Hurricane Rita

Post Landfall 2 | Summary
Posting Date: September 26, 2005, 10:30:00 AM

Hurricane Rita made landfall at 2:38 a.m. CDT on Saturday, September 24 in the far southwest corner of Louisiana, between Sabine Pass and Johnson’s Bayou. Rita tracked generally northward into Texas, then turned to the north-northeast and headed across Arkansas. The category 3 hurricane brought sustained winds of 120 mph at landfall and flooded coastal areas with heavy rains and storm surges of up to 20 feet. Rita, now a tropical depression, is currently moving toward the north-northeast at around 30 mph about 80 miles northwest of Indianapolis, Indiana. After glancing the Florida Keys earlier in the week as a Category 1 hurricane, Rita followed a track roughly similar to that of Katrina through the Gulf of Mexico. Fed by the warm waters of the loop current, Rita quickly strengthened to a Category 5 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds reaching 175 mph. The minimum central pressure dropped to 897 mb on Thursday, September 22, making it the third most intense hurricane ever to form in the Atlantic basin. Rita appeared to be headed for landfall in the Galveston area, site of the deadly 1900 hurricane that destroyed most of that city. As Rita moved closer to the coast, however, it made a turn toward the north, eventually making landfall in an area of relatively sparse population near the border between Texas and Louisiana. Towns in and near Rita’s path suffered extensive damage. In the town of Cameron, Louisiana, about 25 miles to the east of Rita’s landfall, most of the homes were severely damaged or destroyed. Homes in the coastal towns of Holly Beach and Johnson’s Bayou were, in many cases, reduced to their foundations. Further inland, Lake Charles, which lies to the right of Rita’s track, suffered significant damage, while Port Arthur, on the left of the track, fared much better. Reports indicate that the refineries of Port Arthur and Beauport survived relatively unscathed, as was expected by AIR. Only two have reported minor damage. In addition to wind damage, Rita brought a destructive storm surge of up to 15 feet to the Louisiana coast, reaching up to 35 miles inland. The towns of Abbeville, Pecan Island and Dulac saw flooding up to 9 feet deep. The entire town of Erath was flooded with four feet of water. Though Hurricanes Rita and Katrina had similar lifecycles as they tracked through the Gulf of Mexico—both achieving Category 5 intensity then weakening—Rita weakened substantially more than Katrina prior to landfall. With wind speeds 25 mph less than those of Katrina, Rita packed a far less destructive punch. More significantly, Rita’s landfall away from major metropolitan areas kept insured losses to relatively low levels for a storm of this size and intensity. The AIR tropical cyclone team has run new scenarios using the latest meteorological information about Hurricane Rita and the storm’s actual track through Texas and into Arkansas. Eleven scenarios from AIR’s latest analysis for Rita are posted on the Scenarios page of this website. Also included on the Scenarios page is the probability of loss exceedance curve for the industry. On the Event Sets page there are both “All” and “Select” event sets for CATRADER and CLASIC/2. The “All” event set contains the full set of scenarios simulated for this event and is therefore the most appropriate method for estimating your potential losses. A set of 11 specific scenarios, which are selected from the full event set and represent the range of potential losses across the full industry loss distribution, are available under the “Select” event set.

Post Landfall 2 | Downloads
Posting Date: September 26, 2005, 10:30:00 AM