Tragedy after tragedy: Hurricane Rita just after Katerina.

For the Environmental Management subject, we had to investigate about a hurricane of our choice and afterwards, write a text describing its effects, its category and when and where it happened. I chose Hurricane Rita.

Hurricane Rita was the 4th most severe Atlantic hurricane recorded in history and the most intense tropical cyclone that ocurred in the Gulf of Mexico. Its disastrous effects extended to the states of Louisiana, Texas, Florida, Mississippi and the Caribbean. Part of the record-breaking 2005 Atlantic hurricane season (which included three of the six most devastating hurricanes recorded in the Atlantic zone, along with #1 Wilma and #6 Katrina), Rita was the eighteenth named storm, tenth hurricane, and fifth major hurricane of the named season. It  reached peak intensity on September 21, achieving category 5 status with peak winds of 180 mph.  Later, it weakened to  Category 3 and began to curve to the northwest, making landfall between Texas and Holly Beach, Louisiana, with winds of 120 mph (195 km/h). By September 26th, quickly weakening over land, the cyclone had a degrade into an extensive low-pressure zone across the lower Mississippi Valley.

  In relation to the effects in the state of Louisiana, its storm surge inundated low-lying communities along the entire coast, worsening effects caused by the deadly hurricane Katrina less than a month prior, such as topping the hurriedly-repaired Katrina-damaged levees (precarious, sometimes made by the citizens, walls made of soil or other materials such as sand that are built next to a river to stop the river from overflowing) at the impoverished New Orleans. Parishes in Southwest Louisiana and counties in Southeast Texas where the cyclone made landfall suffer from catastrophic to severe flooding and wind damage. In southeast Louisiana's Terrebonne Parish, storm surge reached 7 ft (2.1 m) flooding in an estimated 10,000 homes. Virtually, every levee was breached. Some people were stranded in flooded communities and had to be rescued by boat. Reports show that at least one hundred people were rescued from rooftops. Already devastated by Hurricane Katrina, the Industrial Canal in New Orleans was again flooded by Rita as the recently and poorly repaired levees were breached once again When the hurricane arrived, seawater pushed as far as 20 miles inland, drowning acres of rice, sugarcane fields and pasture for cattle. Thousands of cows drowned. Rita spread devastation across Louisiana's coastline, which Katrina had spared, its damage reaching 150 miles east of where the storm came ashore. 40% of all structures in Cameron Parish, a coastal community, were completely wrecked. Even now, it has not fully recovered. The community had about 10,000 residents before Rita, currently, according to U.S Census data, it has fallen to fewer than 6,700 since the storm. People who have struggled with the elevated costs of rebuilding stay in small trailers in their yards, many citizens have never came back since Rita’s wind and water reduced homes to shards and stripped some lots bare.

 Texas was also hugely affected, with at least 11 deaths ocurring between this state and Louisiana, blamed on the storm which caused more than $11 billion in damage and sparked one of the largest evacuations on record. Rita severly affected the west of Texas, with communities of the "Golden Triangle" (integrated by Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Orange) sustaining extensive wind damage, whether directly from wind, or collaterally from wind-fallen trees, tree branches and/or other detritus; in Beaumont, an estimated 25% of the trees in heavily wooded neighbourhoods were uprooted or heavily damaged. The water treatment plant in some cities was heavily damaged, and power did not return to some areas for more than 6 weeks. Whereas Rita's slight eastward turn just before landfall spared southeast and east Texas far greater damage than it could have experienced. In particular, Texas's southeast coastal communities, and located to the left of eye-fall and in the storm's less-damaging northwest quadrant, were largely protected from Rita's storm surge by her path and by a well-designed levee system; Bolivar Peninsula between Galveston and Sabine Pass experienced only a small storm surge, in contrast to areas east of Rita's center where a 15-foot storm surge struck Southeast Louisiana's wholly unprotected communities. Prudently. we got to say this is one of the advantages of it taking place in a more developed country since the governor, Richard Perry, had issued a mandatory evacuation of southeast Texas before Rita's landfall. As a result of his disaster declaration, many residents displaced by, and/or returning home to the aftermath of Rita were able to use up to 60 days of hotel rooms, generators, chainsaws, and monetary assistance.

 

Floods on the Texas Gulf Coast.

On the Caribbean, the storm left very little damage. Nevertheless, in Cuba, Rita produced winds up to 65 mph (100 km/h) and more than 5 in (127 mm) of rain in some areas. This resulted in significant structural damage but no loss of life. In the Bay Shore area of Havana, water levels rose and inundated 20 blocks of the city. An estimated 400,000 people in the city lost power as a result of the storm. In a two-hour span, more than 8.2 in (210 mm) of rain fell in Bauta. The torrential rains led to 34 homes collapsing in Havana. Storm surge generated by Rita penetrated an approximated 330 ft (100 m) inland, flooding several towns.

Sources:

- NASA.

- nola.com

- Wikipedia