Hurricane Rita: The 'Forgotten Storm' and its Tragic Evacuation Nightmare
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 มิ.ย. 2024
- Thank you all so much for being here.
This was a really important video for me, not only because it marks the first hurricane coverage on my channel, but because of the intense psychological repercussions that are discussed here-- a big theme on my channel that focuses on the mental implications of severe weather.
There's a lot to learn from the story of Hurricane Rita, and from the people who experienced it, I hope you all will take something from this video.
In some ways, I feel bad that I wasn't able to cover more specific aspects of this event, namely the specific areas that were damaged and their recovery process. I think I will work towards finding a better way to do so for the next hurricane coverage.
Twitter: / carlyannawx
Instagram: / carlyannawx
Timestamps:
00:00 - 01:23 Introduction
01:24 - 04:29 Katrina's Effect
04:30 - 10:00 Rita's Formation
10:01 - 19:34 Evacuation Nightmare
19:35 - 25:51 Landfall
25:52 - 33:07 Cleanup and Evacuation Fallout
33:08 - 35:59 Rita's Legacy
MUSIC:
See You In Sao Paulo by Chelsea McGough: NBPRGFMU0ZXEUY2E
Crescendo by Featherland: P9UQSNFT7YQDB2RH
Winter Train Home by Featherland: WSVEDF61SCNT6LKA
Liminal by Chelsea McGough: H9RFEB9J2EC1RJZO
Crystal Soul by Wayfair: U808C7CUMVSTSP2X
Beyond All Time by Moments: EZG31WSITYGCXIZK
Pages by Shimmer: D2DGOIYLQNNI6VWT
Just A Dream by CJ-O: LO1PVKMKHQU2BUUA
Wait For The Moment by Salon Dijon: ZXP7CZSIJCN4HRVP - บันเทิง
2005 was the year of the man-made disasters that just so happened to involve hurricanes. The deaths because of the evacuation was man made, the failures of the levees were man made, and the disastrous response after Katrina was man made.
" . . . the disastrous response after Katrina was man made."
Please tell me what we did wrong. I was one of the first 'boots on the ground' at Naval Air Station New Orleans' after Hurricane Katrina. I was the Operations NCO for the Forward TOC (Tactical Operations Center) managing the logistics for Operation Katrina Relief. When we landed the decision had been made that we were going to 'accept risk' and land the airplane on a runway that was littered with hurricane debris, had no lighting and we had no communications with the ground. We literally put our lives on the line in order to get started a few hours faster.
I spent the next three weeks in a state of sleep deprivation.
Before we could begin distributing relief supplies, we needed to know what relief supplies were needed where. We needed to know what roads we could use to get there.
But this is getting ahead of ourselves. The first thing we had to do was unload the airplane. Which we literally did by hand because there was no cargo handling equipment. At tine time we got the first set of bad news that screwed up our plan. All of the fuel supplies on base had been contaminated with rainwater and were unusable. This not only meant that we were going to have to fly in fuel - but the cargo aircraft had to reduce the amount of cargo they carried because they had to carry enough fuel to get back home without refueling. And - this was a fighter base and it had no cargo handling equipment. So the first things we had to do was fly in the equipment needed to unload cargo from airplanes. Then we had to fly in enormous fuel bladders and fly in fuel to put in them. Then we had to fly in construction vehicles to dig out an area for the safe storage of that fuel.
Then we had to fly in a quartermaster unit to move the supplies from the airstrip to a supply depot they set up. They then began sorting and organizing the supplies. Then we had to fly in a light Cavalry troop and send them out to map roads and determine which ones were usable and which ones weren't. Then we had to fly in even more fuel and transportation units to move the supplies. At the same time the cavalry units began making contact with any local authorities they could find and sending lists of what supplies were needed at what locations.
Only then could we begin loading trucks and dispatching convoys.
We knew certain specific things:
How much cargo a particular type of military cargo plane could carry.
How many of those planes we could park and unload at the same time.
How long it took to unload an airplane and have the ramp space clear for the next airplane.
Knowing all of this we could do the math and know what the maximum amount of relief supplies we could process and send forward.
It was less than 40% of what was needed.
You're criticizing us for failing to do the impossible.
@@colincampbell767 you aren’t the one I was criticizing. The failure to maintain the levees, the federal, city, and state leaders bickering made this worse.
@@colincampbell767 Your government failed you. Stop taking it so personally; nobody doubts that the boots did all that they could.
@colincampbell767 I just gotta say, my hats off to you, sir. You guys don’t get enough recognition and you SHOULD! I could not even imagine! My husbands a full time FF/medic and people just have ZERO idea what you guys go through. Putting your own lives at risk to save others and people sure have something to say but I GUARANTEE you, they wouldn’t last a second doing the work you that you do. They have zero, absolutely zero room to talk or even give their opinion until they’re ready to strap up and go fight the crap you guys fight. Their minds couldn’t even go there let alone do it. I commend you and you need to hear that more.. I couldn’t even begin to fathom what it would be like to be in that situation. I would be terrified. Just know there is us folks out here (and a lot of us!) that appreciate you and know that there isn’t many people that would go the great lengths that you have, to do the job that you do. I commend you!!
Something definitely changed with the weather. I was born and raised in southeast Texas and never had to evacuate for a hurricane until Rita. As a 17yr old who had to drive ahead seperate from the rest of the family with my elderly grandmother but still got caught in traffic, it was traumatic. I get nerved up in standstill traffic to this day.
I flew into Houston TX days before Rita for the company I was working for to help prepare, ride out the storm in the basement of our plant and start the plant back up. It was very weird walking into the airport as everybody was trying to get out. People were pointing as us like we were crazy. It pushed East of the Houston area and we rode out the storm watching baseball on TV and drinking beer.
