturday.
Although Rita is not expected to score a direct hit on Mississippi, Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck signed a state of emergency for the state Thursday as the storm’s projected path shifted east.
“I urge all Mississippians to please take this storm seriously,” Gov. Haley Barbour said in a press release.
Katrina’s damage lingers in the air, and worries of damage to the Texas coastline are warranted. “If it is a Category 5 storm, Rita will destroy much of the development in its path,” professor of geosciences Charles Wax said Tuesday. “There will be a high storm surge that will cause water damage, and, of course, wind damage will also occur.”
Hopefully, the impact on the New Orleans area and the Louisiana coast will be minimal, Wax said. However, fears that the weakened levee system in New Orleans will buckle under the weight of extra rain from Rita’s tropical storm have been voiced.
With a storm of this strength, Wax predicts some precipitation in other Southern areas. “We’ll see rain even as far north as here.” Over the weekend, there is a 30 to 50 percent chance of rain, Wax said.
Predictions for the probable evolution of the storm point to a shift to the east, Wax said. The storm is trapped under a high-pressure system, which may produce an eastern shift, causing heavy, lingering rains, according to Wax. “The remnants could hang around instead of dissipating.”
Residents of coastal Texas evacuating the storm flooded the roads out of the cities of Corpus Christi, Galveston and Houston to escape Rita’s wrath, and mandatory evacuations have begun.