Rita

A friend of a friend is in Houston. She's boarding up her house, garaging her car, and is going to ride out the storm. Why? Because she can't get out of town. The highways are clogged with cars. This is not just traffic -- they are not moving.

And the cars are running out of gas.

How do you evacuate people when their own cars are blocking the only way to get out by any mode but aircraft?

I've not seen the news yet today. Maybe this is all on camera. But it sounds like an utter nightmare, and a horror beyond compare if these people are caught in their cars during a storm surge.

My thoughts and prayers are with them, that everyone can find safety.

In fact, she's now a Cat 4 hurricane and she's bearing down on Texas. So while there's a sigh of relief that it appears New Orleans will be spared most of her fury, which still could do serious damage there. But there's real concern that the Texas coast could be hammered.

At 11 a.m. EDT, Rita was centered about 260 miles west of Key West, Fla., and 775 miles southeast of Corpus Christi, Texas, moving west at near 13 mph. Forecasters predicted it would come ashore Saturday somewhere along the central Texas Gulf Coast between Galveston and Corpus Christi. But even a slight turn and a glancing blow could prove devastating to New Orleans.

Meteorologist Chris Landsea of the National Hurricane Center in Miami said Rita could strengthen to a Category 5 with wind over 155 mph as it moves over the warm waters of the gulf, or it could ease to a Category 3, with wind of less than 130 mph.

Galveston County, population 267,000, was ordered evacuated, along with low-lying, flood-prone areas of Houston, which at its lowest point is 6 feet above sea level. As many as 1 million people in the Houston-Galveston area were under orders to get out by daybreak Thursday, said Frank Michel, spokesman for Houston Mayor Bill White. Houston, Texas' biggest city, is about 50 miles northwest of Galveston.

Other areas told to evacuate included Cameron Parish, in Louisiana's southwestern corner, with 9,700 residents.

Galveston, situated on a coastal island 8 feet above sea level, was the site of one of the deadliest natural disasters in U.S. history: an unnamed hurricane in 1900 that killed between 6,000 and 12,000 people.

Just what we need is more death and devastation, and another hit on our economy. But nature is a harsh mistress. We'll see if the Bush Administration has learned anything in the past three weeks.

I can only imagine what the Katrina evacuees who are being evacuated from their temporary refuges must be feeling.

The evacuation order meant that for the second time in 3 1/2 weeks, many New Orleans residents were forced to decide whether to stay or go. Also, many Katrina victims still in shelters faced the prospect of being uprooted again. At the Cajun Dome in Lafayette, emergency officials arranged to take the 1,000 refugees from the New Orleans area out on buses if Rita tracks north.

Be safe, everyone.