Weakening of the wind strength is forecast over the next 12 hours, but it will still be an extremely dangerous hurricane by the time it hits down. Hundreds of thousands of Houstonians are on their way North 250 miles to Dallas and Ft Worth and it's taking 13 hours to travel 48 miles. Traffic jams are so extreme that many people are pushing their cars to save gas. The drive West to San Antonio yesterday (usually around 3 1/2 hours) was taking 10 hours. It will be worse today.

But at least a million Houstonians from the low-lying areas had the sense to pack their cars and get out. Although the entire island of Galveston may be submerged - which is unbelievable - most of Houston, 70/80 miles up the highway, is not threatened with severe damage. Probably electricity outages. My friends have been hoarding ice and making sure they have enough booze in for the traditional Houston hurricane party. Windows are boarded up, though, and you can't buy bottled water anywhere.

Word from the streets of Galveston are that it's a ghost town. Only reporters there.

The reporters - and the mayor! She's going to ride it out in Galveston, in a safe building. But she wasted no time getting the city evacuated. These Texans are made from different clay, I tell ya.

I watched a video of the Mayor of Houston yesterday, 72 hours before the hurricane is due to hit down, order everyone who lives in a mobile home or low-lying area to evacuate. For those elderly and disabled who are unable to help themselves, the city had set up a hotline.

Plus, the Mayor said the city may not have sufficient vehicles to rescue all the elderly and disabled and gave this typically Texas speech: "Please, citizens, think of your neighbours and the people you know. Can you think of any of your fellow citizens who may not be mobile? If you can, and you have a spare place in your vehicle, please open your hearts to your neighbours in need. We need all of our citizens to help one another."

The word citizen rings a bell in the Texas psyche, as the mayor knows, and I will bet you not one elderly or disabled person gets left behind to cope on their own in Houston. All will be rescued. The Mayor made his announcements with the Sherrif of Harris County standing behind him.

It was all so orderly, calm and intelligent and it all had so much authority.

Indeed Verity, what a contrast between the Texas officials and the Keystone Kops "government" in next door Louisiana.

The latest is that some of the local "relief" officials set up in Louisiana are stealing from donations for Katrina victims!

They caught one guy red-handed with loads and loads of all kinds of products stacked up in his house and garage!

Weather.com is reporting now that Katrina has been downgraded to a Cat 4. Let's hope it keeps falling down the scale.

Sorry I mean that Rita has been downgraded to a Cat 4.

We understood what you meant, Susan!

The Governor of Texas, 72 hours in advance of the hurricane made a simple statement: "Don't even think about looting."

Aspirant looters will have got the message. Especially in a state where almost everyone is armed.

Verity,

I'm impressed with what I've seen so far from Gov. Perry.

There's just no comparison between him and the Cajun Caterwauler, Kathleen Blank-o.

In the "a picture is worth a thousand words" department, check it out folks:

http://texasrainmaker.blogspot.com/2005/09/wheels-on-bus-go-round-and-round.html

Rita is predicted to be a cat 3 or 4 by landfall but she is expected to stall after coming ashore. That means east Texas can expect to 15 to 30 inches of rain. We can expect flooding from Dallas to the coast and as far west as Austin. Half the state will have flood conditions within 2 days of land fall. That is going to be the real test.

I am impressed by the degree of organization at the state and local levels. The lessons of Katrina certainly have sunk in but it is clear that plans thought out a long time ago are being well executed. For example, each county on the coast has a sister county or counties inland were the population can all evacuate together. This keeps the chaos down and keeps people in contact.

I think the contrast between Texas and Louisiana will prove very damning to the latter.

There's no comparison between Texas and Louisiana.

Louisiana is run by patronage hacks who couldn't make it in the private sector, Mafia dons, corrupt Democrats -- and descendents of the French.

Unfortunately, I doubt that comparison will have much prominence in MSM reports.

Off topic, sorry but has anyone esle seen this

(Link)

"Four No2ID campaigners were ejected from Gateshead Metro Centre yesterday, after their attempts to protest against the introduction of a national identity register and identity card were deemed "inappropriate" for local shoppers."