I had it will be extremely creepy/surreal..
On your way person they had to go in after Hurricane Katrina and they said it was just awful because you would think is in the obvious but it’s raw sewage everywhere, no power no, nothing where everyone was staying to get power back up, etc.
But yeah, Whatever you did out there to help, I send my respect and gratitude. You have a great one!
That is horrific. I had no idea so many people died during the evacuation process. Thank you for covering this.
I was following the storm and I didn't hear about it back then. That's crazy so many people died trying to get away
The risks have to be mitigated with these storms. Pretty much in order to get out safely. One would have to make a decision based on a very early model of the storm. The cost of staying in a hotel for what could end up being a month would be astronomical only to come back to find out either 1) house is completely gone 2) house has massive damage and what wasn’t damage was looted 3) House did not suffer any damage, but yet was looted 4) House did not experience any damage
The area in Hampton Roads I have heard can take 3 to 4 days to evacuate safely😮😮😮
Same thing happened with hurricane Katrina so many died trying to evacuate
@@GR-bn3xjAs did I. And I didn't know how bad that tragedy was until Hurricane Ike struck the area in 2008 as a high-end Category 2
It was hushed up as much as possible to cover for the politicians.
What I remember about this hurricane most is that bus caring elderly evacuees catching on fire and twenty-four of them dying.
Yes, I originally had that in and what a horrible loss that was. I read somewhere that it ended up being a multimillion dollar lawsuit. The entire event was just awful
Oh wow, I had forgotten about that...and that storm surge was a nightmare
That was a very sad story
Oh my goodness, it was so sad. The traffic was backed up so bad, it was difficult for rescue to get to them. It was horrific.
does anyone know exactly what caused the bus to start burning? Cause i genuinely want to know and am gonna google it right afterwards
Just googled it and it seems to be bc “insufficent lubrication of a rear axle” Now that u cant escape from and obv a lawsuit came out of it. A lack of care taken from a person lead to the death of 24.
I remember this all too well. My ex-wife and I were part of this evacuation disaster. We lived in League City, and they were predicting that our area was going to get hit very hard. We prepped our apartment the best we could. After being stuck on the interstate for 12 hours barely moving, we managed to turn around and made it back to a ghost town. We caught the edge of Rita and lost power for about a day. Just a month before my ex had lost her Mom in Alabama. 2005 was not a good year for us. Oddly enough, we moved from the area exactly one week before Hurricane Ike hit the region in 2008.
I wanna add something.
They did use a panic tactic, I remember them saying if you stay, notify your next of kin.
The evacuation killed more than the storm did.
Go figure.
I was living in Sulphur, Louisiana when Rira hit and I also remember the authorities telling people to use a permanent marker and write their name, social security number and next of kin on their inner forearm
I remember that, too. Rough year for hurricanes! There was a lot of 'impending doom' going around.
@brianguidry5246 I remember hearing about that.
I think...it's been so long...they had people in Bolivar do that for IKE.
@windwatcher11 true.
It also made people leery of leaving when Ike came ashore.
Even with the contra flow lanes.
@@therogueveteran8646 Yes, they did tell Bolivar that. i will never forget seeing the yellow house that was the only thing left in the wake of Ike, like the storm said "nope, not that one." And so many people didn't heed that warning and they found bodies in the bay.
I grew up in Palestine, Tx. about 2 and a half hours north of Houston. I remember so vividly when this happened, a lot of evacuees detoured off the interstates (I assume because of the awful traffic jams) and found their way coming through our town, on the way I guess towards Dallas. Every store in our town got wiped nearly clean, and the traffic was so insane that what was normally a 15 or 20 minute drive to get from my school to my grandmother's house, in the center of town, took about 2 hours. I remember in that traffic jam seeing someone get out of their car, jump up and snatch some fruit off the branch somebody's tree that was hanging over the fence near the road, which to an elementary age kid just seemed like the biggest symbol of anarchy and chaos imaginable lol. Just a surreal experience as a kid. I had no idea the tradgedy that was unfolding on the highways outside of Houston. May all those people rest in peace
HAHA better some fruit off a tree than breaking into someone's house! Bless. They must have been really hungry.
The panic behind Rita was so justified. You just had Katrina which at the time was the 2nd strongest hurricane ever in the Gulf at 175mph and 902mb( just slightly behind Camille at 175mp and 900mb) and it just devastated New Orleans and the Mississippi coast. Now they were faced with a even more powerful Hurricane than Katrina and the new strongest hurricane ever in the gulf at 180mph and 895mb. Everyone in the projected path had a very real a justified panic.
We Houstonians demonstrated the unfeasibility of mass, rapid evacuation of a large city.
4:33: One thing that is startling is that in the short time from the formation ( August 23) and later landfall( August 29th) of Katrina to the formation and naming of Rita ( September 18th), there were five other new named storms in that 26 day period. K to R in the alphabet is pretty large gap. It turned out that was the busiest hurricane season in history until 2020 with 26 named storms.
That never even occurred to me. Insane how active that season was
28 named storms. First time NWS had to use the Greek alphabet to name storms. The last named storm of the 2005 season was actually in January of 2006. The "season" ends November 30. Source: www.weather.gov/tae/climate_2005review_hurricanes PS Also, I was there. In southeast Florida.
"I think they could have taken action to prevent the gridlock from happening, but that's just me." Then immediately takes a sip of her drink.
I don't know if it was intentional, but it was perfect.
