Rita slams Texas, Louisiana coast<\/p>\n
Patrick Moser, Agence France-Presse\/Beaumont, Texas<\/p>\n
Hurricane Rita hammered Texas and Louisiana early Saturday,
\nunleashing a terrifying tempest of 195 kilometer (125 miles) per
\nhour winds and drenching low lying areas threatened by flood
\ntides with driving sheets of rain.<\/p>\n
Category Three Rita smashed into a coastline bristling with
\nvital oil and chemical installations after its outer bands dumped
\nfresh floods on New Orleans, and an estimated two million people
\nfled its approaching wrath.<\/p>\n
Street signs, roofing, tree limbs and other debris careened
\nthrough the air, in deluged and deserted streets littered with
\ndowned power lines and torn down traffic lights and fires fanned
\nby fast moving winds blazed in Galveston and Houston.<\/p>\n
In Beaumont, Texas, just northwest of the spot where Rita
\ncrashed ashore from the Gulf of Mexico, flashes of green light
\nerupted in the night sky as electricity substations short-
\ncircuited, plunging whole towns into darkness as the storm
\nwailed.<\/p>\n
Walls of water surged through the streets of Lake Charles, 55
\nmiles (88 kilometers) to the east, across the state line in
\nLouisiana, as buildings sustained heavy damage, television
\nreports said.<\/p>\n
In the city of Natchitoches, in central Louisiana, 160 miles
\n(257 kilometres) north of the coast, five inches of rain had
\nalready fallen, residents reported damage to the roofs of their
\nhomes and power lines down.<\/p>\n
Tragedy struck earlier Friday, when 24 elderly patients of a
\nnursing home burned to death in a bus explosion during the mass,
\nconfusing exodus away from the coast, less than four weeks after
\ndeadly Hurricane Katrina pummelled Louisiana, Alamaba and
\nMississipi, killing at least 1,075 people.<\/p>\n
Forecasters warned fearsome flood tides of up to 15 feet high
\n(4.5 metres) could swallow up parts of the Gulf Coast, and there
\nwere signs that the storm could stall, as it settled on land, and
\npile up deep rainfall totals.<\/p>\n
"We have landfall," Colin McAdie, a spokesman for the U.S.
\nNational Hurricane center, in Miami, told AFP, adding that the
\nstorm roared ashore on the Texas\/Louisiana border at 3:39 am
\n(0739 GMT).<\/p>\n
The center's latest advisory at 0700 GMT said Rita was packing
\nmaximum winds of 120 miles (195 kilometers) per hour with higher
\ngusts and that the calm eye of the storm was 10 miles (16
\nkilometers) off the coast.<\/p>\n
"Large swells generated by Rita will likely affect most
\nportions of the Gulf Coast," the advisory said.<\/p>\n
Isolated tornados were possible throughout eastern Texas,
\nLouisiana, Southern Arkansas and Mississippi throughout Saturday,
\nthe advisory said.<\/p>\n
Maximum rainfall totals in excess of 25 inches (63
\ncentimetres) could be seen in some areas, raising the prospect of
\nsevere flash flooding.<\/p>\n
In Galveston, Texas, where a 1900 hurricane killed up to
\n12,000 people, a fierce fire raged in a historic district,
\ntelevision pictures showed. Walls of flame and sparks fanned by
\nwinds of up to 70 miles per hour (112 kilometres) surged towards
\nfirefighters.<\/p>\n
There were also reports that an apartment block was ablaze in
\nHouston.<\/p>\n
Coastguards in Port Fourchon, Louisiana, meanwhile claimed the
\nfirst rescue of the storm, plucking an eight month pregnant woman
\nand her four year old son to safety by helicopter from their
\ndamaged home.<\/p>\n
National Guard troops and police stood ready to fan out to
\nsearch for casualties as soon as the winds stilled.<\/p>\n
In New Orleans, levees were breached on the Industrial Canal
\nand the water was eight feet (2.4 meters) high in some areas,
\nincluding the impoverished Ninth Ward and St Bernard's parish --
\ntwo of the areas worst hit by Katrina.<\/p>\n
There was no flooding, however, in the north of the city where
\nthe 17th Street Canal and London Outfall Canal off Lake
\nPontchartrain breached by Katrina on August 29, said Louisiana
\ntransportation and development secretary Johnny Bradberry.<\/p>\n
Massive traffic jams had snaked out of major population
\ncenters, including the city of Houston, Texas, on late Wednesday
\nand Thursday, as people, many with Katrina's deadly strike in
\ntheir minds, fled to safety.<\/p>\n
Rita's first tragic toll came as a bus carrying elderly
\nnursing home residents away from the storm zone caught fire near
\nDallas, killing 24 people, police said.<\/p>\n
More than 40 people were on the bus when it was rocked by
\nexplosions that police said they believe were caused by oxygen
\ncanisters for the patients. On Thursday an elderly woman caught
\nin a traffic jam in the exodus died of apparent heat exhaustion.<\/p>\n
Port Arthur, just south of Beaumont, is a major oil refinery
\nand chemical processing region. The U.S. military on Friday
\nairlifted more than 10,000 people out of the city amid fears that
\nit would bear the brunt of Rita's force.<\/p>\n
President George W. Bush, yet to shake off criticism of his
\nleadership during the Katrina crisis, cancelled a planned visit
\nto Texas to avoid getting in the way of emergency workers.<\/p>",
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