Unbelievable how this is playing out.

It's a Cat 4, thank God. The MSM are desperately playing it up in the UK tonight like the vultures they are, hoping for destruction, tragedy and better still, Bush getting more blame. Foul.

I'll be praying that it passes through Texas with severe rains but no lasting damage, but no death.

Stay safe those in the path of this storm.

Pressure's at 915 mb, and expected to fluctuate, but to stay 4 at maximum.

And dear Lord, please don't compare us to Lousiana. We've got the best politics money can buy...

Everything's as much under control as possible in Houston. The mayor has been in touch with Mr Bush to ask him to give permission to the Texas Highway Department to make I-45 N one way. (It's an interstate highway, so not under Texas jurisdiction, I assume.) Anyway 1-45 N is now one way north. Lots of people thinking of not continuing and coming back to Houston, now that Rita has been downgraded. The federal government is bringing gas to everyone on the highways who has run out.

My friend's next door neighbours took in a New Orleans restaurant owner (no fools they!) as an evacuee and they are throwing a hurricane party tomorrow night and the Cajun restaurateur's doing the cooking!

I don't want to talk too soon, but Houston and Galveston are pretty much battened down, and everyone who needs to evacuate from low ground has done so. This is all being handled with true Texan panache and efficiency.

I work at a Hampton Inn & Suites in Harlingen, Texas, which is a border town right by Brownsville. I'll tell you guys what, South Texas hotels are filling up fast. My day shift guys (I work night audit myself) have been inundated with calls for reservations. Last night I could only forward calls to other hotels around Harlingen, though a few regulars (we deal mostly with business travelers) have had to leave early to get their houses in order. Those new openings filled up FAST. I think we have one smoking room left right now and that will surely be snapped up overnight. I'd guess 90%, if not more, of our business this weekend will be hurricane evacuees.

It's very sad to see these people having drop everything in their lives to move out of the way of this storm but they seem to be handling the stress of it all quite well.

Verity, look after yourself down there. Sounds like Texans are responding as they always do - with a mixture of bravery and straight common sense. I have a good friend, Alan Weiss - a big Free State Project supporter BTW - who lives in Austin. He says the impact on the state capital is unlikely to be very bad but is taking no chances and stocking up on supplies.

Texas is running things there so well that there's a monster traffic jam.
If a fifth, say, of cars pulled to one side, would the jam clear fast enough for the one-fifth to get out quicker?
Any traffic planners in the house?

Yes, the way Texas responds to Rita will be the best riposte for all those America and Bush haters who were aghast at America's apparent callous treatment of its downtrodden in a crisis. These fools need to understand that all American states are powerful political entities and each have governance of differing effectiveness and quality. Texas, I imagine, has some of the best. Louisiana - evidently - some of the worst. I don't know why GWB decided to take so much of the blame over the aftermath of Katrina. Louisiana's Katrina cockup was due to pathetically poor state and local government preparation and response.

Those who think the above is a frightful state of affairs should turn to look at the failure of a supposedly caring and centralised mega-state - how many thousands upon thousands of elderly people died during the heatwave (not exactly your most dire of natural disasters) that struck France in the summer of 2003?

Well.... the old joke about Texas politicans was that they were the best that money could buy.

The joke about louisiana pols was that the ones that weren't underwater were under indictment.

IIRC, the toll from the heatwave in France was a bit over 10k.

Robert... Nice to have a reader in Harlingen. That's CAF territory if I remember rightly! Sort of like Mecca and Jerusalem* rolled up together for us warbird fanatics :-)

(Heaven is in Oshkosh though!)

I’m sure Usama Bin Laden loves Rita…and after all why not?

The lady has always had a healthy penchant for bearded Middle-Eastern religious leaders- she even married one of them back in 1949: Prince Ali Agha Khan!

And since the Halcyon days of president F. Delano Roosevelt, Rita has also been the most popular pinup in the Pentagon and aboard US navy warships...

