Northstar, over at the People's Republic, discusses what would happen if Houston gets hit by the 'big one.' It ain't pretty. Another hit like Katrina anywhere on the Gulf Coast, and we could see folks deciding that freezing their asses off in winter ain't so bad after all.Northstar quotes someone else, (but I'm not clear whom):First, you need to understand the dimensions of the future calamity. The Texas Division of Emergency Management, or DEM, produces a storm surge maps that show how far hurricanes of various strengths will push water onto the mainland. According to these projections, a Category 4-5 storm will flood virtually all of Galveston County, all of Clear Lake, the East Side to Loop 610, all of Baytown south of I-10 and about half of Brazoria County. The surge will be 20-25 feet high. That means every house in Clear Lake will have water over its roof or up to the second story. The only structures that will be visible in Kemah will be the Boardwalk Tower ride and the roofs of the three-story restaurants. Riding out a Category 4-5 storm within the flood surge area is simply not a survivable option.
And that does not count the flooding that will occur upstream from the torrential rains. Tropical Storm Claudette dropped 40 inches of rain on Alvin in 1979 in 24 hours, creating a nightmare. When a 25-foot storm surge dams up that water downstream, the flood stages upstream become almost too fantastic to believe. Some predict that I-45 will be under 20 feet of water at the Clear Creek bridge.Go here, and click the Galveston area map… and remember this is just the water coming IN from the Gulf. It's not the rainwater dumped by the storm unable to get out. For some idea of that, take a look at the flood plain maps.Accuweather.com has now predicted the storm WILL reach Category 5, not 3 as the Weather Service is saying.
NO, cat does not refer to a friendly house pet. It is the scale used to designate the destructive power of a hurricane. A category 1 hurricane has winds from 74 to 95 mph while a category 5 storm has winds over 155 mph. The strength of a hurricane is the product of the sea surface temperature and the overall flow in the proximity of the storm. The ideal setup for a major hurricane is ocean water temperatures in the middle 80s or higher and high pressure centered north of the storm track. In the case of Rita, both conditions will be satisfied, and the hurricane is likely to become quite strong. It will turn into at least a category 4 hurricane and has a chance to reach category 5 status. Then there are the super hurricanes like Katrina that achieved winds of 175 mph. We don't think Rita will become that powerful, but this latest hurricane is fast becoming a serious threat to the Texas Coast. JunkyardBlog, where I was pointed to this prediction, says it is by Joe Bastardi, the first guy to say Katrina would be a Cat 4 or 5. However, it's signed “John Kocet.” It remains to be seen whether the guys at Accuweather are just Chicken Littles who got lucky, or are the real deal. I”ll have much more later. If I have time.