Schools Close, and Evacuations Begin (Houston/Galveston)

Galveston may no longer be the most likely target for Hurricane Rita, but the island remains well within the danger zone. The city and county have begun a voluntary evacuation, with a mandatory evacuation set for Wednesday. Brazoria County is planning a voluntary evacuation.

Galveston city officials said today that they have have set the city's first-ever mandatory evacuation for 6 p.m. Wednesday and a state of emergency was declared this evening. Evacuation buses are to begin rolling out of town Wednesday morning, with hundreds or even thousands of people on board as shelters open to Galveston evacuees in Huntsville.

"You may and should begin to leave the island now," Galveston Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas said shortly after 11 a.m.

Galveston County officials announced a countywide voluntary evacuation starting this afternoon. Mandatory evacuation of nursing homes and assisted-living facilities is set to begin at 6 a.m. Wednesday, with a mandatory evaucation of all county residents beginning at 6 p.m.

Brazoria County, just south of Galveston County, called for a voluntary evacuation at 2 p.m. today and will consider the latest forecasts before deciding on a mandatory evacuation for some areas on Wednesday.

To give families time to evacuate before the storm hits Texas Friday night, the Galveston Independent School District has called off classes for the rest of the week, as have the Clear Creek, Pasadena, La Porte, Deer Park, Hitchcock, Anahuac, Alvin, Brazosport, Brazoria, Angleton, Columbia-Brazoria and Sweeny districts.

Authorities said those living near the coast or in low-lying areas are better off evacuating now than later. Those who leave right away can take any route they choose, but once mandatory evacuation begins, some routes will be restricted.

In Galveston County's case, residents of the city and the north part of the island will be forced to stick to the evacuation route on I-45 North. Residents of Santa Fe and other west side towns in northern Galveston County will have to take Highway 6 toward College Station. In Brazoria County, some roads would be closed to funnel traffic north on Texas 36 or Texas 288.

As of 4 p.m. today, the National Hurricane Center forecast that the storm's center would come ashore just north of Matagorda Bay. The center's estimates of sustained winds at landfall have risen, with Rita expected to grow into 135 mph, Category 4 storm. Landfall is estimated to come sometime late Friday night or early Saturday morning. Meteorologists caution that predictions remain unreliable.

Long-range forecasts such as this are typically off by hundreds of miles, and different computer models call for different landfalls. Morever, the overnight course shift is small, so preparations continue in the danger zone from northern Mexico to Lake Charles, La.

"We're definitely not out of the woods yet," said Kent Prochazka, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in League City.

If Rita does in fact hit closer to Matagorda than Galveston as a Category 3 hurricane, the Houston area would be in for high winds, heavy rain and possibly tornadoes, but that wouldn't be as dangerous for Houston as a direct hit on Galveston, Prochazka said.

Instead of devastating Galveston and then moving over downtown Houston still packing the 100 mph winds of a Category 2 hurricane, a hurricane making landfall near Matagorda would to be expected to roll over Houston with tropical force winds in the 70 mph range.

"The difference between that and making landfall in Galveston is huge," Prochazka said.

This morning, Galveston officials moved up the timetable for evacuations because Rita was speeding up, gaining strength and still taking aim at Texas' central coast.

By midday, Rita had passed just south of Florida's Keys. The storm reached top sustained winds of 100 mph, making it a Category 2 hurricane. It's expected to be a Category 3 hurricane by the time it hits the Gulf Coast Friday, with its outer bands reaching Texas' coastal waters by Thursday morning and spreading inland Thursday evening. By Friday morning, tropical-storm-force winds could be lashing the coast.

As Rita headed into the Gulf of Mexico, emergency operations centers along the Texas Coast have swung into action. Placed on high alert, Texas' Division of Emergency Management has begun moving water, food and other supplies to Dallas, Fort Forth and San Antonio in preparation for evacuees.

Galveston City Manager Steve LeBlanc said the state is making plans to move out Hurricane Katrina evacuees from Houston "to make room for Texans," but authorities were discouraging Galveston evacuees from trying to stay in Houston, which is vulnerable itself and has few available hotel rooms because of Katrina.

On Monday night, officials offered "re-evacuation" options to the nearly 1,500 Katrina evacuees remaining in Houston's two largest shelters, with the goal of clearing those facilities by this evening. Stressing that neither Houston nor the two shelters, the George R. Brown Convention Center and Reliant Arena, are safe to ride out a storm of Rita's predicted size, officials offered flights and buses to Fort Chaffee, Ark., as well as continued one-way airline tickets to other points in the country or transfers to smaller area shelters.

Galveston has made arrangements for shelters with about 1,000 beds to open their doors to island residents Wednesday morning in Huntsville, and Galveston officials expect to ask for more beds. Signs in Montgomery County north of Houston are to direct Galveston evacuees to the shelters.

