The bad news is that Hurricane Dean is on its way to becoming a Category Five storm. The good news, from my perspective, is that the models have nudged enough south, and are now clustered enough together, that Houston is now outside the cone of uncertainty. At the very least, it seems much more likely now that we won't take any real hit from this storm. Great for us, terrible for somebody else.
(And let me agree here with Richard Connelly - my one-stop source for figuring out how much to worry about this thing has been Eric Berger's SciGuy blog. Bookmark it and check it out if you haven't already.)
Meanwhile, the state's new multi-county, multi-agency planning commission for hurricane preparedness has been keeping itself busy.
"In the event that we do have to do evacuations, the timing will be coordinated so that everybody is synchronized," said Dennis Storemski, director of Houston Mayor Bill White's public safety and homeland security office. "They'll also be coordinating the need for resources."The group already is meeting and taking action, readying coastal areas and telling the public during a news conference Friday to prepare for a storm but not to evacuate.
[...]
The first meeting on Hurricane Dean, which took place at the Houston Emergency Center by conference call, came Friday morning, with another in the afternoon.
The group is planning twice daily meetings until the storm, which could strike anywhere from Mexico to the Mississippi River according to early computer models, is no longer a threat.
The committee includes representatives from Austin, Brazoria, Chambers, Colorado, Fort Bend, Galveston, Harris, Liberty, Matagorda, Montgomery, Walker, Waller and Wharton counties, as well as both Galveston and Houston.
The most intense planning, so far, is focused on coastal areas. John Simsen, Galveston County's emergency management coordinator, said buses are being pre-positioned to ensure that evacuation transportation is available for some 6,000 special-needs residents. He said anyone who needs transportation help should call 2-1-1.
Galveston officials also are gearing up their emergency centers and notifying employees that the centers could be staffed around the clock this weekend to make sure preparations are completed, he said.
Simsen said plans call for Galveston to be evacuated first, followed in sequence by other cities, the closest to the coast being evacuated first. Mayors will be urging residents to wait their turn in order to avoid a massive traffic jam like the one that ensued during the Hurricane Rita evacuation.
A regional communication system is in place that will allow Galveston County to inform Houston officials on the pace of any exodus so the city can time its evacuation and keep traffic to a minimum.
"We've been working on this nonstop since Rita," Simsen said. "You will see a lot of things being done differently as a result of these meetings."