Why is the US Gulf Coast Getting Slammed Again???

[krsna]

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/09/22/rita/

 

????

[krsna]

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3364361

[Kulapavana]

this is our karma for destruction in Iraq

[krsna]

(Update2)

Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Hurricane Rita, the third-most intense storm ever recorded in the Atlantic basin, bore down on the Texas coast as residents moved inland. The Category 5 storm is more powerful than Katrina, which left more than 1,000 dead last month in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida.

 

Rita, with winds of 175 mph (280 kph), is ``potentially catastrophic,'' the National Hurricane Center said today in an advisory on its Web site at about 3:45 a.m. Houston time. The storm is forecast to hit land near Galveston, Texas, late tomorrow or early Sept. 24. Rita's center was 515 miles southeast of Galveston, and moving west-northwest near 9 mph.

 

``You're talking about a catastrophic disaster, with extensive damage,'' Dave Roberts, a meteorologist at the center in Miami, said today in a telephone interview. ``Look at the impacts of Katrina: You're going to get that all over again.''

 

More than 1 million residents were urged or ordered by officials to move inland in Texas. Valero Energy Corp., the largest U.S. oil refiner, and other oil producers were closing refineries in anticipation of the storm. The Texas Gulf Coast has seven of the 13 largest U.S. refineries and the state produces about 25 percent of the nation's refined fuel supply.

 

Katrina on Aug. 29 hit Louisiana with winds of 140 mph after earlier blowing at 175 mph as it moved over the warm waters of the Gulf. The storm submerged most of New Orleans and destroyed towns, including Gulfport and Biloxi in Mississippi.

 

The hurricane caused insured losses that may reach $60 billion, making Katrina the most costly U.S. disaster, storm modeler Risk Management Solutions Inc. of Newark, California, said this month.

 

Covering Texas

 

Rita will probably make landfall as a Category 4 hurricane on the five-step Saffir Simpson scale, with winds of 131-155 mph, Roberts said. There's a ``good possibility'' it will be Category 5 at landfall, he said. Nineteen Category 4 or 5 storms, including Katrina, have hit the U.S., according to records since 1900.

 

Hurricane-force winds extend 70 miles from Rita's center, with tropical storm-force winds of at least 39 mph, stretching 185 miles, according to the center's advisory.

 

``Early Friday the outer reaches of the system will begin to affect Texas, with the eye making landfall sometime Saturday morning,'' Roberts said. ``Something this large is going to pretty much cover the whole coastal region of Texas,'' as well as some of Louisiana.

 

Category 5 Storms

 

Hurricane center records show that three Category 5 storms have hit the U.S.: an unnamed one that swept the Florida Keys in 1935; Hurricane Camille, which slammed Mississippi in 1969; and Andrew, which devastated southern Florida in 1992. Hurricane Gilbert in 1992 and the 1935 storm were more intense in terms of pressure, the center said on its Web site.

 

The lower the atmospheric pressure in the center, the stronger the hurricane, with a drop in pressure preceding an increase in wind speed, Roberts said.

 

Gilbert's pressure was as low as 888 millibars (26.2 inches), and the 1935 hurricane was measured at 892 millibars. Rita's latest pressure was 897 millibars, compared with 923 millibars for Katrina when it made landfall.

 

Rita has added to disruptions to oil supply caused by Katrina in the Gulf, home to 44 percent of U.S. refining capacity and 30 percent of U.S. oil production. The threat Rita poses to rigs, refineries and platforms in the Gulf pushed the price of crude oil and gasoline higher. Crude oil for November delivery rose as much as 98 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $67.95 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

 

About 52 percent of 134 rigs and 57 percent of 819 manned platforms in the Gulf were evacuated, the Minerals Management Service said on its Web site.

 

Dollar

 

The dollar dropped to a four-day low against the euro on concern Rita will exacerbate the damage caused by Katrina, further damping consumer spending and slowing U.S. economic growth. The U.S. currency dropped to $1.2217 per euro at 8:37 a.m. in London, from $1.2214 late yesterday in New York, according to EBS, an electronic currency dealing system.

 

President George W. Bush yesterday declared a state of emergency in Texas and Louisiana. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is putting truckloads of ice, water and food as well as urban search and rescue task forces and medical teams in staging areas in Florida and Texas, the agency said in a statement. Several military ships are moving east to avoid Rita.

 

``1.3 million Texans are being asked to evacuate back inland, and it's working so far,'' Texas Governor Rick Perry told CNN. Support hubs have been set up in Huntsville, College Station, Austin, San Antonio and Dallas, he said.

