Hurricane Rita hurled its full fury at Texas and Louisiana on Saturday, as the storm’s potent eyewall ripped ashore, lashing coastlines with a terrifying barrage of near 200kph winds and walls of driving rain.
Rita smashed into a coastline bristling with vital oil and chemical installations after its outer bands dumped fresh floods on New Orleans, and an estimated two million people fled its approaching wrath in a chaotic, confusing exodus which claimed at least 24 lives.
The category three storm’s eyewall hit at Sabine Pass, on the Louisiana-Texas border, after brewing for days in the Gulf of Mexico, less than four weeks after deadly Hurricane Katrina pummelled Louisiana, Alamaba and Mississipi, killing at least 1 075 people.
”The northern portion of the wall is on shore,” Colin McAdie, a spokesperson for the National Hurricane Centre in Miami told Agence France Presse.
Forecasters warned fearsome flood tides of up to 4,5m could swallow up parts of the Gulf coast as rain sheeted down on deserted streets, debris flew through the air on racing gusts and flashes of green light tore the night sky as electricity substations exploded.
Tragedy struck earlier on Friday as 24 senior citizens burned to death in a bus explosion, amid a mass exodus of more than two million people out of the path of the storm on a 500km stretch of the Gulf coast.
The National Hurricane Centre warned in its latest advisory at 5am GMT that Rita was packing maximum winds of 195kph with higher gusts.
”Rita is a dangerous category three hurricane,” the the advisory said.
Further west, in Galveston, Texas, where a 1900 hurricane killed up to 12 000 people, a fierce fire raged in a historic district, television pictures showed. Walls of flame and sparks fanned by winds of up to 112kph surged towards firefighters.
Coastguards in Port Fourchon, Louisiana, meanwhile claimed the first rescue of the storm, plucking an eight month pregnant woman and her four year old son to safety by helicopter from their damaged home.
In New Orleans, levees were breached on the Industrial Canal and the water was 2,4m high in some areas, including the impoverished Ninth Ward and St Bernard’s parish — two of the areas worst hit by Katrina.
The flood surge represented the worst nightmare for US army engineers who have been battling to shore up levees.
”Obviously it’s disappointing for the corps, but not totally unexpected,” said, Brigadier General William Grisoli.
There was no flooding, however, in the north of the city where the 17th Street Canal and London Outfall Canal off Lake Pontchartrain breached by Katrina on August 29, said Louisiana transportation and development secretary Johnny Bradberry.
A huge swathe of land was turned into a ghost coastline by one of the largest evacuations in US history — 26 days after Hurricane Katrina powered ashore, inundating New Orleans and devastating the Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama coastline.
Massive traffic jams had snaked out of major population centres, including the city of Houston, Texas, on late Wednesday and Thursday, as people, many with Katrina’s deadly strike in their minds, fled to safety.
But unlike Katrina, it appeared that Rita would steer clear of major population areas, with Houston being spared a direct hit.
Rita’s first tragic toll came as a bus carrying elderly nursing home residents away from the storm zone caught fire near Dallas, killing 24 people, police said.
More than 40 people were on the bus when it was rocked by explosions that police said they believe were caused by oxygen canisters for the patients. On Thursday an elderly woman caught in a traffic jam in the exodus died of apparent heat exhaustion.
Port Arthur, just south of Beaumont, is a major oil refinery and chemical processing region. The US military on Friday airlifted more than 10 000 people out of the city amid fears that it would bear the brunt of Rita’s force.
”We expect a catastrophic event,” said firefighter Troy Irvine as forecasters indicated the huge storm could make landfall near the so-called ”Energy City.”
At Lake Charles in Louisiana, police told anyone planning to stay to write their name, date of birth and social security number on their forearms in waterproof ink so they can be identified if killed.
President George Bush, yet to shake off criticism of his leadership during the Katrina crisis, cancelled a planned visit to Texas to avoid getting in the way of emergency workers.
Instead, he went to the US Northern Command headquarters in Colorado where the military response to the storm is being prepared.
‘It was like a war zone’
Three buildings caught fire in the historic Strand District in Galveston as wind from the hurricane whipped the flames and hampered firefighters.
One building was nearly destroyed in Friday’s blazes; the others appeared heavily damaged. A burning electric pole was lying on one of the buildings.
”It was like a war zone, shooting fire across the street,” Fire Chief Michael Varela said early on Saturday.
City manager Steve LeBlanc said the fire could have been caused by downed power lines. Power was out throughout most of the city.
Varela said one person escaped the fire, but he didn’t know the person’s identity or condition. Officials at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston did not respond to requests for information about the person who escaped. – AFP