Rita's still a few days away, slowly crawling through the Gulf of Mexico towards the Texas coast. Her visit really screws up plans Jeff and I had for the weekend. He was going to celebrate with a friend of ours who is getting married. They planned to go fishing, kayaking, etc down on the coast, right about where the current predictions say landfall will be. I was going to go see my sister in Houston and do "girlie things", like shop, shop and shop that same weekend. It's not easy for her to get time off, since she's a doctor and we were both looking forward to this.

*sigh*

But none of that is going to happen this weekend. Nobody's entirely sure where Rita will land just yet. There are many prediction models - a few which take it straight through Galveston and into Houston, many which take it somewhere near Corpus Christie and through or near Central Texas, and only one which takes it to Brownsville, down near Mexico. It looks like the Texas coast just isn't going to escape this one.

Jeff's headed down to Rockport, Texas to help my in-laws batten down the hatches there. When he gets back we'll need to batten down the hatches here, even though we're fairly inland. If Rita climbs to a cat 5 storm we could see hurricane conditions in Central Texas before it downgrades to a tropical storm. And even then, Houston residents know what a tropical storm can accomplish all by itself after it's encounter with TS Allison.

We're prepared though. I lived most of my life in Houston and so every time hurricane season starts I unconsciously go through a mental checklist: do I have enough batteries, bottled water, non-perishable food, bring in anything that could become a projectile, tape up the windows with masking tape, make sure you have enough medications, etc. etc. Even though I'm far from the coast that urge still comes to me. I still vaguely remember Hurricane Alicia and dozens of tropical storms.

If it does come through here we'll both likely have to deal with the aftermath of power outages on campus - resetting servers, getting the web site back up if it goes down, etc. I'll be more concerned if it goes through Houston/Galveston where my folks are. They're in a fairly good spot (northwest Harris County) that won't see storm surges, and doesn't flood too easily, but there's always the tornadoes that a hurricane spawns. Sis lives near the medical center, and I suspect she'll end up being pretty busy at the hospital.

If you're curious, here are a few interesting things:

• Brazoria/Galveston/Harris County Hurricane Evacuation Map (based on storm surge possibilities)
• NOAA Storm Tracker for Rita
• Parts of Houston join evacuation. This article from the Houston Chronicle includes a nifty map that shows ocean water temperature. You can see where hurricane Rita is now and what the temperature of the water is. As of the moment I'm writing this, its just traveled through the warmest waters of the Gulf - that's why it's a cat 4 now. The rest of the Gulf is just *slightly* cooler. If we're lucky, the storm will downgrade to a cat 3 before it hits. But those waters are still pretty warm. A cat 5 is not impossible.
• StormTrack Lots of great maps etc.