Fin
Professional Procrastinator
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2013
- Messages
- 7,859
- Reaction score
- 39,016
- Location
- Lake Charles LA
- What state or country do you live in
- Louisiana
14 years ago today - Hurricane Rita. I am the red dot and the storm made landfall just west of us, at the Texas line. This was one month following Hurricane Katrina, so everyone took the mandatory evacuation seriously. The only problem was, all of the hotels and shelters (within all of the surrounding states) were still filled to the brim with Katrina evacuees that could not return home. We ended up going to a friend's house in Georgia for 10 days. We couldn't get back home until after that time, because the authorities had the town barricaded off and would not let anyone in.
It destroyed all of the small coastal towns and the storm surge came inland about 30 miles, less than 10 miles short of my house. It leveled our power grid and some places in town were out of power for a month. The coastal areas were out much longer, but there were no buildings left, except the courthouse in Cameron, which was built with 12" thick concrete walls. We were lucky, as our power was only out for two weeks
This storm kind of got forgotten because of the flood damage and deaths in New Orleans. This storm, at one point, was bigger than Katrina. Katrina did do us a favor and churned up the Gulf, bringing cooler water up from the depths, which caused Rita to weaken at landfall. It could have been worse, but it was still pushing a massive Cat 5 storm surge. My house was spared, but many around us were not. There was no loss of life attributed to Rita because, unlike New Orleans, most everyone left.
It destroyed all of the small coastal towns and the storm surge came inland about 30 miles, less than 10 miles short of my house. It leveled our power grid and some places in town were out of power for a month. The coastal areas were out much longer, but there were no buildings left, except the courthouse in Cameron, which was built with 12" thick concrete walls. We were lucky, as our power was only out for two weeks
This storm kind of got forgotten because of the flood damage and deaths in New Orleans. This storm, at one point, was bigger than Katrina. Katrina did do us a favor and churned up the Gulf, bringing cooler water up from the depths, which caused Rita to weaken at landfall. It could have been worse, but it was still pushing a massive Cat 5 storm surge. My house was spared, but many around us were not. There was no loss of life attributed to Rita because, unlike New Orleans, most everyone left.
