Bill Nelson: “Hurricane Rita, bearing down on the gulf coast of Texas, perhaps Louisiana again, a category 5, with winds that have…”

“Hurricane Rita, bearing down on the gulf coast of Texas, perhaps Louisiana again, a category 5, with winds that have gotten up to 175 miles an hour, is very similar to Hurricane Katrina 3 or 4 weeks ago. It sprang up as a category 1, hitting south Florida first. Katrina did quite a bit of damage, as you would expect with winds in the range of 80 and 85 miles an hour. There was a lot of debris. There was the loss of electricity as it went over Miami, Dade County. Then, of course, when it got out to the gulf, fueled by those warm waters, about 87 degrees, providing the fuel for the hurricane, it surged in intensity on up to category 5, coming down to a category 4 before it hit the Louisiana coast. It is eerily similar; Hurricane Rita springing up and hitting Florida this time actually 50 miles south of Key West, of course, with those counterclockwise winds, and a category 1 hitting Key West--that being the strongest side of the storm--and then out over the warm waters of the gulf. This is what we have as it is approaching landfall Saturday morning. Before Katrina, this Nation was finally waking up to how vulnerable we are in our dependence on energy sources. Specifically, the Nation was waking up to the fact that 58 percent of our daily consumption of oil comes from foreign shores. That is not a very good position to be in if you have to depend on foreign lands for that oil. The price of gasoline was spiking up prior to Katrina, in the range of $2.70 a gallon.…”