 

Houston

 

About 5,000 National Guard members and 1,000 Texas Public Safety Department troopers are standing by, said William Ayres, a spokesman for the Texas Governors' Emergency Management Division. Coastal counties from Nueces to Corpus Christi are likely to urge people to leave, he said. Mandatory evacuations are ordered by local officials such as mayors and county judges, Ayres said, adding he didn't how many had been ordered.

 

Harris County has ordered a mandatory evacuation of flood- prone areas starting 6 a.m. The county is home to about 3.6 million people including the residents of Houston, the fourth- largest U.S. city, according to the 2003 census.

 

In Houston, the port and NASA's Johnson Space Center closed, while four hospitals owned by HCA Inc., the largest U.S. hospital chain, are among those moving out critical-care patients and considering evacuating other patients.

 

The Houston area has 72 hospitals. At least two hospitals in Galveston County and five in Brazoria County have begun moving patients, the state hospital association said yesterday.

 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on its Web site said it would shut a nuclear plant near Bay City, Texas, and one near New Orleans seven hours before Rita is projected to hit.

 

Galveston residents were ordered to leave at 6 p.m. yesterday. The city, about 50 miles southeast of Houston, is the site of the most deadly natural disaster in U.S. history, a hurricane that killed 8,000 to 12,000 in 1900.

 

Similar evacuations are going on in neighboring Brazoria County and in San Patricio County, near Corpus Christi. The city of Corpus Christi ordered evacuation of several islands.

 

Most of the evacuations in southwestern Louisiana are voluntary except for Cameron Parish residents, who were ordered to leave, said Colonel Jeff Smith, the state's deputy director emergency preparedness. The parish lies in the projected path of the storm.

 

Rain Predictions

 

Areas under Rita's path and the Tennessee River Valley may get as much as 15 inches (38 centimeters) of rain, with 8 inches possible in the Ohio Valley, the hurricane center said. In New Orleans, storm-surge flooding of as much as 15 feet may approach the top of the city's levees.

 

Rita, the ninth hurricane and 17th named storm of the six- month Atlantic hurricane season, marks the first time in 10 years that Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes, named in alphabetical order, have reached the letter ``R.''

 

[krsna]

these Hurricanes,... they see them coming miles away over the ocean... cloud seeding, bombing them from outer space...God, with all that superpower muscle can't the US do something besides telling people to evacuate?

 

Can Mother Nature be all that powerful esp. when it comes to Hurricanes, doh just alot of hot air coming off the ocean....

 

/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

 

[Kulapavana]

demons always try to escape their karma by manipulating material energy but it usually fails.

 

can I escape death with a magic pill? can I stop old age? can I stop this hurricane misery so we can enjoy with impunity? no. we are all subject to the same laws.

 

a devotee understands the concept of karma and humbly keeps working for Krishna.

[theist]

These hurricans should be no surprise to us. There would be hurricans happening on the earth even if there were no humans on the planet. Along with tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, meteors from space crashing into the planet etc.

 

Why do these things happen? Well it's the nature of this planet. Of course it's popular to tie everything up to our favorite cause of the moment, "See I warned you about _____ (fill in your favorite grip, cause or whatever) Now God is getting His revenge."

 

To think that if the US had not gone to war with Iraq there would have not been these hurricans is a bit naive I think.

[Guest guest]

The gulf is a dead ocean, most polluted place on earth. Hurricanes are like us having an enema, the earth planet is simply cleansing her system. The water temp causes hurricanes, 90+ degrees in most cases. The hurricane circulates deeper waters, oxygenates and gives life back, not only to the sea, but to the lands that are hit.

 

Only those who cannot live with nature, the gross materialists, cannot appreciate the wonders of nature, her healing ways.

 

see www.geocities.com/mahaksadasa/monsoon

 

haribol, mahak

[Guest guest]

WOW nature or other wise what do the veda's tell you about this topic, any one interested or know ?

[krsna]

MONSOON

 

 

mahaksadasa c. 1995

 

 

The dirt is cracked, flowers will not grow

 

How will we ever reap fruit that we cannot sow

 

Mercy is coming, the clouds from North Winds blow

 

To drench mata aina, the thirst is soon to go

 

Welcome to the Monsoon

 

Dark Cloud, The Shelter

 

Giver of all life, Spring as if the Dawn

 

Welcome to the Monsoon

 

River turning brown, raging to the sea

 

Many things will drown, no one can even see

 

Thunder keeps on cracking, uprooting mighty trees

 

Powerful astringent, rinse this good land free

 

Welcome to the Monsoon

 

Dark Cloud, The Shelter

 

Giver of all life, Spring as if the Dawn

 

Welcome to the Monsoon

 

Some are filled with terror and criticize Your way

 

Not understanding bills that must be paid

 

Without Your mercy, Fires burn all away

 

Your works are for wonder and Your children always pray

 

Welcome to the Monsoon

 

Dark Cloud, The Shelter

 

Giver of all life, Spring as if the Dawn

 

Welcome to the Monsoon

 

[krsna]

 

, scientist blames climate change

 

By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor

 

Published: 23 September 2005

 

Super-powerful hurricanes now hitting the United States are the "smoking gun" of global warming, one of Britain's leading scientists believes.

