Rita Damage & Wind Gust Reports
UPDATE 4 PM EASTERN: Added a few new News Reports links to the bottom of the list.
Here's what we know about Hurricane Rita's landfall as of noon Saturday.
Rita made landfall at 3:40 a.m. EST with the storm's eye hitting just east of Sabine Pass, Tex., about 32 miles southeast of Beaumont. It is now located east of Lufkin, Texas, as shown by AccuWeather.com RadarPlus below.
Both government radars in the area, at Polk Airforce Base & Lake Charles, were knocked out overnight.
LATEST WIND GUST REPORTS:
Lake Livingston, TX: 117 mph (Dam Operator)
CAPL1 - Calcasieu Pass, LA: 112 mph
Port Arthur, TX: 116 mph (CNN)
CLCL1 - Cameron, LA: 108 mph
Beaumont, TX: 105 mph
CAPL1 - Calcasieu Pass, LA: 101 mph
Sea Rim State Park, TX: 101 mph (AccuWeather)
SRST2 - Sabine, TX: 99 mph
MRSL1 - Marsh Island, LA: 93 mph
Lake Charles, LA: 86 mph (NWS)
Jasper, LA: 85 mph (Ham Radio Operator)
Lake Charles, LA: 74 mph
SPLL1 - South Timbalier Block 52, LA: 79 mph
Sabine Pass, TX: 79 mph
Salt Point, LA: 74 mph
42035 - Galveston Buoy, TX: 76 mph
ILDL1 - Isle Dernieres, LA: 73 mph
LACL1 - Lacassine, LA: 71 mph
NEWS REPORTS:
Lake Charles levee breach (ABC13)
Building collapse in downtown Beaumont (KPRC)
Port Arthur cargo ship knocked off moorings (FOXNEWS)
Over 1,000,000 customers without power in Texas (Various)
Jasper: Various fires, house floating down street, people inside (KHOU)
Possible looting in Beaumont, TX (KHOU)
Major structural damage to a hotel in Beaumont (KHOU)
Part of terminal building at Lake Charles destroyed (KHOU)
Galveston County Daily News lost part of its roof (KTRK)
The Police department in Woodville lost its roof (KTRK)
Fires in Spring and Pasadena (KHOU)
Junior high school in Warren lost roof (KPRC)
Houston refineries undamaged (AccuWeather.com)
I-10 Overpass collapsed (KHOU)
Port Arthur refinery damaged (CNN)
Jefferson County apartment building collapse (CNN)
Nearly 1,500,000 customers without power [including Katrina victims] (CNN)
City-by-city damage report (<a 4="" 9="" href="Nearly 1,500,000 customers without power [including Katrina victims] (CNN)
KHOU, a large television station in Houston, went off the air around 1 p.m.
More news and amateur photo galleries are available from local websites such as KTRKand KHOU, and KPRC. You can watch live streaming video from these stations and listen to other live audio feeds on this website.
EARLY MORNING RAINFALL REPORTS:*
Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas : 8.04 inches
Baton Rouge, Louisiana : 7.29 inches
*These rainfall reports have been superceded by a final report.
Doppler radar indicates that 12 to 16 inches of rain fell in easternmost Texas and western Louisiana. New Orleans dodged the bullet receiving little rain at all, though the 8 inch line was just west of town (see first image below, New Orleans is at the X). Below are screen captures from AccuWeather.com RadarPlus showing the heavy rainfall estimates from Doppler radar, zoomed in on New Orleans then on Lake Charles, LA.
Now, we have to worry about how much more rain will fall. As we talked about yesterday, the AccuWeather.com track now shows Rita meandering in the Louisiana area for a week -- the state may be mostly under water by then.