After watching Hurricane Katrina destroy so much of Louisiana's and Mississippi's coasts, many in Galveston were heeding the call to evacuate. At Galveston City Hall, a steady stream of residents arrived today to get the car windshield stickers that people need to get back into the city after an evacuation.

Some merchants and residents across the city already were boarding up businesses and homes even before evacuation officially began.

At the 333-unit Victorian Condo-Hotel on Seawall Boulevard, general manager Buzz Elton said his staff was battening down.

"We're requesting all of our guests to leave the island,'' said Elton, whose company also manages 250 rental homes in the city. "We're contacting all the people in those rental homes to see if they need transportation.''

In the city's emergency operations center, volunteers were taking calls from residents hoping to get on evacuation buses the city has secured for people who have no transportation of their own.

By this morning, close to 800 people had signed up for seats on the city, school and Houston Metro buses, which can carry 2,300. More buses are available from the Houston Metropolitan Transit Authority if needed, Galveston officials said.

The bus evacuation is set to begin at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Island Community Center at 4700 Broadway.

Galveston's LeBlanc warned that those who stay behind won't have any police or fire services if a hurricane hits, but he said police won't drag off those who insist on staying even if there's a mandatory evacuation.

"If there are people who are unwilling to leave, we're not going to go pry them out of their households," he said.

Galveston's University of Texas Medical Branch, which has 500 patients, doesn't plan to evacuate unless there's a mandatory order. Hospital officials said they have already begun sending home patients who don't need to stay. If evacuation were to become necessary, adult patients would be taken the Univeristy of Texas Health Center at Tyler, and children would go to Children's Hospital of Austin.

State and local officials urged coastal residents to make early storm preparations, including stocking up on nonperishable food and water, gassing up vehicles and getting cash in case ATMs are not working.

Coastal residents lined up outside a Home Depot in Texas City, just north of Galveston, at 5:30 a.m. to buy plywood and other supplies. Generators priced at more than $500 apiece were selling out quickly, and trucks were delivering plywood every two hours, said assistant manager Joe Valentin.

Beau Shirali stocked up last night on canned food and water and stood in line for plywood early today.

"There is only so much you can do,'' he said. "The rest is up to the hurricane and God.''

The Texas Department of Health and Human Services said it is ready to ensure water and ice distribution if a hurricane hits the coast, while the Texas Department of State Health Services said it is prepared to help communities evacuate hospitals and provide vaccines, medications and ambulances. Texas Gov. Rick Perry has recalled emergency personnel assisting with Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

From a Feb. 20, 2005 article in the Houston Chronicle:

Models show 'massive devastation' in Houston
By Eric Berger

Damages could cost up to $50 billion -- 10 times Allison's cost

Houston's perfect storm would feed on late summer's warm waters as it barreled northward across the Gulf of Mexico, slamming into the coast near Freeport.

A landfall here would allow its powerful upper-right quadrant, where the waves move in the same direction as the storm, to overflow Galveston Bay. Within an hour or two, a storm surge, topping out at 20 feet or more, would flood the homes of 600,000 people in Harris County. The surge also would block the natural drainage of flooded inland bayous and streams for a day or more.

Coastal residents who ignored warnings to flee would have no hope of escape as waters swelled and winds roiled around their homes. Very likely, hundreds, perhaps even thousands, would die.

Meanwhile, as the storm moved over western Harris County, its most dangerous winds, well in excess of 120 mph even inland, would lash the Interstate 45 corridor, including Clear Lake, the Texas Medical Center and downtown.

Many older buildings could not withstand such winds.

Anything not tied down, from trees to mobile homes to light poles, would become missiles, surreally tumbling and flying through the air, flattening small houses, shattering skyscraper windows and puncturing roofs.

"Unfortunately, we're looking at massive devastation," said Roy Dodson, president of the engineering firm Dodson & Associates, which Harris County asked to model realistic "worst-case scenarios" for a major hurricane hitting the area.

Dodson's firm modeled more than 100 storms of varying power, speed and landfall. It concluded that a large Category 4 or Category 5 -- a storm only moderately larger than the four that struck Florida last summer -- would cause as much as $40 billion to $50 billion in damage. That's 10 times the cost of Tropical Storm Allison and approximately the city of Houston's entire budget for the next 15 years.

And this wasn't an academic exercise. Of the 17 Category 4 and Category 5 storms that have struck the United States since 1900, three, all Category 4 storms, have hit the Greater Houston area -- unnamed storms in 1900 and 1915 and Carla in 1961.

