Rita: Race against time
2005-09-23 14:51
Galveston - Residents of this island city started evacuating on Wednesday as Hurricane Rita intensified into a Category 4 storm with 217km/h winds and threatened to devastate the Texas coast or already-battered Louisiana by week's end.
Mandatory evacuations were ordered for Galveston and New Orleans, one day after Rita sideswiped the Florida Keys.
The federal government rushed hundreds of truckloads of water, ice and ready-made meals to the Gulf Coast and put rescue and medical teams on standby.
Engineers race to patch city's fractured levee system
At 08:00 EDT (12:00 GMT), Rita's eye was about 314km west of Key West. The storm was moving west at 22.5km/h - a track that kept the most destructive winds at sea and away from Key West. Maximum sustained wind increased to near 217km/h.
Meteorologist Chris Landsea of the National Hurricane Centre in Miami said Rita could strengthen to a Category 5 with wind over 249km/h as it moves over the warm waters of the gulf.
In New Orleans, the Army Corps of Engineers raced to patch the city's fractured levee system for fear the additional rain could swamp the walls and flood the city all over again.
Engineers and contractors drove a massive metal barrier across the 17th Street Canal bed to prevent a storm surge from Lake Pontchartrain from swamping New Orleans again and worked around the clock to repair the damaged pumps, concrete floodwalls, earthen berms and waterways that protect the below-sea-level city.
The federal government's preparations in and around New Orleans included 500 buses for evacuation, and enough water and military meals for 500 000 people.
Many New Orleans residents were forced once again to decide whether to stay or go. The mayor and the governor strongly urged people in the storm's path to get out.
Crude oil prices rise again
In Galveston, about 80 buses were set to leave town beginning at midmorning on Wednesday, bound for shelters 160km north in Huntsville. The buses were part of a mandatory evacuation ordered by officials of Galveston County.
"The real lesson (from Katrina) I think the citizens learnt is that the people in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi didn't leave in time," said Galveston Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas.
Crude oil prices rose again on concern that Rita would smash into key oil facilities in Texas and the Gulf of Mexico.
As Rita stormed away from Florida, thousands of residents who evacuated the Keys were expected to begin returning on Wednesday.
There were reports of flooding and power outages but US 1, the highway that connects the islands, was passable, the Florida Highway Patrol said.
Some 130 000 people were evacuated in Cuba, on the southern side of the Florida Straits. The storm churned up roiling waves and soaked the northern coast as it made its way past Havana.
The hurricane season is not over until November 30.
- SAPA