Douglas Adams was right.
That being said, some areas do need to prepare to evacuate, but these are mainly on the east side of town or south of the beltway (as well as areas that are prone to flooding, like near Braes Bayou, Buffalo Bayou, Sims Bayou, and White Oak Bayou):
Houston/Galveston Evacuation Zones (PDF, 762kb) from the TxDPS Division of Emergency Management
Galveston County detail (PDF, 1.7Mb)
Harris County detail (PDF, 2.8Mb)
Evacuation Routes (PDF, 2.9Mb)
Prepare for Evacuation (PDF, 446kb) (make and take your computer backup with you, or take your hard drive)
KHOU has some very good maps up of the current track of Rita, the computer models, and historical tracks of major storms that have been in the same vicinity at this time in years past.
For those who will be staying put, fill your bathtubs to use as a source of drinking water. You can also drink the water in the toilet reservoir. Get canned food and a manual can opener. Working flashlight and batteries that fit it (and maybe a spare bulb). Refill your prescriptions. Fill up your gas tank. Be smart!
Hurrican Survial Kit from the Weather Research Center.
Again, don’t panic. This is not going to be another New Orleans: Katrina passed just by a city built in a bowl-shaped depression that is near or below sea level; Rita will most likely pass a hundred or more miles west of a city on a sloping plain that averages almost 50 ft above sea level. Houston is not surrounded by levees holding back a river on one side and a lake on the other.
As the detail maps show, the projected effect from a Category 5 storm surge (which is the biggest destroyer of life and property) won’t make it inside the loop. Wind damage and flooding will be widespread, but mainly in a swath 100 miles either side of the eye of the storm. Most models are predicting landfall at Matagorda Bay or south. I’m betting that it hits closer to Corpus Cristi.
What Houstonians Should Know About Hurricanes by Jill F. Hasling, Certified Consulting Meteorologist, Weather Research Center