Story time. I’ve always been fascinated by tornadoes. But I realized my mom always watched hurricanes. When I got older I realized she had to send power crews out to these places impacted. I never cared about hurricanes until then. Now I have full respect for all weather. Thank you for this video
It was the 2004 season that had me paying attention to hurricanes, being my mom was living in the Tampa Bay region at the time. I had just flew out to Kansas in May that year and Hurricane Charley was a very close call. Came ashore in Punta Gorda as a 150-mph Category 4.
A cold front had moved down from the north and caused the hurricane to make the sudden right-hand turn just a few hours before landfall. Had that cold front been 50 miles farther north, the outcome would have been far worse for Tampa, especially given the RI ahead of landfall (Jumped from a 110 mph Cat 2 to a 150 mph Cat 4 within three hours).
Took me almost 30 hours to get to my family's house in Austin tx from Galveston. It was horrible and one reason I'm always hesitant to evacuate. During the evacuation I only ate once during that 30 hours and had limited water. When I arrived at my parents house, at nearly midnight I had a full meal waiting for me. Luckily Rita hooked a slight right and I had no damage and very little rain upon returning home.
I live in south texas and was 19 when this happened. It is 100% why no one wants to leave. They either get out several days from landfall or just ride it out for better or worse. It was awful seeing it on the news. Now after harvey, you might see it swing the other direction. So many people were trapped when they released the dam water, they might start evacuating again.
I did wonder if what happened during Rita affected why so many stayed for Harvey. Thanks for confirming.
@@MKPiatkowski
Yup. I won't evacuate again.
Hurricane Harvey and Rita have about the same number of fatalities. You are dammed if you evacuate or not. Houston was built on a swamp
Friend of mine evacuated with two large horse trailers full of horses. I think she had 10-12 horses plus quite a few dogs. They were stuck on the highway in the heat for over 24 hours,ran out of water for the horses, almost ran out of fuel. Aluminum horse trailers are like ovens when not moving, even with maximum windows open. All the horses were in pretty bad shape when she reached her destination in Lawton,OK, just across the border from TX. I was watching on TV as I had moved from Lawton a month previously and I was talking to her on the phone every few hours, feeling totally helpless.
Tool a direct hit from Rita's eyewall here in Sulphur, La. My fiance and I evacuated to Arkansas and fortunately at that time returned home to a massive mess of trees but none hit the house. Fast forward to Aug 26 2020 at 1:00am when Hurricane Laura's eyewall ended direct center atop of my home with me in it. I lost every single tree I had along with the house. Seven 90ft plus tall adult pine trees fell through the roof down to the brick.. Rita was definitely bad but it doesn't even compare to the power, wind speed, and structural damage to which Laura caused.
The pressue during the passing of the dead center of Laura's eye was 942mb, which is cat 5 pressure and that's after moving inland 34 miles.. I've never seen wind of such insane speed. I know for a fact it blew 140-150mph at my place and I never want to see it again.. im still in a FEMA trailer as State Farm Ins. decided to gip me on my policy.. Sulphur was a complete disaster after Laura. We lost 4 out of every 5 adult hardwoods and pines and this town doesn't even look the same.. Hurricanes change lives, Laura changed mine as I literally lost everything I had, all of it, but im not complaining, I take it in stride!
I remember Rita. That hurricane season was horrible! I remember the evacuation process was a disaster. I was watching the news when the bus full of seniors caught on fire. Horrifying 😢
The one good thing is that evacuation procedures have gotten so much better.
As a Vermilion Parish resident, I appreciate you covering this storm and making our story be heard. The storm surge that pushed through Pecan Island hit my grandparents’ home in Forked Island. Since then, the home is now up on 13 ft cinder blocks and I currently live in it. Thank you for covering this!!! ❤️❤️
Same happened here in Terrebonne parish. Some of the worse flooding just from Rita riding our coast. Was a shocker
I lived in an apartment downtown Galveston in 2005. We evacuated early because of the horrifying things we saw on the news after Katrina, 18 hours to get to Dallas. The worst part though came after the storm. We weren't allowed back on the island for a few days and when we finally got in to try and go home we were confronted by armed guards. Black uniforms with no markings and sub-machineguns. The fear of looting and rioting was so great in Galveston that someone hired PMC dudes to patrol. They kept coming to check and make sure we were supposed to be there but refused to identify themselves or admit whether or not they were law enforcement officers, though they seemed to be detaining people they thought might be looters. Guess which people those were. Galveston has always had problems with racism but that was above and beyond.
That's truly pathetic that humans act like that. Those are the true scum. Taking advantage of people or anything is cowardly and pitiful. No true man would harm anything. Protecting is what REAL men do.
@@chesterfieldthe3rd929no true man would loot.
@@theskyizblue2day431 100% agreed friend
It may be bad, But It's also sad that they had to be hired. There's a reason they were hired and why people are scared of looters after a storm.
The truth hurts sometimes but it’s the truth, one group does overwhelmingly turn to looting in these situations. It’s almost always exclusively the same group no matter what. You might not like it but you better understand that it’s just a sad reality and if you choose to ignore it then it might cost you your life. Stereotypes exist for a reason, it’s because there’s always some truth in what’s being said.
My parents lived just west of Galveston. They evacuated to Wichita Falls, which normally takes 5-6 hours. It took 18! They weren’t mad, because my mom went through Camille in MS.
I think it was a sort named Dora or something but in like 1964 a major hurricane hit Galveston which also caused a ef4 tornado
@@samuelraytheweirdcontentgu8551Hilda was the one, and yes it did drop an F4, one of only 2 ever spawned by a hurricane (other was Carla in 1961)
Omg Camille was horrific
I remember one of the big arguments for not evacuating for Harvey, was what happened for Rita. I don't know how true that is, but that's what my Houston family thought was the reasoning. By that point, I was already watching a lot of online weather news, and new Harvey was going to be bad because of the stall, and tried to warn my family. They decided to still ride it out. Many of them have PTSD to this day because of what they went through with Harvey. Honestly, I don't know if there is really a wrong or right answer for what to do in the path of these storms. It feels like for officials, your damned if you do and your damned if you don't.
