**scroll for updates**

She’s Category 4.

Laurence Simon has a growing list of local Texas bloggers who are tracking Hurricane Rita. Galveston residents are on the move.

The latest from weatherblogger Jeff Masters is here.

The Weather Channel’s blog is here. More from WeatherGuide here.

Engineers are racing to patch the levees in New Orleans. Oil prices up; more rigs evacuating.

Glenn Reynolds: Get ready for another storm.

Stay tuned…

11am update. Help is on the way…

For the second straight day, a line of emergency vehicles streamed out of Kansas Speedway on Tuesday, carrying emergency workers to the Gulf Coast.

The plan is for the local volunteers to relieve their overworked counterparts in the areas of Biloxi and Gulfport, Miss.

The group that left Tuesday included 40 firefighters and emergency medical technicians from Wyandotte, Johnson and Shawnee counties. Less than 24 hours earlier, more than 60 Kansas law enforcement officers left for Mississippi from the speedway.

A half-dozen more Unified Government personnel from the Emergency Services, Human Services, Building Codes and Finance departments are working in the Gulf Coast region.

From Missouri, a second contingent of Metropolitan Ambulance Services Trust employees left Saturday morning to relieve colleagues dispatched to the gulf earlier this month. Three paramedics and four emergency medical technicians were in the group. They will join a supervisor who left with the first contingent but stayed after the others returned to Kansas City.

The latest deployments are to last about two weeks. More employees from both states are prepared to follow, if needed.

What are FEMA/DHS up to?

Acting FEMA chief R. David Paulison said his agency would depend “much more heavily on the Department of Defense and also the National Guard” and will dramatically improve communication in an effort to protect life and property. His agency bore the brunt of the criticism for its slow response to Katrina. Paulison’s predecessor, Michael Brown, resigned last week as a result.

The Department of Homeland Security, FEMA’s parent agency, is essentially following the same blueprint used for Katrina, department official Valerie Smith said. Under the National Response Plan, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was in charge of preparation and the initial federal response to Katrina.

“We are pre-positioning personnel and equipment consistent with the emergency-preparedness protocols,” Smith said, adding that no major changes were planned.

Maj. Paul Swiergosz, a Pentagon news officer, said military officials were preparing for Hurricane Rita’s landfall in the same manner that they prepared for Hurricane Katrina, but having everyone already nearby will make it easier.

Swiergosz said that with active-duty military ships, 170 helicopters, 45 planes and personnel already in the gulf region because of relief efforts for Katrina, “there are going to be some things that are going to be available quicker.” That includes 55,000 federal and National Guard soldiers…

Harry Reid is already starting in.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has recalled the National Guard from Louisiana.

Jim at Smoke on the Water is blogging from his boat in Galveston.

Houston blogger Jason Smith reports that the mayor has asked that all companies in the Houston area not require employees to stay and work on Thursday or Friday (except essential personnel). More on the Houston evac here.

Chris Regan at Junkyard Blog says Rita is being underestimated.