Powerful Hurricane Rita was upgraded to a category-four storm early on Wednesday as it roared into the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico, packing winds of 217kph, the Miami-based National Hurricane Centre said.
”Rita is now a category-four hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson [intensity] scale,” the hurricane centre said in a statement, adding that ”some additional strengthening is possible during the next 24 hours”.
Just before noon GMT, the hurricane was located 314km west of Key West, Florida, and 1 270km east-southeast of Corpus Christi, Texas, and it was churning westward at about 22kph.
Meteorologists predicted earlier that Rita — the fifth major hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season — will make landfall in Texas over the weekend, but a ”cone of probability” in the forecast indicates that the storm might slam ashore anywhere between north-eastern Mexico and the swamplands of southern Louisiana, west of New Orleans.
Not willing to take any chances, authorities in Galveston, Texas, located on a Gulf Coast barrier island 65km south-east of Houston, were set to issue a mandatory evacuation order for all residents on Wednesday afternoon.
In 1900, Galveston was razed by an unnamed hurricane that killed about 8 000 people, making it the single deadliest hurricane in US history.
In Louisiana, still recovering from Hurricane Katrina’s August 29 hit, New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin on Monday suspended the return of some residents because of the threat from Rita.
Even if Rita follows the expected path and does not suddenly turn north toward New Orleans, the eastern edge of the hurricane could brush Louisiana, which is ill prepared for more rain.
In Cuba, about 230 000 people were evacuated from the central and western part of the island, including the capital, Havana, and the tourist resort of Varadero, when Rita blasted by on Tuesday. Cuban civil defence officials said they set up 600 shelters in Havana.
In southern Florida, the hurricane left more than 24 000 homes without power, sent street signs and coconuts flying, and flooded parts of the only road that links the Florida Keys with the mainland.
There were no reports of casualties in either Cuba or Florida. — AFP
