Coastal areas of Texas began evacuating Wednesday as Hurricane Rita, a Category 5 storm, speeds across the Gulf of Mexico, threatening to make landfall as early as Friday afternoon.

Voluntary evacuation of Galveston, Texas, began Tuesday, with evacuations of hospitals and nursing homes, with mandatory evacution beginning Wednesday evening.

“It’s time to get on the highway,” said Galveston mayor Lyda Ann Thomas.

Galveston residents who need help getting off the island should call +1 409 797-3710. Or go to the Island Community Center to catch a bus.

Among the people being evacuated from Texas are some 4,000 evacuees from Hurricane Katrina staying in Houston-area shelters.

Storm-weary residents expressed fear of the unknown and frustration at the thought of having to pick up and relocate again to Fort Chaffee, [Ark.] a defunct military base. But Harris County, Texas, officials, who absorbed 27,100 evacuees at local shelters during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, said ordering the remaining 4,000 out was for their own safety. The move also would free up manpower to take care of the area’s own residents as the storm approached, they said.

Only 240 evacuees had accepted the offer by Tuesday afternoon; many others decided to find apartments or shelter elsewhere, officials said.

“If they want to go somewhere else, they are free to do so,” said Coast Guard Lt. Joe Leonard, who has been in charge of the 21-day effort to shelter evacuees at Reliant Park and the George R. Brown Convention Center.

On Tuesday, 10 commercial planes took evacuees from Houston to Fort Chaffee. Leonard said he expected that the last evacuees choosing to go to Arkansas would be flown out today. About 40 who were afraid to fly were taken to the base by bus. — New Orleans Times-Picayune

Low-lying areas of Houston are also being evacuated due to flood concerns.

And with Rita looming, the new FEMA director R. David Paulison promised that the government response would be “different” this time.

“There are a couple things that are different” from preparations before Hurricane Katrina, Paulison told reporters. “One, we’re depending much more heavily on the Department of Defense and also the National Guard.

“There is a Coast Guard PFO on the ground already in Texas, pre-positioned to make sure that we have communications not only with the state but also back to the secretary and the president.”

He stressed communication between agencies as imperative to responding efficiently in another hurricane crisis.

“I think that’s going to be the big difference — making sure we understand what the state needs are and, once the hurricane hits, we understand what issues we have to deal with.”

He said that his main priority would be ensuring that Texas had adequate safeguards in place to cope with any level of damage.

“Texas is a very large state, and I am going to make sure we have enough resources on the ground to deal with whatever we have to deal with,” Paulison said. — Associated Press

We’ll see about that. In the meantime, Rick Rajter brings up a disturbing possibility: What if FEMA’s response to Hurricane Katrina was actually a perfect success?

It was clear from the start that the goal of FEMA and Homeland Security was, not to rescue people, but to control them. Their directive was to relocate families and businesses, confiscate property, commandeer goods, direct labor and services, and establish martial law. This is what they have been trained to do. The reason they failed to carry out an effective rescue operation is that this was not their primary mission, and the reason they blocked others from doing so is that any operations not controlled by the central authority are contrary to their directives. Their objective was to bring the entire area under the control of the federal government — and this they succeeded in doing very well. . . .

While the world is preoccupied with trying to fix the blame for the government’s failure in New Orleans, the reality is that it did not fail at all. It was a huge success in promoting its own agenda. Unfortunately, that agenda was not to rescue American citizens. Once this simple fact is understood, everything that happened in the wake of Katrina becomes understandable and logical. — G. Edward Griffin

I hate to admit it, but he’s got a point. As I’ve said before, I prefer evidence to conspiracy theories, and in this case, it’s pretty obvious. FEMA did its best to hinder rescue efforts. Why would they do that? It’s either incompetence, bureaucracy, or malice. Some would say the three are the same.