Galveston may survive this one.
Rita has dropped back to cat 4, and is rapidly diminishing in force down to cat 3. She is also trending more northeasterly than previously forecast because of the high pressure "dome" off the Houston coast...
Unfortunately that leaves Lake Charles, LA to be pummeled, but they can handle it a bit better than Galveston can. Lake Charles may be a swamp (actually it's not bad), but Galveston is a semisubmerged island. It's already been wiped off the map once.
I haven't heard directly from Jim S the layabout sailer and leading gun nut of galveston bay, but by blog comments he's hanging in, and stressing out.