True and with harvey was just major flooding
Haven't forgot about the Tax Day flood, either.
Thank you for covering this hurricane. I was a teenager during this storm, and it really felt like no one cared. My family and I lived in LA about 1 hour from the gulf, we left only a few hours before it came in the AM. The feeling outside in dead silence before we left was so intense, I knew we weren’t coming back to the same place we would be leaving.
My dad had to go down to New Orleans and SW Louisiana to cover the devastation that Katrina and Rita brought. He wrote for a state newspaper at the time. This video does a great job at showing how destructive this season was here and in Texas, and one of the best videos I've seen on Hurricane Rita itself, a storm which really needs more attention like this. Thank you so much for making this video, it's a wonderful one, and I wish you a happy birthday today Carly.
Love the hurricane coverage! Tornados get a lot of love because they're so concentrated in area and dramatic, while hurricanes are so big and broad and spread out... But they still really effect people and communities, something Rita clearly showed in so many ways.
Look up wink's coverage of Ian. They did an exemplary job for the people of South West Florida. They're lucky to have such a good weather and news team. It's a lot to watch but worth it. I especially lived how caring they were to the people in the path of that storm. It is on TH-cam.
You get more warning with a hurricane. I’ve been thru 1 Cat 1 hurricane and missed on 2 stronger ones when they turned and went away from where my family lived at those times. Dad was in the navy so we moved a lot. Hurricanes were part of our lives until we moved back to northern Illinois and now had to worry about those pesky tornadoes.
Thanks Carly. Hur. Rita was a Louisiana disaster. ✋🏻Lake Charles. Rita was a mess. Saw so many dead alligators in Cameron Parish. I did work In Katrina, and Rita. With Rita, the victims rolled up their sleeves, and began repairing. That was impossible, with Katrina.
Thanks for this great video. I grew up in Houston TX and Sulphur LA, but now live in the Northeast. I remember watching all of this on TV as it unfolded, and still remember the feeling of horror right after Katrina. I’m sympathetic to the overreaction that led to mass evacuations.
But I also remember hurricane scares growing up, and never truly trust a weather forecast more than 24 hours in advance. Too many storms weakened or turned at the last minute, and we sat in our boarded up house eating up all of our ice cream for nothing. It was exciting as a kid.
But as a mom responsible for the safety of 4 kids now, I’m not sure what I would have done. We have family in TX far from the coast. I suspect I would have overreacted and evacuated with everyone else.
I know this is about Rita but as someone who lived in Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina I can tell you without a doubt that probably the most horrific thing I have seen or heard about. I lived in North East Louisiana but the kids that came up from the aftermath... the stories I heard and the things I seen were absolutely horrifying. The sheer destruction and raw devastation caused was truly otherworldly.
I remember this, it took us 22 hours to get to Dallas, I'll never forget how hot it was and so slow. We had to alternate turning our car off to save gas, it was terrible. It still gets brought up every now and then when an evacuation is brought up.
0:12 I live there! That footage was likely from Hurricane Ivan, a year earlier. It devastated the area and caused the I-10 bridge to collapse. There are still signs of damage around town, all these years later.
Love your channel!
We live about 40 miles NW of Houston , we all evacuated to my dad's property near Abeline. It was normally a 6 hour drive, took me 13..with 3 large dogs...
Gosh I am so sorry you all had to go through that. It's unreal the amount of people who were leaving too. I think somewhere around 2.5 million was the total estimate
@@carlyannawx we were the lucky ones ❤️
And I found out I was pregnant the day before Katrina hit...my son just graduated this year😱😁
I could literally watch your videos all day, such a great job at covering the entire story of every situation.
I was there in 2005. I was an ER Director at a hospital between New Orleans and Houston Texas. We had just dealt with the huge influx of people from New Orleans traveling across Interstate 10 West to Houston. Many of these people had no resources and were in generational poverty. So they were already desperate. If you recall, that was over 250,000 people. So our resources were already strained. The Mayor of Houston (who later blamed the State and Federal Gov for everything) just saw what happened to the reputation of the Mayor of New Orleans and he wanted to look 'proactive'. He was the main cause of the local hysteria. He played politics and when it backfired, he blamed the other politicians. After Rita, most of us who actually work for a living and don't live off the government came back to destroyed lives yet we quietly rebuilt, not asking the government to bail us out. But that is whole different story.......
I'm just getting around to watching this video.. my family lived in Lumberton, TX just north of Beaumont when this happened. You did a great job of explaining what happened!
My parents where friends with the police chief of Lumberton, and when the NHC came out with the new graphic of Rita going straight over SE Texas, we got a phone call at 1am that morning telling us to leave before the traffic got bad.. so we escaped the major bulk of the traffic..
What we came back to was both our house, and my grandfathers house being destroyed by trees.. everything as well as the community was nearly unrecognizable! That being said, Hurricane Katrina's damage over shadowed Rita's by a long shot.. I remember sitting in front of a TV watching the weather channel, and a reporter was less than a mile from our house, and he said, "things here are not bad at all" while multiple trees were falling in the background!
Shortly after getting back, and cleaning up for almost a week, we got word that the schools wouldn't open up for the next 3 weeks, and the fact that we were actually homeless, my parents made the decision to relocate us to east Tennessee where our cousins took us under their wing, and helped us start a new life up there!