 

The growing violence of storms such as Katrina, which wrecked New Orleans, and Rita, now threatening Texas, is very probably caused by climate change, said Sir John Lawton, chairman of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. Hurricanes were getting more intense, just as computer models predicted they would, because of the rising temperature of the sea, he said. "The increased intensity of these kinds of extreme storms is very likely to be due to global warming."

 

In a series of outspoken comments - a thinly veiled attack on the Bush administration, Sir John hit out at neoconservatives in the US who still deny the reality of climate change.

 

Referring to the arrival of Hurricane Rita he said: "If this makes the climate loonies in the States realise we've got a problem, some good will come out of a truly awful situation." As he spoke, more than a million people were fleeing north away from the coast of Texas as Rita, one of the most intense storms on record, roared through the Gulf of Mexico. It will probably make landfall tonight or early tomorrow near Houston, America's fourth largest city and the centre of its oil industry. Highways leading inland from Houston were clogged with traffic for up to 100 miles north.

 

There are real fears that Houston could suffer as badly from Rita just as New Orleans suffered from Hurricane Katrina less than a month ago.

 

Asked what conclusion the Bush administration should draw from two hurricanes of such high intensity hitting the US in quick succession, Sir John said: "If what looks like is going to be a horrible mess causes the extreme sceptics about climate change in the US to reconsider their opinion, that would be an extremely valuable outcome."

 

Asked about characterising them as "loonies", he said: "There are a group of people in various parts of the world ... who simply don't want to accept human activities can change climate and are changing the climate."

 

"I'd liken them to the people who denied that smoking causes lung cancer."

 

With his comments, Sir John becomes the third of the leaders of Britain's scientific establishment to attack the US over the Bush government's determination to cast doubt on global warming as a real phenomenon.

 

Sir John's comments follow and support recent research, much of it from America itself, showing that hurricanes are getting more violent and suggesting climate change is the cause.

 

A paper by US researchers, last week in the US journal Science, showed that storms of the intensity of Hurricane Katrina have become almost twice as common in the past 35 years.

 

Although the overall frequency of tropical storms worldwide has remained broadly level since 1970, the number of extreme category 4 and 5 events has sharply risen. In the 1970s, there was an average of about 10 category 4 and 5 hurricanes per year but, since 1990, they have nearly doubled to an average of about 18 a year. During the same period, sea surface temperatures, among the key drivers of hurricane intensity, have increased by an average of 0.5C (0.9F).

 

Sir John said: "Increasingly it looks like a smoking gun. It's a fair conclusion to draw that global warming, caused to a substantial extent by people, is driving increased sea surface temperatures and increasing the violence of hurricanes."

 

[theist]

These are minute changes in the earth's climate and they have devastating effects for humans to be sure. And whatever this industrial society is contributing to it should be stopped no doubt.

 

But these changes may be due to natural earth flucuations. Afterall the exact same place Galveston Texas, that is now being evacuated was the spot where even a bigger hurrican can on shore in 1900 and killed some 10,000 people.

 

So myself I have very little confidence in all these politically motivated speculations on why these major storms are hitting.

 

Yesterday it was karma for Iraq and today it's Bush's fault for causing global warming.

 

As humans we are so egotistical that we feel surely we must be the cause of all that is going on. We are simply fleas on Bhumi's back.

[theist]

That is an intriquing question. I don't know but I lean to the side that says they probably are living entities.

 

Funny how we even name them and relate to them as though they are.

[krsna]

 

/images/graemlins/blush.gif /images/graemlins/blush.gif /images/graemlins/blush.gif

 

 

Millions Flee Rita Which Could Also Decimate Refineries

by Joe Gandelman

Hurricane Rita is storming towards Texas — and Louisiana — and everyone is trying to learn the lessons and avoid the mistakes of Hurricane Katrina....a storm now considered one of the worst natural (and political) disasters in U.S. history:

 

 

(1)Texans are getting out of the Houston/Galveston areas en mass, not making mistakes of New Orleans residents who stayed behind — with some of them eventually paying the ultimate price.

