Hurricane Rita

Landfall | Summary
Posting Date: September 24, 2005, 8:00:00 AM

As of 4:00 a.m. CDT, September 24, the center of Rita is located just east of Port Arthur, Texas and moving toward the northwest at 12 mph with sustained winds of 120 mph. The National Hurricane Center expects Rita to make a gradual turn to the north and slow down––possibly even stalling in the next 24 hours, which could result in prolonged tropical storm force winds and rainfall amounts of up to 10 to 15 inches in parts of eastern Texas and western Louisiana. Hurricane Rita came ashore on the extreme southwest corner of Louisiana as a Category 3 hurricane at 2:30 a.m. CDT this morning. Maximum sustained winds were estimated at 120 mph. Fortunately, Rita made a turn toward the north in the hours before landfall, sparing the Galveston/Houston area from the storm’s most damaging winds and surge. Hurricane Rita also lost some of it intensity before landfall, thanks largely to an eyewall replacement cycle and the fact that it entered an area of increased wind shear. Hurricane Rita’s track took its strongest winds over the sparsely populated western Louisiana coast. In addition, the heavy commercial and industrial areas of Port Arthur and Beaumont, with their numerous refineries, were on the left of the track, which should spare them significant structural damage. However, we do expect to see significant wind damage to residential and commercial properties near and to the east of Rita’s track. Sustained winds of 120 mph are sufficient to cause unreinforced masonry walls to collapse, tear shingles and siding off structures, and bring down trees. While not quite as large as Katrina, Hurricane Rita was still a large system. Hurricane force winds at landfall extended outward 85 miles from the storm’s center. Tropical storm force winds extended to 200 miles. This means that we can expect damage as far south as Galveston and as far east as New Orleans. Storm surge of 10 to 15 feet, with local heights of up to 20 feet in inlets and bays, will cause coastal flooding in areas near the storm track. The AIR tropical cyclone team has run scenarios using the latest information about the storm’s meteorological parameters and track, which are posted on the Scenarios page of this website. Both “All” and “Select” event sets are provided for CATRADER and CLASIC/2 users. The “All” event set contains hundreds of scenarios simulated for this event and are therefore the most appropriate method for estimating your potential losses. Sets of 11 specific scenarios, which are selected from the full event sets and represent the range of potential losses across the full industry loss distribution, are available under the “Select” event sets. Note that if you wish to include the effects of demand surge in your analysis, in light of Hurricane Rita’s geographic and temporal proximity to Hurricane Katrina we suggest that clients select the Aggregate Demand Surge option. AIR will post additional information on Monday using Rita’s actual track inland.

Landfall | Downloads
Posting Date: September 24, 2005, 8:00:00 AM