The amount of emotions as a 12 year old at the time was very numb.. but sitting here as an adult today watching this video, I wanted to actually cry because I thought about everything that happened to us, and how we were treated as refugees of Rita.. The realization of the fact we were truly "the forgotten ones" happened less than a week after the storm because Katrina overshadowed Rita.. I can go into more context, especially with the Katrina refugees coming into our community, but it would be more long winded than this..
Thank you for a great video! My emotions were high during this because it brought back a lot of memories..
I really liked this video as a change of pace from the tornado ones and would definitely watch more!
I'll never forget the imagery of the Rita evacuation in the Houston area. Seeing all of those freeways congested, with cars even driving on the shoulders (as at 16:03), was simply surreal.
There's a lot that went wrong with the evacuation. I'm not sure if there was a "failure of imagination" on the part of officials when it came to the sheer number of people who evacuated in extreme heat, but it goes to show the role that mass panic can play in evacuation plans. Those 107 deaths could have been avoided.
I'll admit, in today's era, I'm concerned about the role social media could play in triggering a mass panic over an emergency situation. This wasn't really something that had to be considered in 2005, as social media was still in its infancy. Obviously Katrina was fresh on the minds of many people, and I see a parallel (albeit on a smaller scale) between the Rita evacuation and the people driving south from Oklahoma City on May 31, 2013 (the day of the El Reno tornado) as a tornadic storm approached the OKC area; the Moore tornado was fresh on the minds of many, and an on-air meteorologist actually suggested people without an underground shelter evacuate. Tornadic storms are quite different from hurricanes; they move a lot more quickly and unpredictably with a lot less lead time, so evacuation isn't recommended for that particular hazard (slow-moving storms like Jarrell 1997 might be the exception).
So happy to see an upload from you. Your videos are so well put together and I always appreciate the humanity you bring to tragedy. ♥️
It’s ALWAYS a great day when a new Carly video is out!
Awesome content as always!!
I was 13 at the time and lived in central Houston. My school stayed open for longer than it should have and a couple of my teachers made threats that if we evacuated early and didn't show up to class, we'd get F's on any assignments they would have given for those days. By the time our school actually shut down, traffic had started becoming backed up. I remember my mom and some of our neighbors trying to decide if we should attempt to evacuate or stay home and ride it out. In the end, we decided it was too late to evacuate and so we stayed home and prayed we'd be ok. My mom and I were scared because we had lost everything in Tropical Storm Allison 6 years prior and so we were expecting the worst. We were thankful when Rita missed us in the end. Afterwards, I heard horror stories from a lot of my classmates about how it took them 20+ hours to get out of Houston.
Rita was an important lesson in evacuations though. I see a lot of people online calling people stupid if they don't immediately evacuate for a storm, and every time I tell them about Rita and why evacuations are now done the way they are.
I had just woken up from a nightmare about flooding in the Gulf area and wanted to show a friend your channel - wild that this is your latest video! Rita is still lurking in my brain after all these years.
My family was okay, but we didn't know how they were doing for what felt like a very long time. Grandpa was furious about how poorly managed the evacuation was for the rest of his life, and every family get-together after then included long talks about weather safety. Thank you for covering this.
I was watching the Weather Channel pretty regularly....almost obsessively, from about a few days out from landfall of Katrina on to the end of the season. Living in the middle of tornado alley, (Kansas)....I kept thinking My God! How much more are those poor people going to have to deal with? Tornadoes are nothing to sneeze at, but over and done with relatively quickly. A hurricane just grinds on and on and on....... I do remember that some displaced people/families did relocate up here....a bunch went to Wichita. If I remember correctly, some had family this way, so had familiar faces to greet them. Churches and charitable orgs stepped up and helped out with placement etc for a lot of them. I sincerely hope and pray that 2005 was just a one off, and there's not a repeat....but nature, being what it is, has the final say.
New sub here. Just want to thank you for your coverage of these storms. As a nearly 70 year old resident of both the midwest and the deep south, I've seen many of these storms. Grew up with tornados in SW missouri and hurricanes along the gulf coast. Your writing and delivery bring home both the science and humanity of these events and their consequences. Keep up the great work!
I lived in Galveston at the time.
It was a complete shitshow...my towing company was asked to co.e help clear the roads on 10.
I live in Florida now and I've never lived in Texas but I will never forget Rita because I still feel responsible. I don't know if anybody else did, but I did strongly encourage my friend who lived in Houston in a mobile home to evacuate, with her dogs, in her truck, in the traffic jam, for 9 hours, when it was 90°, and they probably ran out of gas... And in the end they went home and nothing bad happened where they lived. I still feel guilty about this*. Sorry, Linda.
*And especially after all the stress of having one friend who was totally clueless scream and yell at me that I was an idiot for not evacuating for Irma. Despite the fact that I live in a non-evac zone, In Florida, where it would take 5 hours just to get out of the state *if there was no traffic trying to evacuate.*
I live in South Louisiana (Terrebonne Parish) and Rita was a shocker. We had just went through Katrina, and where we live, we did not flood for Katrina. But Rita?! Wow did the south Louisiana flood from the storm surge and the winds. It changed flood maps and zoning laws. People on the bayous had to put their homes in the air if they wanted insurance. Property lost value overnight.
Chauvin for me and yes, so much flooding. It was a devastating year for South Louisiana for sure.
I remember this storm all too well. Working for the telephone company I was in charge of tracking hurricanes and assisting in coordinating switch traffic. We had just lost New Orleans switch and had pulled all traffic to either TX or central LA. Now we had to prepare where that traffic would move and coordinate restoration. In one case rescuing techs from the roof of the site that submerged
I live in Houston. So so so many people evacuated who didn't need to. You had people that lived 50-100 miles from the coast evacuating to Dallas.
And just some info, it's pronounced Suh-Been Pass.