Talk about a highly consensual pop icon that will finally bridge the Washington-Mecca divide!

;)

Hmmm.... that comment has already appeared in another thread.

55 cents - Houston's vast freeway system is efficient, and they've closed inbound lanes and made everything outbound on I-45N to Dallas/Ft Worth. So you've got six lanes outbound. But they weren't planned for a million people travelling the 250 miles to Dallas at the same time! Even now, it would still have flowed, but slowly, but life being life, some people's cars stalled in the 100 degree temperatures. Some people ran out of gas - not because they're stupid but because there is no gas in Houston. They would have planned to drive as far as they could, hoping to find a service station open as they drove north. Even as I write, the feds are gassing up cars that are out of fuel, trying to keep things moving.

But the news this morning does not look good.

An additional worry now is, if these people are still stuck on the highway when the hurricane hits down, it could be devastating. The worst place you can be in a hurricane is in your vehicle.

OTOH, it is now predicted to hit down to the east of Houston towards the Lousiana border, which would leave Houston on the west, least dangerous side, of the storm.

Mr Waterton - what makes you think the US isn't a mega state?
I'd call a trillion pound budget fairly mega.

50 Cent - proportion of GDP utilised by the government in the USA versus that in France? France's government is considerably larger than the USA's.

Rita has now been downgraded to a Cat 3.

Glad to hear that. I've been watching the sat photo and you can see it has shrunk a great deal since yesterday afternoon.

I once was caught in the edges of a low Cat Hurricane that hit Delaware. I was at Reheboth Beach and my MGB's distributor got dampened. Not fun but AAA came through!

Only time I have ever been in wind that made me lean at what seemed a 45 degree angle into the horizontal rain...

A Cat 3 is still no day in the park. It is not as though it's been downgraded to a "tropical storm". This is still serious stuff, and it may still take the power out, and will probably shatter any unboarded-up windows and tear large shrubs out of gardens, but it won't lift roofs off houses and blow in doors. The amount of rain its carrying means Houston will flood, but that's nothing new. I've seen creative people with sailboats on the Southwest Freeway before now.

The Beeb must be heartbroken. Rita will probably not produce the same US-bashing and Bush-bashing images that they used so gleefully after Katrina.

Susan - They will turn viperish out disappointment. My guess, they will pick on the bus that burned. Something like: "Rescue bus faulty brakes cause only Rita fatalities." First sentence: A Houston city-owned bus that was intended to take the elderly and infirm to safety exploded on a Texas highway ....".

What's the betting?

Verity and Susan

I just had a thought. With all the careful planning that Texas is doing such a good job with and if all goes rather well, I wouldn't doubt it if the left accuses Bush of taking better care of Texans just because that's where he's from. Or something to that effect, anyway. It wouldn't surprise me one bit.

Denise W,

No, the left-wing meme will be that Bush took care of the white Texans but abandoned the black Louisianans.

Or, that Bush took care of his Texas oil buddies but ignored the libertines in New Orleans.

Or, that Bush took care of the Republican governor of Texas but chose to screw over the Democratic governor of Louisians.

Or, that Bush ordered the use of some super-secret device that caused Rita to quickly downgrade to a Cat 3 but let a Cat 4 hit Louisiana. All because of politics, you know. (Repubs vs. Dems, or white vs. black, or whatever reason.)

It's not just the Beeb that presents the US as being in trouble. It's most of the MSM.

Re Houston - another magnificent evacuation plan. A good thing alQaeda aren't strong enough to take advantage with a bomb in a city center.

24 old people burnt in a traffic jam. It's not just the Beeb who are reporting that. It's everyone. Including Fox News.

David - Around half the people who needed help to get out of Houston were black, and they were taken out on exactly the same buses as the white folks. (They weren't sent to sit in the back of the bus, either!) Everyone was evacuated and cared for in their turn. Texans have never been discriminatory the way a lot of other states were. White and black children have always played together.

The bus that exploded and burned was carrying three people with either oxygen tents or oxygen tanks. This will be a lesson, I would think. Only one oxygen container per bus.