 

(2)State and local officials were trying to pull out all stops to avoid the widely reported failings of state and local officials in Lousiana during Katrina.

 

(3)The Bush administration realizes that more than ever that it's under the microscope to see whether the administration in general and FEMA in particular handles the storm quickly, efficiently and competently.

Are they succeeding? It's too early too tell but as Rita morphed "down" into a Category 4 (theoretically some claim it could get big again) reports are somewhat contradictory.

 

The one thing that's certain amid the reports of travelers running out of gas as they try to leave Houston and predictions that damage to the oil industry could shove gas prices up to $5 a gallon: due to news coverage and images of Hurricane Katrina everyone involved knows what's at stake so the sense of urgency is far greater than during the Hurricane Katrina's early days when all levels of government and much of the populace seemed caught flat-footed.

 

In Houston, highways resembled something out of a disaster movie, according to the Houston Chronicle:

Sixteen hours to San Antonio and Dallas. Eleven hours to Austin. With over a million people trying to flee vulnerable parts of the Houston area, Hurricane Rita will be a nightmare even if Galveston doesn't take a direct hit. .

 

Trying to leave Houston on I-10, Ella Corder drove 15 hours to go just 13 miles today. Noticing cars out of gas littering the freeway, she turned off her air-conditioner to save fuel, but the 52-year-old heart patient worried the heat and exhaustion were taking a toll on her.

 

"All I want to do is go home," she said tearfully by cell phone. "Can't anyone get me out of here? "

 

Other evacuees' frustration turned into anger as the day wore on.

 

"This is the worst planning I've ever seen," said Julie Anderson, who covered just 45 miles in 12 hours after setting out from her home in the Houston suburb of LaPorte. "They say we've learned a lot from Hurricane Katrina. Well, you couldn't prove it by me."

 

Hoping to speed the evacuation that officially began yesterday, authorities decided today to open the incoming lanes of two Houston freeways, I-45 and I-10, to outbound traffic for the first time ever. Plans to reverse the traffic flow on U.S. 290 were abandoned because of traffic problems it would create in Brenham and Giddings.

Was one of the key mistakes of New Orleans being repeated — where people who didn't have money, transportation, standing in the commmunity — the very low income, the homeless — were left behind? Again there were troubling reports like this one from the Houston Chronicle's hurricane blog:

At Market Square Park, John Harold sat on a bench, staring at nothing in particular. He was wearing the same army-green jacket and sneakers that he has for months.

 

''Hopefully someone will pick me up. The hurricane is worrying me, but there's nowhere I can go,'' he said. And with the lights of the downtown restaurants dimmed or turned off and the constant hum of construction gone, it felt as though he was right.

 

From the center of the park, however, there was noise: A big, surly argument.

 

''Tienen que ir algún lado porque todo esto se va (al infierno),'' said Humberto Mendez, 67. (You guys need to find shelter, because all this is going to hell.)

 

Mendez said he's watched over the five Cuban homeless men who hang out at the park for years. Antonio Cuella, Nelson Martinez and Segundo Porro laughed at the suggestion. They had nothing to do, but to sit around a huge bottle to make their worries disappear.

 

It didn't work for Donna Reynolds. She was in a corner, tears dripping down her cheek. The thing is, all these people at this park were disconnected. They didn't know that the Star of Hope just a mile away could take them in. They didn't know they could call the city to bus them out. They didn't know that Rita was at one point the third strongest hurricane in history.

 

So the Cubans drank and Reynolds cried.

An exception to the rule? Perhaps. Given the frenzy of all levels of government not to face "the blame game" (the code phrase used when voters of all parties demand answers about poor or incompetent job performances by government officials of various levels during Hurricane Katrina) it's likely by now that all of the folks in that particular post have been whisked into safety by now.

 

But what about the others who don't get publicity? Are there many of them? Too early to tell. But, again, its unlikely they will be forgotten if they come to someone's attention.

 

Attytood blog says "They Have Learned Nothing" and gives another dramatic example of a low income woman stranded in Houston. The blog then declares:"Where are the buses? Where's Michael Chertoff, and where's R. David Paulison? Most important, where's Bush? Rita is about 39 hours from land. Somebody needs to get their asses moving. And focus."

 

At his press conference, President George Bush in effect vowed to run a right ship on responding to this storm and was asked about differences between Katrina and Rita:

Well, I think one thing that's different is people understand the need to evacuate more clearly. I saw the Mayor of Galveston, Texas on TV, and she said that the people of her city seemed to have learned one of the lessons, and that is, take the evacuation orders very seriously. And so there appears to be a significant evacuation from parts of the Texas coast to get out of harm's way.