I grew up in Nederland, TX - a small town right next to Beaumont and Port Arthur - and was 10 years old when this evacuation took place. I missed a good chunk of fifth grade due to the evacuation. It was horrible. We were in the car for over 30 hours with two dogs and four people. The heat was sweltering. Standstill traffic more than half the route. No hotel vacancies anywhere. When we came back home after the storm, many buildings had endured moderate to severe wind damage in our area. A tree crushed the shed in our backyard and just barely missed destroying our entire house. Structures on the main road in our town had been demolished by tornadoes. There was nothing but silence, heat, and a seemingly endless power outage for at least a week after that. I don't think I've ever been through another hurricane that was quite as memorable - I didn't live in Texas during Harvey, so I guess I should count myself lucky. The damage to Crystal Beach after Hurricane Ike was pretty much unfathomable, though, and I saw that with my own eyes. Virtually nothing was left standing.
Not only were people suffering in those traffic jams, but for hours and hours, they looked like sitting ducks. Which was terrifying enough to see on the news, but I can't imagine how it felt waiting for Rita to arrive in your car, with your kids.
Never mind that the roads DID clear out before Rita arrived (I think?); the impression was that hundreds of thousands of people were stuck out in the open with a hurricane bearing down on them, and maybe it was only the swerve north that saved them.
Watching the news from California, that's my main memory of Rita, even though my mom is from Texas. I'm afraid I'd forgotten Rita had done enough damage to be retired, so I'm glad you brought out the story of the impacted areas.
So yeah, many people didn't evacuate for Ike because they'd evacuated for Rita, which had missed their area entirely. But it wasn't just Texans influenced by this disaster. I think many Floridians ignored evacuation orders in the following years partly because of fears of gridlock. The ghost of Rita may even have come into play with hurricane Sandy. By that time, people might not consciously think of Rita, just the hassle and risk of getting caught in evacuation traffic (imagining NYC traffic) during a storm. It's added to the inertia people feel for all kinds of evacuations, not just hurricanes.
So if you see policies like contraflow or zone by zone evacuations even far away from Texas, Rita may have been the catalyst, indirectly.
(As a side note; this was also right after Toyota Prius, the first practical hybrid, had come onto the market. There were stories of one that had taken 16 hours to drive from Houston to Austin, but hadn't run out of gas, since the engine shut off while idling. I can't remember if I'd already bought mine or not - my Texas grandma passed that year, and that's what I used her money for, my first new car which I drive to this day - but I bet the Rita evacuation was a factor in the minds of more than a few early adopters of the new technology.)
Thank you for covering a storm that I've always wanted to know more about! Splendid job, young lady...🇺🇸 😎👍☕
Us here in North Carolina were mostly spared the wrath of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season; we really felt for those folks on the Gulf Coast. Up here, Hurricane Ophelia’s eyewall moved over the Crystal Coast region of Carteret County as a Category 1 storm. And now we’re getting a visit from another Ophelia here in 2023. We’ve had two Arthurs, too: a tropical storm in 1996 and a Category 2 hurricane that made landfall in 2014, also along the Crystal Coast.
Having a repeated name obviously means it avoided retirement, so we’ve gotten off relatively easy compared to some. Hopefully this Ophelia blows on by quickly and lets us off easy. Those “F” storms tend to have it out for us; Fran in ‘96, Floyd in ‘99, and Florence in ‘18. All retired. If we’re in the cone of an F storm, even slightly, even five days out, I get major storm anxiety.
The “I” storms bother everyone; we’ve had Isabel in ‘03, Irene in ‘11, and Isaias in 2020. Isaias dropped a fatal tornado in Bertie County that was rated an EF3; the last time an F3/EF3 tornado was produced by a hurricane: Hurricane Rita, fifteen years earlier. Just to bring my trivial post back full-circle.
Thank you for the good story telling and what I have endured as a coastal Floridian. I remember all of these storms. It was hard but we are American's and persevere. God Bless...
Oh boy, I have not forgotten 😰 I was in 7th grade. I never know whether to stay or leave because of Rita.
My wife live in Beaumont during Rita. They tried to Evacuate to Jasper, TX which is usually a 1.5 hour drive and it took them 9. They ended sleeping in their vehicle for two days because they ran out of gas. It took them another day to get back to a home with no power, so they were forced to stay in tents in a parking lot for two weeks.
Ive been through my fair share of hurricanes (Fran, Harvey, Laura, Ian) but nothing would prepare me for something like that.
I think the biggest takeaway for me is the importance of planning ahead and organization. There's a reason the evacuation went smoothly in Louisiana and was an utter shit show in Texas - and that's the level of prior planning and organization that was put into how the evacuations are done, who is told to evacuate, and when they are to evacuate. I'm not saying Louisiana's system is perfect either or that Texas's system hasn't improved since then (although I highly doubt the latter). Organization and planning can always be better.
For example, one thing that could have helped move things along would have been at least one "evacuation buses only" lane - this would not only have moved those evacuating by bus faster, it would have encouraged more ppl to leave by bus as well which would result in fewer cars on the roads. Having Amtrak run evacuation routes as well would have also helped speed up evacuation and gotten even more vehicles off the roads.
And ofc not having those outside the evacuation zones evacuate unnecessarily would have been the most helpful. But this was directly after Katrina, so I do understand the panic even though the absolute catastrophe in New Orleans literally couldn't be replicated in the Houston area - even with how incredibly prone to flooding Houston is.
BABE WAKE UP CARLY POSTED
Then there were those of us that had just came back after leaving for Katrina in New Orleans!