50 cents - al-qaeda can't react to events spontaneously. They need to plan and plan and plan and plan and plan ... Also, kind of a waste of a bomb given that the centre of Houston was empty.

Finally, what the Beeb in particular, but also the MSM, can accuse Bush of is - he personally (not Houston's wonderful, efficient mayor and his team) organised the efficient evacuation of Houston because ... that is where his parents, George and Barbara Bush, live and they did not want their bridge game to be disrupted or their lawn ruined.

I agree the Bbc has a liberal bias. However, on its website, the anti-war rally (or pro-Munich rally) is about its 11th story. Behind Poland's election. (Q joke about when Germany went to the Poles.)

Website, of course, is paid for by us poor licence payers.

VERITY - I wasn't thinking just of Houston. It could be Seattle/Shreveport/Phoenix/Surf City...Or is the War on Terror not to be taken literally?

50 cents - as noted above, I don't believe al-qaeda is organised enough to improvise large acts.

Just a PS after the storm -

Houston's electricity never cut out. There was no flooding, so Houston teens couldn't even ride the freeways in their outboards looking cool. The hurricane parties ended around 5 a.m. Some people managed to crawl overland to their house next door. People who drove north are filing back into Houston in orderly fashion as the I-45 is two-way again.

Galveston had no surge and was not - thank God - destroyed for a second time. The mayor of Galveston, who rode Rita out with her small crew in the city for which she is responsible after she'd ensured everyone else on the island was evacuated, has asked people not to return until the power is back on and the public water system and sewers are working. She has ordered the causeway barricaded until these things are complete. Maybe Monday.

Billboard for Matt Frei, Justin Webb, Matt Wells, James Naughtie and all the BBC/al-G'hardayan socialist bottom feeders burrowing away trying to make socialism and central control happen, CAPITALISM AND SELF -RELIANCE AT WORK: TEXAS. (A state with no income tax, BTW.)

If al-Qaida aren't big enough to organize large scale terror acts
a) who demolished the twin towers
b> what is the vast bureaucracy of Homeland inSecurity for?

I will personally makeno claims as to whether they have enough structureleft to organize anything big in the US or not... but I think the point some commenters are making is that there are a lot fewer leaders of that organization alive today than there were 4 years ago.

We have made membership a matter of self-selection for short life-span, although not so short as I would wish. The fact that any member of that organization is still breathing is an abomination to me.

Perhaps it will take as long as it took to hunt down the Nazi leadership... but I am sure we will correct that breathing problem in time.

Maybe we can get the Environmentalists after them. The fact that any of them are still exhaling is serious air pollution problem.

50 cents - Do you misunderstand intentionally?

Could you look up the word "improvise" in the dictionary, please?

I said Al-qaeda isn't quick enough on its feet to improvise large scale acts of terror. They plan, they discuss, discuss, discuss, they practice, they rehearse. How long did it take them to plan the 911 horror? They didn't just think it up and go and do it the next day.

Also, there's the human element. It takes months to indoctrinate the self-selected morons to make sure they don't have second thoughts at a critical time. It takes months to convince these twerps that they're doing the right thing.

I wouldn't have had to spell this out had you read what I wrote.

Verity - do you misunderstand intentionally?
Of course it takes time to set up an attack. So? They don't have to "improvise". They can plan.

You still haven't explained what the Dept of Homeland Sec. do if AlQaeda are such a weak threat. Can the US taxpayers have their money back?

50 cents - How the hell would I know? I'm not an American.

Again - you suggested that al qaeda is organised and intelligent and quick-witted enough to be able to react to sudden, unpredictable, events. I said they are not. They cannot act spontaneously. They have to plan their grands projets around certainties. They knew Madrid train station would be there and the trains would be running. They knew the WTC and the Pentagon would be there. They knew the London Transport system is full of tubes and people.

How on earth would you imagine them to be capable of a spontaneous reaction to something so totally unpredictable as a hurricane for god's sake?