Hurricane Rita made landfall near the Texas/Lousiana border on September 24, 2005, at 3:30 a.m. EDT, as a category 3.
Hurricane Rita makes landfall
Only two days earlier, on September 22nd, Hurricane Rita was a Category 5 with sustained winds of 175 mph.
At its peak strength, the storm was rated as the third most intense hurricane in recorded history, in terms of atmospheric pressure, which is measured in millibars.
Rita’s strongest atmospheric pressure was 898 millibars. By comparison, Hurricane Katrina’s atmospheric pressure was 902 millibars. (The lower the number, the more powerful the hurricane.)
About 3 million people evacuated vulnerable areas in anticipation of the hurricane, as they obeyed mandatory evacuation orders.
Houston, the largest city in Texas and the fourth largest city in the U.S., was the most difficult city to evacuate; cars lined the freeways for miles in slow-moving bumper-to-bumper traffic as residents fled.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone who has been affected by the hurricane.
God bless you.
We love you.
Take care,
Kevin Caruso
Suicide.org
Founder, Executive Director, Editor-in-Chief
(Rita Info.com is a Suicide.org website.)