Oh my gosh, my hubby and I were living in Kemah,TX. It was 2 weeks post Katrina and people were scared. It was HOT🥵 & we were stuck on the highway 6 hours. We ended having to go back home as it was nearly impossible to leave. Thank goodness Rita didn’t do much harm, but I’ll NEVER forget it.
Sometime back, my first love's parents like my parents moved to Florida. My parents were in the Daytona area (east coast). Her parents first moved to Cape Coral (southwest coast). Years later a tornado from a hurricane is believed to be what took the roof off of her parents house. Even after my Dad died, I'd go down in late August a lot to visit my Mom. Sometimes there would be a lot of rain due to west coast hurricane. Although they occasionally had tornadoes there, my Mom and I when I also would visit her never had a tornado experience there. I guess we were lucky. Point is, even you can avoid problems from a hurricane directly, you need to be concerned about any tornadoes formed from hurricanes. My first love still lives down there. She's been lucky and has been through several hurricanes ok without any tornadoes. Ian instead of going to Tampa scared the hell out of her. She's lucky: She lives in north-side part of town which is why she and others still have their houses. Just living inland some makes a big difference with storms. Hurricanes are bad enough without having a tornado maybe getting you still.
I have an aunt and uncle who at the time lived in a first-floor apartment near downtown Houston. They initially planned to evacuate to where my immediate family lives (Central Mississippi), but were only able to make it to Lufkin, and only because they had family there. To put things into perspective, a drive from Houston to Lufkin normally takes less than 2 hours. But the day of the evacuation, it took something like 36 hours. The whole time, they sat in the sweltering Texas heat in their old '93 Toyota Camry, scared out of their minds as to whether or not Houston would get the full brunt of Rita. But they made it okay. I pray to God they won't ever have to go through that again, especially now that they have kids.
RIP to all those who died.
Thank you for covering this! I went through the Rita evacuation and spent the night in the car stuck on an overpass in downtown Houston. It took us 20 hours just to get from southeast Houston to the Woodlands. We stopped once for gas right off the highway and that ordeal alone took 4 hours. At one point we passed a car that had pulled off to the side of the highway with an elderly woman who was clearly getting overheated. Everyone driving by was offering them water but they said they had water and they needed to get her medical attention at this point. The traffic was far too packed for an ambulance to get through and I still wonder about what happened to that woman. Its all such a surreal thing to have experienced.
A lot of people have referred to Hurricane Katrina as the deadly daughter of Hurricane Camille. Well if that's the case; then Hurricanes Rita and Wilma are the sisters of Katrina and the granddaughters of Hurricane Betsy. Interestingly enough; New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin had lived through Hurricane Betsy in 1965 and Hurricane Camille in 1969, so he knew all too well the severity and potency of Hurricane Katrina. It's why he issued the Civil Emergency message for the New Orleans metro area to get the residents to understand that Katrina will destroy the city and that they should get the Hell out of New Orleans. This is the text:
"Devastating damage expected! Hurricane Katrina; a most powerful hurricane with unprecedented strength, rivaling the intensity of Hurricane Camille in 1969. Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks; perhaps longer. At least one half of well-constructed homes will have roof and wall failure. All gabled roofs will fail; leaving those homes severely damaged or destroyed. The majority of industrial buildings will become non functional. Partial to complete wall and roof failure is expected. All wood framed low rise apartment buildings will be destroyed! Concrete block low rise apartment buildings will sustain major damage; including some wall and roof failure. High rise office and apartment buildings will sway dangerously; a few to the point of total collapse. All windows will be blown out! Airborne debris will be widespread and may include heavy items such as household appliances and even light vehicles. Sport utility vehicles and light trucks will be moved. The blown debris will create additional destruction. Persons, pets, and livestock exposed to the winds will face certain death if struck! Power outages will last for weeks as most power poles will be down and transformers destroyed. Water shortages will make human suffering incredible by modern standards! The vast majority of native trees will be snapped or uprooted. Only the heartiest will remain standing, but will be completely defoliated. Few crops will remain. Livestock exposed to the winds will be killed. An inland hurricane wind warning is issued when either sustained winds close to hurricane force or frequent gusts at or above hurricane force are certain within the next twelve to twenty-four hours. Once tropical storm and hurricane force winds onset, do not venture outside!"
My mom and I evacuated to Oklahoma City from Beaumont, it took over 24 hours to get there and the first place where we could find a hotel with vacancies was Paris Texas which is almost to Oklahoma. Many people in SE Texas evacuated to the areas around Lake Sam Rayburn and Toledo bend, the still intact NW eyewall went directly over the area which is heavily treed and many of my friends had horror stories of the howling winds snapping trees and having to switch houses during the height of the storm due to a tree hitting their house.
Yep… this is why we hate to leave. Have to drive so far just to find a room. And good luck if you have multiple pets.
Happy Birthday Carly hope you're having a great day and thank you for doing another brilliant video. Thank you for covering Rita.
In 2005 I was working for a law firm, and took a vacation to the Caribbean that coincided with Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans. I had friends that I watched flood, and professional colleagues that I known for years that got trapped in their building in the city. I got back, and almost immediately we had impacts on a case in Texas because of Rita. I remember the fear in the faces of the opposing counsel and staff in the face of Rita. It was like they had finally woken up to the reality of what a hurricane could do to a major city.
Happy birthday, Carly! Great video! Thanks for sharing all of your knowledge and creative work with all of us 💛
love that you are doing Hurricane stories...keep them up.
Thanks! Happy birthday! Awesome video
Another great video! Straight reporting without the hype. Happy birthday, once again!
Top notch video. Great coverage of an event I honestly didn’t know a lot about. It really made me think a lot.
I lived in Leesville Louisiana through both Katrina and Rita. Rita made a pretty direct hit to us, the windows in the house I was in blew in! Our town had to ration gas and food. I always felt Rita didn't was forgotten, thanks for giving it the coverage it deserved.