Coastal development

With considerable coastal development since then and lower elevations because of groundwater pumping, no one knows what will happen when a major storm hits. But what's clear is that models of a hurricane's three modes of destruction -- winds, storm surge and inland flooding from heavy rainfall -- offer little comfort.

With sustained winds between 131 mph and 155 mph, the power of a Category 4 storm exceeds that of most building codes.

Houston's commercial building rules call for structures to withstand three-second bursts of at least 110 mph, said Dennis Wittry, managing director of Houston Structural Operations at Walter P. Moore, an engineering firm.

Newer skyscrapers, including many built during Houston's downtown boom in the '80s, were modeled in wind tunnels to determine their performance in extreme weather events. Most should survive the storm, Wittry said. And the downtown window loss like that experienced during Hurricane Alicia, a Category 3 storm that struck in 1983, actually could be less in a bigger storm.

That's because roofs that were then anchored by gravel -- which become bullets in high winds -- are now held down by specialized concrete that should not blow off, Wittry said.

Residential homes, built with less exacting standards and lesser materials, would fare worse.

"You'll definitely see more significant damage in residential construction," he said. "Lower-end homes, or some homes in older areas, would probably be completely destroyed."

Tie-downs, a structural device that prevents wind blowing over a structure, creating a vortex and sucking off the roof, have been mandatory only since the late 1980s, Wittry said.

Various studies of a large storm hitting the Houston area have estimated that 100,000 to 125,000 homes would be destroyed.

20-foot wall of water

More devastation would be caused by winds blowing over the Gulf of Mexico and pushing surface water inland -- creating up to a 20-foot storm surge. Such a wall of water would swamp most development near Galveston Bay, including Texas City, Kemah and Johnson Space Center. Varying levels of water would flood much of the area between Sam Houston Parkway and the bay.

On Galveston Island, the seawall could hold back much of the storm surge, but at some point the water would creep onto the island from the bay side. The island's highest point is just 22 feet above sea level.

Much like a river becomes deeper and more turbulent when it narrows, a storm surge also can increase in height and intensity when its source of water narrows. Dodson said this has profound implications for the Port of Houston. Some models ended with a 30-foot wall of water in the Ship Channel near the port's turning basin, he said. "It would be huge," he said. "It could overwhelm chemical storage facilities, water treatment plants and other sensitive areas."

The port's severe-weather plan calls for most cargo ships to exit the facility and weather the storm at sea in preparation for the possibility of flooded buildings.

Wave modeling

Another, perhaps even-now-unanticipated effect is large waves accompanying the storm surge.

A waves expert at Texas A&M University at Galveston, Vijay Panchang, said he and colleagues were surprised when they observed wave data associated with Hurricane Ivan shortly before it slammed into Alabama last September.

A wave-measuring buoy about 60 miles south of Dauphin Island, before it snapped, registered an average wave height of about 50 feet, Panchang said. That means the biggest waves were a staggering 100 feet tall. Such wave heights, according to his modeling, should only occur every 300 years or so.

Either Ivan's waves were a freak event, or hurricane forecasters may need to adjust their wave expectations for large storms in the warm Gulf waters.

"This is from a storm that hit only a few hundred miles to the east of us," he said. "There's nothing to say that another storm won't create really big waves for us."

These large waves caused by Ivan may have been as responsible, if not more so, than the storm surge for severely damaging the I-10 bridge bear Pensacola, Fla., Panchang said.

Surprises after landfall

Engineers and forecasters say the most unpredictable element of a storm comes after landfall, when it either dumps rain and floods creeks and bayous or moves quickly enough that relatively little rain falls.

Tropical Storm Allison probably isn't a good model for what to expect. The system was so poorly organized and slow moving that some hurricane forecasters say it wasn't a tropical storm. In some areas of the city, enough rain fell to classify Allison as a 10,000-year rainfall event. Still, because a large hurricane's storm surge likely would block the flow of bayou waters into Galveston Bay, any significant rainfall could back up into inland streets and homes quickly, Dodson said.

The last major hurricane most Houston residents remember was Alicia, which made landfall on the west end of Galveston Island in August 1983.

Unfortunately, planners say, as devastating as that storm was, it's a poor predictor of what to expect from a larger, Category 4 or bigger storm.

Alicia's highest sustained winds on land were measured at 96 mph. Most of the Greater Houston area received just 5 inches of rain. Storm surges across much of the area were less than 10 feet, although Seabrook measured 12 feet.

The storm spawned 23 tornadoes, killed 21 people and destroyed 2,300 homes.

"Alicia was a marginal Category 3," Dodson said. "Its rainfall doesn't come close to this area's top 20 historical floods.

"I guess what I'm saying is that I hope people don't ignore evacuation warnings because they remember that things weren't apocalyptic during Alicia."

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