Hurricane Rita: Houston Bound

In 48 hours, Hurricane Rita has blossomed from a tropical storm to a category-5 hurricane. Landfall is expected by Saturday morning, somewhere in the general vicinity of Houston. Evacuations have begun all up and down the upper Texas Gulf coast, included Galveston and low-lying areas in Houston. If the storm proceeds at the same pace and track as predicted this morning, it could remain a hurricane all the way inland to Dallas.


From the Galveston Daily News

As far as immediate local impacts go - expect your gas prices to go up, today if they haven't already. 20% of America's refineries are shut down due to the combined impacts and threats of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and both storms have traveled or are travelling through major concentrations of offshore oil platforms. And Utah Task Force One, an urban search-and-rescue team consisting of Utah firefighters, rescue experts, and support personnel, has been mobilized and is staging into Texas this morning.

I'll be posting some oil news and more hurricane news soon.

Some local sites and weblogs to watch:
Houston Chronicle and their special weblog, Stormwatchers
Galveston Daily News
Wall Street Journal - Storm Tracker
Drudge Report
Weather Underground
Blogs of War - Hurricane Rita page
Lawrence Simon
Michelle Malkin