Great video as always. While not inherently a tornado story, it's close enough to your strengths. Really appreciate how measured and thorough you are in all of your content. Keep up the great work!
When I lived in Florida (Lakeland) in 2006-2009...upon ANY chance of a hurricane making landfall in FL....I would take PTO time, pack up the 5th wheel and I was gone...generally had the roads to myself since I'd leave at sunset/night....I know myself well enough that I know I'd done the same for Katrina and Rita....I don't play that game with catastrophic storms...kind of funny though...I storm chase tornadoes now and don't think twice about it....// 😅
Great video as always. I really appreciate the hurricane coverage. I think tornados are interesting but I’ve lived my whole life on the coast so Hurricanes are what I have experience with. Happy birthday
Another great job! Thanks for reminding me of this . Such sad loss of life…..in traffic.
What a phenomenal video as always!
Another great vid! Love hurricane coverage as well as the tornados.
I remember this year. I actually worked at a Blockbuster off Fry Rd next to I10 W and many came in taking water, soda, snacks, mom's asking for a microwave to heat a babies bottle. It was terrible and a long ass day. Since we lived in Katy we stayed put and had already stocked up early in the season and family living on the east side of town came over.
And just like that, today was a great day! 🤩Thank you so so much Carly!! (Have the best day!! 🎂)
I am so impressed by you, Carly Anna, for how you inform with precise knowledge and huge empathy. Thankyou!❤
I hope you do more Hurricane related content. Your ability to tell stories and articulate your thoughts in these videos are great
A suggestion for your next one. How about one where the the government and private sector meteorologists worked together and casualties were a minimum during worst case scenarios. Suggestions for that are the Topeka F5 of 1966, the Twin Cities outbreak of 1965, St Louis area on April 22 2011, or Omaha 1975. I look forward to all your uploads. You're a true phenom in documenting all of these events. If I ever met you I would buy you a drink and shake your hand. Thank you for your work on documenting all of these events
As I child I remember sitting on I-10 in gridlock when Hurricane Opal made landfall. We “evacuated” 150mi over the course of 8+ hours and were “hit” by the hurricane in the process. Since then I have never evacuated for a hurricane (even when Hurricane Michael hit alarmingly close) because of the experience I had during that storm.
As a native Floridian, I know we pride ourselves on our stupidity of staying in harms way, but I also believe that failed evacuations are just as dangerous as the storms we are trying to flee.
Happy birthday Carly! And congrats on 35k!
Great job on this video!
I really enjoy your content. Thanks for all your work
I wasn’t alive during Rita, but my dad tells me stories about the evacuation, it’s awesome to see a video on Rita and the effect it had on setx/swla
Excellent as always.
I love your channel! You have a wonderful way of articulating the story and your editing is fantastic. Thank you! New sub! 🩷
Thank you for covering this hurricane. I went on 2 different trips to help with the rebuild effort. The owners of the house that my group worked on got us sweatshirts and to this day it’s my favorite sweatshirt. I missed senior prom to go down and would do it again.
Thanks Carly. I didn't think you'd do this one.
I was living on the border of Texas and Louisiana in a small town called orange. We had so many beautiful large oak trees but rita has changed the entire area and landscape toppling most of our large oak population and we now have nothing but pine trees because of this.
I also remember evacuation. It was awful and about the only thing i remember plus once we came back the sense of dread when we pulled into our town and saw little to no trees we thought we werent going to have a home, thankfully only one tree fell on our house and was repaired in the following years.
I love that you are doing hurricane videos as that is the number one disaster for SETX and Louisiana. We dont worry about tornadoes but a hurricane? That is were we hang it up.
Thanks for the amazing video ❤
Loved the Hurricane Rita video!!! And Happy Birthday 🎈 🎊 ❤🎉
So... WX is an old telegraph code for weather. It is still used today as a short hand abbreviation.
Thanks for the great content carly
Love the intro footage and images, Carly👍🏻👏🏻💙
I didn’t evacuate but it took me 4 hours to drive home from work which was normally a 20’minute drive and I had never seen such a mess in my life, was so glad when I finally got home.
This is very interesting and informative. Thank you.
You did great as usual!
Enjoying the other weather topics! I will always enjoy tornados but this was a nice change of pace.
Love to see you "branching out" and doing some hurricane coverage. I live in Florida so we're not really affected by tornadoes. Can definitely relate to hurricanes though, and they are horrendous. Plus it's rough because you have DAYS to be scared and worried. Should I stay? Go? Where? How? Etc....
2005 was a monster year for hurricanes ... that was my second year of being a hurricane chaser (from home). ive been tracking and watching hurricane seasons for 19 years now
I was about a year old when both these hurricanes hit! I, along with my Dad and Granny, temporarily evacuated to Galveston during Katrina, then moved back (I think) immediately after Katrina dissipated. Couldn’t tell ya what our reactions were to Rita (since I was literally too young to even remember any of it) but, one of the images you used showed a sign that lead to my hometown of the last 19 years, good ole’ Slidell! I now live in Lafayette for the next two years because college, 😂. But, I sincerely hope we never have to experience a twofer for a long time to come.
P.S. My Mom did stay in Slidell for Katrina (due to her working for the Times Picayune, the newspaper) and she keeps relaying to me that Katrina was tough on all of us.
The only major hurricane(s) that I vividly remember were Laura and Ida (which I personally lived through) and, let me tell y’all something, having your family huddled up around you in the living room of your house, pitch black, (due to no power for the next day) with the crackling radio beside us and 80-90 mph winds blowing continuously outside is a truly terrifying experience, to say the least!