 

Secondly, we've got Admiral Hereth on the ground; he's a Coast Guard Admiral. He'll be Admiral Allen's counterpart in Texas. He's there in Texas ready to go.

 

Like Katrina, we're moving federal assets to be in position to move in. For example, the USS Iwo Jima, where we were the other day, has left New Orleans and is now tracking in behind the storm ready to bring Marines and choppers into place. But that's not really that different from Katrina. We had choppers moving very quickly. In this case, though, we're able to come in behind the storm.

 

As you might remember, we had equipment that was — had to come across the land to fight through the storm to get there. This time we're going to be able to bring some assets around behind it, which I — will help get people — get some rescue missions there as quickly as possible.

 

But I think the biggest difference is people are aware of the danger of these storms, and people are responding at all levels of government.

Meanwhile, there clearly seem several huge tolls this storm could exact: the human toll and the financial toll, as the New York Times notes:

Depending on how severe it is when it makes landfall, Hurricane Rita could deliver an even greater temporary blow to economic activity than Katrina, largely because of the greater scale of the local economy and the considerably bigger concentration of energy facilities in Texas than in Louisiana and Mississippi.

 

A major disruption to the nation's strained oil refining and distribution network - which some experts said could last for weeks - could send gasoline and other fuel prices soaring.

 

The hurricane could also wreak significant environmental havoc, because the Texas coast is dotted with large petrochemical plants that store large quantities of dangerous chemicals.

 

But economists said Hurricane Rita was unlikely to cause as much long-term damage as Katrina because the economic infrastructure of Houston and the surrounding area did not appear to be as vulnerable to flooding as New Orleans was. "It's hard to envision a scenario," said Mark Zandi, Economy.com's chief economist, "where Houston is impacted anywhere near as much as New Orleans."

The Washington Post offers more details, such as:

That area is home to about 700,000 people, 15 percent of the metro population. It includes the Johnson Space Center, which sits about 20 miles southeast of downtown Houston in a low-lying area threaded by bayous. NASA evacuated the space center Wednesday, shifting ground control over the International Space Station to a Russian space agency facility outside Moscow.

 

Also subject to flooding are Texas City and other centers of chemical production and petroleum refining. As they did before Hurricane Katrina, environmentalists worry that Rita could cause the release of toxic pollutants at one or more of the 87 chemical plants, oil refineries or petroleum storage facilities along the Texas coast.

 

"Dozens of chemical plants and petroleum facilities lie in Hurricane Rita's path, many of which may not be adequately prepared to prevent toxic releases," said Tom Natan, research director of the National Environmental Trust.

[theist]

Well there is a Krsna pastime that includes a demon Trnavarta who had the shape of a whirlwind. That doesn't mean all such storms are or aren't though.

[Guest guest]

Bush is only responsible for his own ineptitude. He has no power to protect anyone, his flaw is he thinks he is Jesus. But he is as good as gone, by his own drunken hand.

 

Kafka had a good point, ther IS hope, but not for us.

 

mahak

[krsna]

 

The One-eyed Monster Hurricane!

 

/images/graemlins/blush.gif

[theist]

Several hundred miles across. Why are we humans so proud in the face of nature?

 

I heard some meteorologist talking about how perfectly formed Rita is and he could barely hold back his adoration. He was on TV afterall and had to remain grave but you could tell he was appreciating Rita on another level. Even we can see how tight and symetrical this storm is.

[Guest guest]

just think what that means in terms of Krsna's ceative energy at the time of creation and the distructive powers at the end of the Kali Yuga....

[theist]

I can't of course. But by trying and failing we should become humbled.

 

And to think that even that is just just this one universe which is a speck amongst the rest....

[Guest guest]

I looked at this picture Krsna posted, and I see Sri Jatayu, the Vulture king. He is known as king of the air, and this looks like his eyes, his beak, etc.

 

Hurricanes are not demons because they serve the planet well (see MONSOON above). People get in the way, but dont they always???

 

For more about the great king of the air, see www.geocities.com/ mahaksadasa/jatayu.html

[Guest guest]

www.geocities.com/mahaksadasa/jatayu.html

[Guest guest]

http://www.geocities.com/mahaksadasa/index7.html

 

this is the story of jatayu, the previous is my friends commentary on the subject.

[bhakta_john]

he who thinks that the living entity is the slayer or that he is slain, does not understand. one who is in knowledge knows that the self slays not nor is slain.

 

= B.G. 2:19

[bhakta_john]

"if You think that i am able to behold Your Cosmic Form,

o my Lord, o Master of all mystic power, then kindly show me that Universal Self."

 

B.G. 11:4