Rita "losing" strength

AP:

Hurricane Rita weakened slightly this morning, and forecasters said the Category 5 could be down to a Category 3 - meaning winds as high as 130 mph - by the time it comes ashore late Friday or early Saturday.

The most likely target for landfall has shifted slightly north today toward Galveston Bay, but forecasters believe it could shift even further north toward Beaumont and Port Arthur. The danger zone stretches along the entire central Texas coast between Galveston and the Louisiana border.

At 11 a.m. EDT, Rita was centered about 460 miles southeast of Galveston and was moving at near 9 mph. It winds were 165 mph, down slightly from 175 mph earlier in the day. Forecasters predicted it would come ashore somewhere between the Houston-Galveston area and western Louisiana.

Hurricane-force winds extended 85 miles from the center of the storm, and even a slight rightward turn could prove devastating to the Katrina-fractured levees protecting New Orleans. Engineers rushed to fix the city's pumps and fortify its levees.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Is the F-35 obsolete?

Apple's huge investment in US including Texas facility