Rita: Friends in texas, please check in

Just a quick note....it looks like Rita is slowly changing its track east. But it's still huge and I'm concerned about all my friends in Texas - especially those in and around Galveston, Houston, Dallas etc.

For my piece of mind, if you have 2 minutes can you email me your address? Including those of you with friends or family in Texas? I promise not to give the information away but I'd like to map out all these addresses to include them along with the massive amount of live data from ocean buoys, passing ships, all the NOAA models, live tracking from NOAA etc. so I know whether you're alright or whether steps need to be taken to have someone check on you. I'd be happy to share all these with you if you're Google Earth/Mapping geek - just not the personal addresses.

Be safe out there.

Rita: Live Data

If you want to see close-to-live readings for yourself, check out the NOAA National Data Buoy Center's "Rita" site. They're taking Rita's GPS reading and marking the various buoy weather info closest to it.

It's just northeast, (by like 5-10mi), of Buoy 42001 at 25.84, -89.66 which is reading winds at 68kts, (roughly 80mph), and gusts up to 87.4 kts, (roughly 103mph). Greater than 64kts, obviously is hurricane strength on the Beaufort Wind Scale. Wave height is at 32ft, Pressure is at 929mb.

I'm looking for live flood gauge data at the landfall point.

Blech. I've got a YIM chat happening with a few friends in the area and would like to add in more of those who stayed. My YIM is bkdelong.