ANGLETON — Texas’ first mandatory hurricane evacuation goes into effect at 6 p.m. today as officials urge residents to get out of the path of Hurricane Rita.
Brazoria County Judge John Willy called for the evacuation Tuesday afternoon after a series of conference calls with state emergency management officials and meetings with local officials. By 5 p.m. Tuesday, the county had plans to evacuate people without their own transportation, schools planned to close for the rest of the week and the emergency operations center opened.
As of 5 p.m., the National Hurricane Center projected Rita to make landfall late Friday night or early Saturday morning in Matagorda County as at least a Category 3. That would put Brazoria County on the “dirty†side of the storm, as the counterclockwise rotation sucks moisture up from the Gulf of Mexico, dropping it on Brazoria County. Willy is holding out hope the county’s preparations will be in vain and the storm will dodge the county.
“If it does miss us, we can all smile,†Willy said. “If it doesn’t, we’re in good shape.â€
A mandatory evacuation for health-care facilities, including nursing homes, hospices and hospitals, goes into effect at 6 a.m. today.
“None of us have been through anything like this,†said Rick Perry, the county’s emergency management coordinator. “I think we’ve got a good plan in place.â€
Here’s hoping for the best for dear ol’ Angleton and the surrounding communities.
A map with suggested evacuation routes can be found here, courtesy the Houston Chronicle.
Comments
3 responses to “Hurricane Rita and my Hometown”
I know that town! Did you graduate from there? There was a guy from Angleton who went into Falcon 16 at A&M in the mid-90s.
This should make things trippy. Looks like Reed Arena may be used as a temporary shelter for refugees again, and I hear the essential staff here are getting warned that they may be put on 24 notice (i.e. that they may be working those hours this weekend to feed the folks in there).
As for College Station itself, the forecasts all expect storms, but how bad depends on who you read: rain of three inches to ten inches, winds from 55 mph to 95 mph, and of course (’cause they’re such fun) isolated tornados.
As a link that may be of use, the city of Waco has put up a listing of what cities have hotel rooms available: http://www.wacocvb.com/visitor.html
According to this, the following towns have no hotel rooms available:
Abilene, Arlington, Addison, Belton, Boerne, Bryan-College Station (unless A&M football game cancels), Dallas, Decatur, Denton, Ennis, Fredericksburg, Ft. Worth, Frisco, Gainesville, Gatesville Georgetown, Granbury, Greenville, Hamilton, Hillsboro, Huntsville, Irving, Killeen, North Richland Hills, Plano, Richardson, Round Rock, San Angelo, Sulphur Springs, Temple, Uvalde County – Texas Hill Country River Region, Waxahachie, Weatherford, Whitney.
This should be interesting.
elgato,
Angleton High, class of ’86.
Phil,
Interesting, indeed. And crowded.