Hurricane Rita (2005)

Hurricane Rita formed as a tropical depression on September 17, 2005, east of Grand Turk in the Turks and Caicos Islands. It moved west-northwest and became a tropical storm over the Bahamas the next day. Rita became a hurricane on September 20 as it passed westward through the Florida Straits and into the Gulf of Mexico. Rita strengthened rapidly to a Category 5 hurricane the next day, and reached its peak intensity (178 mph wind speed, 895 millibars central pressure) late on September 21 while located about 300 miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi River.

Hurricane Rita turned northwest and weakened to a Category 3 storm (115 mph) as it made landfall near Sabine Pass on the Louisiana/Texas border at 2:40 A.M. on September 24, 2005. This was 26 days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall to the east in Louisiana. Rita weakened to a tropical storm as it moved northward to become a tropical depression over Arkansas on September 25, and a remnant low over the Great Lakes the next day.

A hurricane watch was issued at 4 P.M. on September 21 for most of the Texas coast, and east to Cameron, Louisiana, with a tropical storm watch east to Grand Isle. A hurricane warning was issued at noon on September 22 from Port O'Conner, Texas, to Morgan City, Louisiana, with tropical storm warnings east to the Mississippi River and south along most of the Texas coast. At 4 P.M. on September 23, the hurricane warning extended from Sargent, Texas, to Morgan City, with tropical storm warnings east to the Pearl River and west to Port Aransas. Warnings for Hurricane Rita, and memories of the recent effects of Katrina, caused one of the largest evacuations in U.S. history. More than 3 million were estimated to have evacuated in eastern Texas and western coastal Louisiana.

Hurricane-strength winds occurred along the coast at the Texas/Louisiana border with coastal wind gusts as high as 115 mph. Rita produced tropical storm-force winds over a broad area of Louisiana and Texas, from Baton Rouge to Houston. Wide swaths of trees were blown down, and well over one million people lost electrical service.