Rita Does Texas a Favour

Well as it turns out Hurricane Rita had weakened to a category 3 storm by the time she made ladfall and a weak category 3 according to the experts. The hurricane also made landfall away from some of the more populous regions along the gulf. It was looking like she would squish Galveston like a little bug then do some major damage in Houston, but as it turns out Rita was in a good mood and move away slightly to the east.

This by no stretch of the imagination means that this storm won't cause sever damage; there have already been large fires in Galveston and I'm sure we'll be hearing about the wind, rain, and flooding damage soon enough. But like with Katrina it could have been much worse. This storm was the 3rd strongest hurricane on record and it could have done some severe damage.

Now the test will be how do the officals react to the people in need, how quickly they get essential services back up and running. Hopefully we won't have a repeat of the Katrina reaction; hopefully they've learnt something.

Links:
Rita Causes Flooding, Fires on Gulf Coast (Yahoo!)
Large fire hits Galveston (Yahoo!)
Hurricane Rita crashes into coast (BBC)