It would mess up some deer stands, cattle pens, a few ranch houses, and not much more.
But experience tells us that we have a pretty good idea of where Rita will be two days from now, and barely a clue as to where she'll be next weekend.
Somewhere between Lafayette, LA and northern Mexico, in all likelihood.
That's too big of a margin of error for anyone to panic yet.
On the other hand, it couldn't hurt to make sure that you have enough canned food, batteries, and bottled water on hand early in the week.
I live well past the limits of a Cat 5 storm surge, but I took the fury of a Cat 3 storm once, and that's the last time I'm gonna do that.
I left on Friday right after Ophelia and went to the beach.
It appears I am WAY behind. What happened to P and Q?
A simple 5 day forecast point is one thing in terms of wild inaccuracy but simply doing a straight line extrapolation of the 4 to 5 day movement to pick a specific county is even more misleading.
If it does indeed curve as indicated it would likely continue curving, thus putting the system in north of Corpus Christi.
A variety of Globals don't have a northward curve at all and still hit Mexico.
I'm somewhat dubious of that much ridging over the GOM holding for 5 days, in late September.
However, given the complete model consensus on the track through 3 days I think any landfall on the Gulf Coast east of Texas can be completely and utterly written off.
Wherever it strikes Texas [if it does] may it deliver me a few inches of rain. I've forgotten what the stuff is like.
It really depends on where a hurricane hits. If you live in South Houston and that sucker hits Galveston, it'd be best to go to a shelter. If a hurricane hits in Brazoria County and moves northward, like over Sugar Land...it'd be a good idea to leave. This is such a big area it all depends on where landfall is. I lived in Sugar Land when Alicia hit, and stayed home. I was fortunate, I didn't lose anything. Got lots of rain, some wind but was pretty much untouched. It all depends on landfall. For now just stock up.
Actually, that storm that went in there a few years ago took out a bunch of windmills used to pump water for cattle. They were all uninsured. I can't remember the dollar figure of the damage, but it was more than you would have expected. Still, all in all, it is the best place for a hurricane to go. I'm not sure the King Ranch people would agree, though :)